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GSEC · Question #171

browser's address bar, you are able to access the site. But, you are unable to access the site

The correct answer is A. DNS entry is not available for the host name. When a website is reachable by IP address but not by hostname, the root cause is a missing or misconfigured DNS record that prevents the hostname from resolving.

Networking and Core Concepts

Question

browser's address bar, you are able to access the site. But, you are unable to access the site

Options

  • ADNS entry is not available for the host name.
  • BThe site's Web server is offline.
  • CThe site's Web server has heavy traffic.
  • DWINS server has no NetBIOS name entry for the server.

How the community answered

(32 responses)
  • A
    75% (24)
  • B
    16% (5)
  • C
    3% (1)
  • D
    6% (2)

Why each option

When a website is reachable by IP address but not by hostname, the root cause is a missing or misconfigured DNS record that prevents the hostname from resolving.

ADNS entry is not available for the host name.Correct

DNS maps human-readable hostnames to IP addresses - if no DNS record exists for a hostname, the browser cannot resolve it and the request fails. Because the site is accessible via its IP address directly, the server itself is online and reachable, isolating the problem specifically to DNS name resolution failure.

BThe site's Web server is offline.

If the web server were offline, access via IP address would also fail - the fact that IP access succeeds rules this out.

CThe site's Web server has heavy traffic.

Heavy server traffic would degrade or slow both IP and hostname-based access equally, not selectively block hostname-based access.

DWINS server has no NetBIOS name entry for the server.

WINS and NetBIOS name resolution apply to Windows network resource sharing, not to web browser hostname resolution for public or internal websites.

Concept tested: DNS hostname resolution vs. direct IP access

Source: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/networking/dns/dns-top

Topics

#DNS#hostname resolution#name resolution#web access

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