---
title: "calicoctl ipam split"
description: "Reference for the calicoctl IPAM split command in Calico Open Source, used to split an existing IP pool into smaller pools."
product: "Calico Open Source"
version: "3.33 (latest)"
section: "Reference"
canonical_url: "https://docs.tigera.io/calico/latest/reference/calicoctl/ipam/split"
---

# calicoctl ipam split

This section describes the `calicoctl ipam split` command.

Read the [calicoctlOverview](https://docs.tigera.io/calico/latest/reference/calicoctl/overview.md) for a full list of calicoctl commands.

## Display the help text for `calicoctl ipam split` command

Run `calicoctl ipam split --help` to display the following help menu for the command.

```text
Split an IP pool into the given number of smaller pools of equal size. Useful
for carving a large pool into per-zone or per-node pools.

Usage:
  calicoctl ipam split NUMBER [flags]

Examples:
  # Split a pool into 4 smaller pools.
  calicoctl ipam split 4 --name my-pool

Flags:
      --cidr string     CIDR of the IP pool to split.
  -c, --config string   Path to the file containing connection configuration in YAML or JSON format. (default "/etc/calico/calicoctl.cfg")
  -h, --help            help for split
      --name string     Name of the IP pool to split.

Global Flags:
      --allow-version-mismatch   Allow client and cluster versions mismatch
      --context string           The name of the kubeconfig context to use
  -l, --log-level string         Set the log level (panic, fatal, error, warn, info, debug) (default "panic")
```

### Prerequisites

To split an IP pool, you will first need to lock the Calico database so that no IPAM data can change during the split. This is accomplished by using the [`calicoctl datastore migrate lock` command](https://docs.tigera.io/calico/latest/reference/calicoctl/datastore/migrate/lock.md). To continue normal IPAM operation, you will need to unlock the calico datastore after the split with the [`calicoctl datastore migrate unlock` command](https://docs.tigera.io/calico/latest/reference/calicoctl/datastore/migrate/unlock.md).

### Examples

Lock the Calico datastore.

```bash
calicoctl datastore migrate lock
```

Split the IP pool specified by 172.0.0.0/15 into 2 smaller pools.

```bash
calicoctl ipam split --cidr=172.0.0.0/15 2
```

This should create 2 IP pools, one covering CIDR `172.0.0.0/16` and one covering CIDR `172.1.0.0/16`.

Unlock the Calico datastore to restore normal IPAM operation.

```bash
calicoctl datastore migrate unlock
```

### General options

```text
  -c, --config string   Path to the file containing connection configuration in YAML or JSON format. (default "/etc/calico/calicoctl.cfg")
```

## See also

- [Install calicoctl](https://docs.tigera.io/calico/latest/operations/calicoctl/install.md)
- [Resources](https://docs.tigera.io/calico/latest/reference/resources/overview.md) for details on all valid resources, including file format and schema