Technical Interview Questions – Networking

1. What is an IP address?
Ans: An Internet Protocol address (IP address) is a numerical label that is assigned to devices
participating in a computer network that uses the Internet Protocol for communication
between its nodes

2. What is a subnet mask?

Ans: A Subnet mask is a 32-bit number that masks an IP address, and divides the IP address
into network address and host address.

3. What is ARP?
Ans: ARP is the Address Resolution Protocol. The ARP protocol maps addresses between the
Data Link Layer and the Network Layer of the OSI Model.

4. What is ARP Cache Poisoning?

Ans: ARP poisoning or ARP Poison Routing (APR), is a technique used to attack an Ethernet or ARP
Spoofing may allow an attacker to modify the traffic, or stop the traffic altogether (known as a Denial-
of-Service-Attack) The attack can only be used on networks that actually make use of ARP and not
another method of address resolution.

5. What is the ANDing process?

Ans: In order to determine whether a destination host is local or remote, a computer will perform a
simple mathematical computation referred to as an AND operation.

6. What is a default gateway? What happens if I don't have one?

Ans: Default gateway is a node (a router) on a TCP/IP Network that serves as an access point to another
network. Your computer relies on gateway when it doesn’t know how to route traffic.

7. Can a workstation computer be configured to browse the Internet and yet NOT have a
default gateway?
Ans: Without default gateway you cannot browse internet. It doesnt matter if you are on public or
private network. Default Gateway is required to route your IP packets from your network to the other
networks.

8. What is a subnet?
Ans: A subnet (short for subnetwork) is an identifiably separate part of an organization's
network.

9. What is APIPA?
Ans: Automatic Private IP Addressing, A Windows-based computer that is configured to use
DHCP can automatically assign itself an Internet Protocol (IP) address if a DHCP server is not
available.

10. What is an RFC? Name a few if possible (not necessarily the numbers, just the ideas
behind them)
Ans: A Request For Comments (RFC) document defines a protocol or policy used on the Internet. An RFC
can be submitted by anyone. Eventually, if it gains enough interest, it may evolve into an Internet
Standard Each RFC is designated by an RFC number. Once published, an RFC never changes.
Modifications to an original RFC are assigned a new RFC number.

11. What is RFC 1918?

Ans: RFC 1918 is Address Allocation for Private Internets The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority
(IANA) has reserved. Class A, Class B, Class C network numbers.

12. What is CIDR?

Ans: Classless Inter Domain Routing (CIDR) is a method for assigning IP addresses without using the
standard IP address classes like Class A, Class B or Class C.

You have the following Network ID: 192.115.103.64/27. What is the IP range for your network?
You have the following Network ID: 131.112.0.0. You need at least 500 hosts per network. How
many networks can you create? What subnet mask will you use?

13. You need to view at network traffic. What will you use? Name a few tools
Ans: Wireshark

14. How do I know the path that a packet takes to the destination?
Ans: Tracert will determine the path taken to a destination. ...

15. What does the ping 192.168.0.1 -l 1000 -n 100 command do?
Ans: -n 100 Echo requests to send and -l 1000 is invalid command syntax.

16. What is DHCP? What are the benefits and drawbacks of using it?
Ans: DHCP allows for reliable assignment of IP addresses in a network by reducing the need to manually assign
addresses to each host. This prevents IP conflicts that can disable a network.

Mobile users receive much of the benefit of DHCP, which allows them to travel anywhere on the intranetwork and
automatically receive IP addresses when they reconnect to the network.

Interoperability with DNS servers provides name resolution for network resources, allowing DHCP servers and
DHCP clients to register with DNS.

17. Describe the steps taken by the client and DHCP server in order to obtain an IP address.
Ans: DHCPDISCOVER (to locate available DHCP servers)
DHCPOFFER (server response to a DHCPDISCOVER packet, which contains the initial parameters)
DHCPREQUEST (varied request from the client for example to extend its lease)
DHCPACK (server response which contains the parameters and IP address of the client)
DHCPNAK (server response to indicate to the client that its lease has expired or if the client announces a
bad network configuration)
DHCPDECLINE (the client announces to the server that the address is already in use)
DHCPRELEASE (the client releases its IP address)
DHCPINFORM (the client requests local parameters, it already has its IP address)

18. What is the DHCPNACK and when do I get one? Name 2 scenarios.
Ans: DHCP server will issue a NAK to the client ONLY IF it is sure that the client, "on the local subnet", is
asking for an address that doesn't exist on that subnet.

The server will send a NAK EXCEPT in the following scenarios:-

1. Requested address from possibly the same subnet but not in the address pool of the server:-
This can be the failover scenario in which 2 DHCP servers are serving the same subnet so that when one
goes down, the other should not NAK to clients which got an IP from the first server.

2. Requested address on a different subnet:-

If the Address is from the same superscope to which the subnet belongs, DHCP server will ACK the
REQUEST.

19. What ports are used by DHCP and the DHCP clients?
Ans: The port 67 and port 68 are used by DHCP and the DHCP clients.

Describe the process of installing a DHCP server in an AD infrastructure.

What is DHCPINFORM?
Describe the integration between DHCP and DNS.
What options in DHCP do you regularly use for an MS network?
What are User Classes and Vendor Classes in DHCP?
How do I configure a client machine to use a specific User Class?
What is the BOOTP protocol used for, where might you find it in Windows network
infrastructure?
DNS zones – describe the differences between the 4 types.
DNS record types – describe the most important ones.
Describe the process of working with an external domain name
Describe the importance of DNS to AD.
Describe a few methods of finding an MX record for a remote domain on the Internet.
What does "Disable Recursion" in DNS mean?
What could cause the Forwarders and Root Hints to be grayed out?
What is a "Single Label domain name" and what sort of issues can it cause?
What is the "in-addr.arpa" zone used for?
What are the requirements from DNS to support AD?
How do you manually create SRV records in DNS?
Name 3 benefits of using AD-integrated zones.
What are the benefits of using Windows 2003 DNS when using AD-integrated zones?
You installed a new AD domain and the new (and first) DC has not registered its SRV records in
DNS. Name a few possible causes.
What are the benefits and scenarios of using Stub zones?
What are the benefits and scenarios of using Conditional Forwarding?
What are the differences between Windows Clustering, Network Load Balancing and Round
Robin, and scenarios for each use?
How do I work with the Host name cache on a client computer?
How do I clear the DNS cache on the DNS server?
What is the 224.0.1.24 address used for?
What is WINS and when do we use it?
Can you have a Microsoft-based network without any WINS server on it? What are the
"considerations" regarding not using WINS?
Describe the differences between WINS push and pull replications.
What is the difference between tombstoning a WINS record and simply deleting it?
Name the NetBIOS names you might expect from a Windows 2003 DC that is registered in
WINS.
Describe the role of the routing table on a host and on a router.
What are routing protocols? Why do we need them? Name a few.
What are router interfaces? What types can they be?
In Windows 2003 routing, what are the interface filters?
What is NAT?
What is the real difference between NAT and PAT?
How do you configure NAT on Windows 2003?
How do you allow inbound traffic for specific hosts on Windows 2003 NAT?
What is VPN? What types of VPN does Windows 2000 and beyond work with natively?
What is IAS? In what scenarios do we use it?
What's the difference between Mixed mode and Native mode in AD when dealing with RRAS?
What is the "RAS and IAS" group in AD?
What are Conditions and Profile in RRAS Policies?
What types or authentication can a Windows 2003 based RRAS work with?
How does SSL work?
How does IPSec work?
How do I deploy IPSec for a large number of computers?
What types of authentication can IPSec use?
What is PFS (Perfect Forward Secrecy) in IPSec?
How do I monitor IPSec?
Looking at IPSec-encrypted traffic with a sniffer. What packet types do I see?
What can you do with NETSH?
How do I look at the open ports on my machine?