What is the number of usable hosts in a CIDR /29 subnet?

In a CIDR notation of /29, the subnet mask is composed of 29 bits set to 1 (which represent the network portion) and the remaining bits (3 bits in this case, since there are a total of 32 bits in an IPv4 address) set to 0 (which represent the host portion). This leads to a calculation of the number of usable hosts.

To determine the number of usable hosts within this subnet, you can use the formula:

Number of usable hosts = 2^n - 2

Where n is the number of bits available for host addresses. In a /29 subnet, there are 3 bits for the host addresses (32 total bits - 29 bits for the network = 3 bits for hosts). Therefore, the calculation becomes:

2^3 - 2 = 8 - 2 = 6 usable hosts.

The subtraction of 2 accounts for the network address (which cannot be assigned to a host) and the broadcast address (which is used to send data to all hosts in the subnet). As a result, in a /29 CIDR subnet, you can have 6 usable host IP addresses, making this the correct answer.