Users on a network segment report that they are unable to connect to a newly installed file server. The file server IP address settings are as follows: IP address: 10.0.10.254 Subnet Mask…

10.10.0.254 places the server on the 10.10.0.0/24 subnet, which is still a different subnet from the gateway at 10.10.10.1, so the routing mismatch persists.

The default gateway is 10.10.10.1, which resides on the 10.10.10.0/24 subnet. Changing the server IP to 10.10.10.254 places it on the same /24 subnet as the gateway, allowing the server to route traffic correctly. This also aligns the server with the network segment where users and their gateway reside.

Changing the default gateway to 10.10.10.254 points to a non-router host address on a subnet the server is not part of, and does not resolve the underlying IP/subnet mismatch.

Expanding the subnet mask to 255.255.0.0 gives the server a /16 network of 10.0.0.0/16, covering 10.0.0.0-10.0.255.255, which still does not include the gateway at 10.10.10.1.