A /26 subnet mask means that 26 bits are used for the network portion, leaving 6 bits for host addresses (since IPv4 has a total of 32 bits).
To find out how many subnets can be created, you need to know how many bits are available for subnetting. However, if you're starting with a /26, you typically don't need to subdivide this further to create smaller subnets.
If we are considering how many subnets you can create if you started with a /24 and then subnetted into /26, you can calculate it as follows:
- A /24 network has 256 IP addresses (2^(32-24)).
- A /26 network has 64 IP addresses (2^(32-26)).
- Therefore, if you divide a /24 into /26s, you have 4 subnets (256 / 64 = 4).
So, if the question is asking how many subnets can be created from a /24 subnet when subnetting down to /26, the answer would be 4.
Thus, the correct choice from the options provided is 4.