CompTIA Network+ (N10-008) — Question 866

An engineer recently installed a new distribution switch and connected two servers provisioned with the following IPs: 192.168.17.20 and 192.168.17.30.

The servers cannot connect to the internet, but they can reach themselves. The engineer observes that the distribution switch has the following setup:

interface VLAN 100
IP address 192.168.17.5 255.255.255.0

The engineer is able to reach the core router 192.168.17.1 from the distribution switch. Which of the following is the most likely cause of this issue?

Answer options

• A. A routing loop has occurred.
• B. The subnet mask is incorrect.
• C. The servers are not configured with default gateway.
• D. There is an improper Layer 1 connection between the router and the ISP modem.

Correct answer: C

Explanation

The correct answer is C because servers need to have a default gateway configured in order to reach devices outside their local subnet, such as the internet. Options A, B, and D are incorrect as they do not address the fundamental requirement for the servers to communicate with external networks.