Understanding the '/24' Notation in IP Addresses

The '/24' after an IP address refers to the subnet mask. It indicates that the first 24 bits of the IP address are used to identify the network portion of the address, while the remaining 8 bits are used to identify the host portion. In the example you provided, '192.168.68.2/24', the subnet mask is 255.255.255.0, which means that the first three octets (192.168.68) identify the network, and the fourth octet (2) identifies the host. This notation is commonly used in networking to indicate the size of a network or subnet.