The Wikipedia link is here Classless Inter-domain Routing
And here is the basic information you need to know.
A CIDR identifies a machine connected to a network.
An example CIDR for IPV4 address looks like this 192.168.100.14/24.
The numbers 192, 168, 100, 14 are four octets. An octet represents 8 bits. We use four octets, so we are using 32 bits to represent the machine.
A bit can have two possibilities either 0 or 1. So, an octet can have 256 (2 ** 8) values, starting from 0 and ending with 255, which means 4 octets can represent 4,294,967,296 possibilities (2 ** 32).
But, the number after the / puts a limit on this.
Before, I explain how the limit is applied, I'll have to explain what number 24 means. The number 24 could also have been represented as 4 octets. If we did, it would look like 255.255.255.0. The number 24 is a compact way of representing these 4 octets. Are you wondering how these are equivalent? The value 255 when represented by a an octet (8 bits) looks like this 11111111. So 255.255.255.0 would be 11111111.11111111.11111111.00000000. I put . in between for readability. As you can see, this big number has 24 leading bits set to 1. That's the link between the two representations.
This number is telling us that while using the address 192.168.100.14, don't use the first 24 bits or the first 3 octets. That is, 192.168.100 are off limits. That leaves us with only the last octet, so only 256 possible values :( ! Imagine if this number was 31, that leaves only 1 bit or two possibilities.
The 3 octets that we do not use, along with a a 0 for the fourth octet 192.168.100.0 represents something called a routing prefix. If you represent this routing prefix in the form 255.255.255.0, it's called the subnet mask and logically represents the same thing.
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