Networking
23 free questions with worked answers, and 635 more in the full bank.
Free questions
What device is commonly used to connect multiple computers within a LAN?
1 mark · Easy
Which cable type is most commonly used for Ethernet connections?
1 mark · Easy
What is the purpose of DNS?
1 mark · Easy
Which of the following tools is used to diagnose network connectivity issues?
1 mark · Easy
What does VPN stand for?
1 mark · Easy
What is the primary function of a router?
4 marks · Hard
What protocol is used to send email?
4 marks · Hard
A user reports that they are unable to access the hospital management system due to a firewall blocking the connection. What should you do to resolve this issue?
4 marks · Hard
A junior admin is looking at a packet capture and notices MAC addresses are being used to forward frames. Which OSI layer is responsible for this activity?
1 mark · Easy
While investigating a slow application, you observe TCP window size zero messages in Wireshark. At what layer of the OSI model does this flow control issue reside?
3 marks · Medium
Users report that their web browsers are failing to negotiate TLS encryption with a newly deployed internal server. Which OSI layer is failing to establish this secure connection?
4 marks · Hard
An engineer connects a spectrum analyzer to a coax cable to check for electromagnetic interference. What OSI layer is being analyzed?
1 mark · Easy
A routing loop has caused TTL values to expire, dropping IP packets. In which OSI layer does the TTL field exist?
3 marks · Medium
During a network outage, a technician finds that a fiber optic cable was accidentally severed. Which layer of the OSI model is directly impacted by this physical break?
1 mark · Easy
An application requires persistent connections and checkpointing during a large file transfer so it can resume if interrupted. Which OSI layer provides these dialog control features?
4 marks · Hard
You are troubleshooting an IPsec VPN tunnel where ESP packets are being dropped by an intermediary firewall. Which OSI layer protocols are being blocked?
3 marks · Medium
A user complains that they cannot access a specific internal webpage, receiving an HTTP 500 error. At what OSI layer is this error generated?
1 mark · Easy
A switch receives a frame with a destination MAC address of FF:FF:FF:FF:FF:FF. Which OSI layer is responsible for flooding this frame out all ports?
3 marks · Medium
A small office connects all their computers to a single central switch. What physical topology is in use?
1 mark · Easy
An enterprise connects its 5 branch offices directly to every other branch office using point-to-point links for maximum redundancy. What topology does this represent?
3 marks · Medium
A legacy industrial control system uses a single coaxial cable that loops through each machine on the factory floor. If a break occurs, the entire segment fails. What topology is described?
4 marks · Hard
A campus network consists of several star-topology building networks connected together via a high-speed fiber backbone ring. Which term best describes this overall design?
1 mark · Easy
To save costs, a regional ISP connects its routers in a circle, where each router only links to its two nearest neighbors. What topology is deployed?
3 marks · Medium
More Networking questions (page 8 of 11)
Answers and explanations are in the full bank.
- Visitors at a ministry have been unplugging office PCs and connecting their own laptops to the network sockets. Which switch feature limits each port to the approved device? · 2 marks
- Two 1 Gbps cables connect a server to a switch, and the administrator wants them to act as one faster, fault-tolerant link. What is this called? · 1 mark
- In offices where each desk has an IP phone with the PC plugged into the phone, why is a separate voice VLAN configured on the switch port? · 2 marks
- A branch router has routes for its own LAN and needs to send all other traffic to the internet provider. Which route is configured? · 2 marks
- A router has two routes: 10.0.0.0/8 via router A and 10.1.2.0/24 via router B. Where does it send a packet addressed to 10.1.2.5? · 3 marks
- A small sector office has one LAN and a single link to the district. What is the simplest suitable way to give its router a route to everything else? · 1 mark
- A router learns a route to 172.16.0.0/16 from OSPF and also has a static route to the same network. Which one does it install, by default? · 3 marks
- Why is RIP unsuitable for a large network where some destinations are more than 15 routers away? · 2 marks
- Between two offices there is a direct 10 Mbps link and a second path of two 1 Gbps fibre links through a third site. Which path will OSPF normally choose? · 3 marks
- A multi-area OSPF design for a national network has areas 1, 2 and 3 for regions. Which rule must the design follow? · 3 marks
- Which Windows command displays the PC's routing table? · 1 mark
- A hospital has two routers to its WAN, but all PCs point to one of them as their default gateway, so if it fails they lose all remote access. What solves this without reconfiguring every PC? · 3 marks
- Staff calls over the network break up whenever large files are being backed up across the same WAN link. What should be configured? · 2 marks
- Video calls between two offices are choppy even though the link has plenty of spare bandwidth. Monitoring shows the delay of each packet varies widely from moment to moment. What is this problem called? · 3 marks
- A manager complains that a file copy shows only 11 MB/s on a 100 Mbps office link. Is the link performing badly? · 2 marks
- Roughly how long does it take to send a 1.8 GB backup file over a link that delivers 20 Mbps? (Use 1 GB = 1000 MB.) · 3 marks
- A company's branches each have a fibre link and a 4G link. It wants a central controller to send video calls over whichever link is performing best at the moment, and bulk updates over the cheaper one. Which technology does this? · 2 marks
- A bank's head office needs internet access with the same guaranteed speed in both directions and a service-level agreement, rather than a connection shared with other customers. What should it buy? · 2 marks
- A school hides its Wi-Fi network name (SSID) and believes this keeps outsiders off the network. Why is this not real protection? · 2 marks
- Before installing Wi-Fi across a new district hospital, what should be done to decide how many access points are needed and where to place them? · 2 marks
- Staff walking between buildings of a university lose their Wi-Fi connection each time they move from one access point's area to the next. The access points use different network names and passwords. What design allows seamless roaming? · 3 marks
- Wi-Fi in a staff room drops every day at lunchtime, when the microwave oven is used. Which Wi-Fi band is it disturbing? · 1 mark
- Visitors to a ministry must accept the terms of use on a web page before their phones can use the guest Wi-Fi. What is this page called? · 2 marks
- On the guest Wi-Fi of a conference centre, the organisers want each visitor's laptop to reach the internet but never to see or attack other visitors' devices. Which setting achieves this? · 3 marks
- In an old building, nobody knows which wall socket is connected to which port on the patch panel. Which tool traces the cable quickly? · 2 marks
- A security analyst wants to capture all the traffic going to and from a file server that is plugged into a switch, using a laptop running a packet analyser. What must be configured on the switch? · 3 marks
- Which Windows command shows a PC's MAC address, DNS servers and DHCP lease details together with its IP address? · 1 mark
- A district ICT unit keeps an up-to-date record of every subnet, VLAN, static address and its device. What is the main benefit? · 2 marks
- A district wants to host its public website on its own premises without exposing the internal network if the web server is compromised. Where should the web server be placed? · 2 marks
- An access list on a router has these lines in order: 1) permit any any; 2) deny traffic from the guest subnet to the servers. Guests can still reach the servers. Why? · 3 marks
- What is the main difference between an intrusion detection system (IDS) and an intrusion prevention system (IPS)? · 2 marks
- Why do staff working from home connect to the ministry's network through a VPN? · 1 mark
- A school sends all students' web requests through one server that blocks unsuitable sites, logs access and keeps copies of popular pages to save bandwidth. What is this server? · 2 marks
- When national exam results are published, a results portal receives far more visitors than one web server can handle. What spreads the requests across several identical servers? · 2 marks
- An agency rents virtual servers, storage and networks from a cloud provider and installs and manages its own operating systems and software on them. Which cloud service model is this? · 1 mark
- A referral hospital depends on cloud-based patient records, but its single internet link from one provider failed twice last month. What most reduces the risk of losing access? · 3 marks
- In software-defined networking (SDN), what is separated from the switches and moved to a central controller? · 3 marks
- In a structured cabling system, the fixed cables from the office wall sockets end on what, in the network cabinet? · 1 mark
- A switch needs a fibre uplink to the district's core switch through one of its empty module slots. What must be inserted in that slot? · 2 marks
- A DHCP scope covers 192.168.8.1 to 192.168.8.254, and 24 addresses in it are excluded for printers and servers. How many clients can receive a dynamic address at the same time? · 2 marks
- After a site-to-site VPN goes live, small web pages and pings work across it, but large file transfers and some pages hang. What is the most likely cause? · 3 marks
- A school installs thirty IP cameras whose firmware is rarely updated. Why should they be placed on their own VLAN? · 2 marks
- Which technology forms a personal area network that connects a phone to a wireless headset a few metres away? · 1 mark
- A new BGP session between two providers never reaches the established state and repeatedly resets. Which parameter most commonly causes this and what should be checked? · 4 marks
- BGP carries a full routing table from one provider, which consumes memory and consumes bandwidth on the link. Which design reduces this cost while retaining reachability? · 3 marks
- Which statement correctly describes what an MPLS label does on a provider backbone? · 3 marks
- NIDA subscribes to a carrier MPLS service connecting sites. Which statement about the security of an MPLS circuit is correct? · 4 marks
- NIDA plans a new department and must decide how much bandwidth to provision. Which measure best justifies the request to management? · 3 marks
- Utilisation data shows an interface consistently above 80 percent during business hours and dropping at night. What does this pattern most strongly indicate? · 4 marks
- NIDA is expanding to new sites and needs to know how much address space each site will require. Which information is essential before allocating subnets to the new sites? · 3 marks
- A newly installed cable passes basic continuity but a certified tester reports a failure. Which cable fault does a certification tester detect that a basic continuity check would miss? · 3 marks
- A user reports intermittent disconnections and a cable test shows a length slightly beyond the permanent link limit. Which is the correct corrective action? · 4 marks
- A single-mode fibre link exceeds its loss budget and will not come up. Which calculation determines whether the link is within specification? · 4 marks
- Many staff share one public address to reach the internet. Which mechanism allows this and what is its key limitation? · 4 marks
- NIDA operates two web servers and wants to distribute inbound requests across both. Which mechanism balances new connections between them? · 3 marks
- A load balancer continues sending requests to a server that has stopped responding but is still powered on. Which feature should have been configured to prevent this? · 3 marks
- Voice traffic and file transfer share a congested WAN link and voice quality degrades. Which QoS mechanism specifically reserves bandwidth for voice calls? · 3 marks
- Voice calls clip and sound broken over a congested link despite correct configuration. Which measurement best confirms whether bandwidth is the true constraint? · 4 marks
- NIDA must ensure internal users cannot reach the internet except through approved proxy ports. Which control enforces this at the edge? · 3 marks
- NIDA must prevent employees from reaching known malicious external sites while allowing normal browsing. Which approach delivers this most effectively? · 3 marks