What does a subnet do?
How is routing performed in a subnet?

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In a subnet, actually, you don't do routing, its switching that you do. All the wires can be considered as connected to a single point. This is how every node on the subnet gets to see the packet. They match their IP address/MAC address with the one given in the packet to see if it is meant for them or not.

This was first published in October 2008