Refer to the exhibit. A network engineer is troubleshooting an Internet connectivity problem on the computer. What is causing the problem?

Question

Options

• AThe default gateway on Host A is incorrect.
• BThe default gateway on Host A is configured with an address that is on a different subnet.
• CThe IP address on Host A is incorrect.
• DThe subnet mask on Host A is incorrect.

• A
  9% (5)
• B
  72% (39)
• C
  15% (8)
• D
  4% (2)

Explanation

The exhibit shows Host A with an IP address and subnet mask that place it in one subnet, but the default gateway IP address configured on Host A belongs to a different subnet. This is a critical misconfiguration: when Host A tries to send traffic to an external (non-local) destination, it must forward the packet to its default gateway. To do that, it sends an ARP request for the gateway's MAC address. Because the gateway IP is not on Host A's subnet, the ARP request will never be answered - Host A cannot reach the gateway at Layer 2, so all Internet traffic fails. Answer A ('gateway is incorrect') is too vague and is a distractor. Answer C is wrong because the IP address itself is valid and on the correct subnet. Answer D is wrong because the subnet mask is configured consistently - the problem is specifically that the gateway address falls outside the subnet defined by that mask.

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