I see no subject in that sentence

Question

I saw that sentence in IX magazine, an IT magazine :

Auf das erste Subnetz kann demnach mit "module-subnetz" zugegriffen werden.

Where "module-subnetz" is the name of an IT component (The article is about a software called Terraform).

That I try to understand as:

In consequence, anything on the first subnet can be accessed with "module-subnet"

But I do not see any subject in the sentence, which could be the equivalent of the "anything" I added. Is it in general correct to say:

Auf der Strasse kann überfahren werden

Instead of :

Auf der Strasse kann man überfahren werden.

Answer 1

You do not even need to insert “anything” in the English version. The key here is to notice that “to access sth” is “auf etwas zugreifen”.

We access the subnet.

would become the passive construction

The subnet is accessed.

The direct object became the subject.

However,

Wir greifen auf das Subnetz zu.

does not have an accusative object, i.e. “zugreifen” is not a transitive verb. In German, this can still be turned into a passive construction, which then simply has no subject:

Auf das Subnetz wird zugegriffen.

On the other hand, this does not apply to “überfahren”, which takes an accusative object (I had to change “man” to “einer”, because “man” does not have an accusative form):

Auf der Straße können Autofahrer einen überfahren.

This accusative object then becomes the subject in the passive construction:

Auf der Straße kann man überfahren werden.

Again, it is different for verbs without an accusative object:

Auf der Straße kann getanzt werden.

Answer 2

In the school, our German teacher asked us exactly the same question about a similar sentence in passive and none of us knew the answer.

The teacher explained us that the sentence in your example is an abbreviation of:

Es kann demnach auf das erste Subnetz mit "module-subnetz" zugegriffen werden.

(Most native speakers would not use this "long" form of the sentence.)

And that the word "es" is the subject here.

She also told us that in the "abbreviated" sentence the subject is also the (implicit) word "es" although it is left out.