.. _BasicConceptsHostPools:

Host Pools
##########

In ntopng the Host Pools provide a powerful way to group together different hosts.
Host Pools are defined on a network interface basis. An host pool can contain the
following entities:

- Single IP addresses, which match a single host by IPv4/IPv6 address
- MAC address, which match a single host by MAC address
- Network address, which matches all the hosts whose IPv4/IPv6 address belongs
  to the given network (specified in CIDR format).

A VLAN id can also be specified to match the hosts of a specific VLAN.

After grouping hosts by the means of host pools, it is possible to view the
grouped statistics and timeseries. For more information, check out the relevant
`documentation section`_.

.. _`documentation section`: ../user_interface/network_interface/interface/host_pools.html
