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300-410 Practice Question: Is troubleshooting a DHCPv4 issue where clients…
A network engineer is troubleshooting a DHCPv4 issue where clients on a subnet are getting IP addresses from the correct pool, but they cannot reach the default gateway. The router is configured as a DHCP server with pool 'POOL' that includes 'default-router 192.168.1.1'. The router's interface IP is 192.168.1.1/24. Clients receive the address and default gateway, but pings to 192.168.1.1 fail. What is the most likely cause?
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
The router interface Gi0/0 is administratively down.
If the router's interface is up and has the correct IP, but clients cannot ping the gateway, the issue is often that the interface is in a different VLAN or the clients are on a different broadcast domain. However, the most common misconfiguration is that the 'default-router' command points to an IP that is not actually configured on the router's interface, or the interface is down. Given that the symptom is specific to the gateway, the likely cause is that the interface is shut down or has a different IP.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
The DHCP pool has the wrong subnet mask.
Why it's wrong here
Incorrect because the subnet mask affects the client's network prefix, but the default gateway IP is still reachable if it's on the same subnet; the issue is that the gateway itself is unreachable.
- ✓
The router interface Gi0/0 is administratively down.
Why this is correct
Correct because if the interface is down, the router cannot respond to ARP requests or pings from clients, even though DHCP assignments are still possible (the server process runs independently).
- ✗
The 'ip helper-address' command is interfering with DHCP.
Why it's wrong here
Incorrect because the router is the DHCP server, not a relay; helper-address is not used in this scenario.
- ✗
The clients have a static ARP entry for the gateway.
Why it's wrong here
Incorrect because static ARP would not cause pings to fail; it would actually help if the ARP entry is correct.
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
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