Cisco 200-301 Practice Test 56
Question 550
An IPsec architecture includes an encrypted ESP tunnel. What security property is provided when ESP encryption is enabled?
- Confidentiality of encapsulated payload data between authenticated tunnel endpoints
- Global advertisement of RFC1918 routes without filtering
- Permanent prevention of every endpoint malware infection
- Automatic correction of invalid source IPv4 subnet masks
Explanation
Correct Answer
A:IPsec ESP encryption provides confidentiality for the packet payload transported between the tunnel's security endpoints. Capturing traffic on the intervening untrusted network should not expose protected application data without the relevant cryptographic keys. Appropriate integrity/authentication options and anti-replay protections can also be part of ESP processing, but encryption alone does not guarantee secure applications or uncompromised endpoints. Validate the negotiated algorithms, key management and traffic selectors in the tunnel configuration.
Incorrect Answers
B:Encryption of a tunnel payload does not cause routers on the public Internet to advertise internal RFC1918 prefixes. Private routing remains governed by tunnel endpoints, route policies and the configured overlay or static paths. ESP protects selected traffic in transit, while route advertisement and filtering are separate network control-plane decisions.
C:An encrypted IPsec link does not prevent malware from infecting a workstation before the data enters the tunnel or after decryption. It protects a network segment against selected in-transit attacks but cannot replace endpoint protection, patching and identity controls. Tunnel confidentiality should not be mistaken for a guarantee about all software running at either endpoint.
D:ESP does not inspect and repair an invalid IPv4 subnet mask on a device, nor does it automatically rewrite a host's addressing plan. Addresses and routes must allow traffic to reach the tunnel endpoint, and policy selectors determine what to encapsulate. Cryptographic protection occurs after traffic has been selected and cannot resolve basic addressing errors.
Question 551
An OSPF network includes a user-facing LAN with no other router, but the LAN prefix should be advertised. What interface option reduces unnecessary hellos?
- Configure passive-interface on the LAN-facing OSPF interface
- Disable IPv4 routing on the user LAN SVI entirely
- Change the prefix to a multicast address without a subnet
- Put every user workstation into OSPF process area 0
Explanation
Correct Answer
A:Marking a user-facing OSPF-enabled interface passive suppresses outgoing OSPF hello messages and neighbor formation there while still allowing the associated connected prefix to be advertised by the process when appropriately configured. This avoids unnecessary routing-protocol traffic and prevents accidental adjacency with an endpoint on a LAN containing no intended OSPF peer. Confirm that the interface network is still included in the process and do not mark a transit link passive if it needs a real neighbor.
Incorrect Answers
B:Turning off IP routing on the user SVI would disrupt the subnet gateway and is unrelated to safely suppressing OSPF hellos. A passive interface keeps the Layer 3 connection and route advertisement, while disabling routing or taking the interface down would remove intended forwarding. The requirement explicitly says the prefix should remain reachable.
C:A multicast address is a group destination and cannot be substituted for an ordinary unicast LAN subnet to avoid OSPF hello messages. OSPF itself uses multicast addresses on relevant networks, but the prefix being advertised is the connected user subnet. Replace the control-plane adjacency behavior, not the basic host addressing plan.
D:Workstations are not expected to run a routing process merely because their connected VLAN is advertised by an enterprise router. Adding OSPF to every endpoint would increase complexity and attack surface without addressing the need to suppress router hellos. The router can advertise the subnet while treating the client-facing interface as passive.
Question 552
A Layer 2 Catalyst switch displays Po1(SD) instead of Po1(SU) in show etherchannel summary. What is the most direct operational inference?
- The Layer 2 port-channel interface is down and needs member or compatibility troubleshooting
- The bundled members are all forwarding normally with no need to verify links
- The switch has automatically elected an OSPF designated router
- The Port-channel is an IPv6 multicast address instead of a switch interface
Explanation
Correct Answer
A:In common Catalyst show etherchannel summary notation, S identifies a Layer 2 port channel while D identifies a down operational state. Unlike Po1(SU), the bundle is not in normal use, so inspect physical member status, speed, trunk/access settings, LACP or PAgP negotiation and the peer. The flag is a channel state diagnostic, not evidence of successful aggregation. Verify whether individual ports are suspended or stand-alone before making changes.
Incorrect Answers
B:The U flag indicates an in-use channel in the familiar summary output; D does not. Assuming all members are forwarding would ignore the operational down condition and could delay resolution of a connectivity outage. Review the channel's participant flags and physical link states rather than trusting its configured existence.
C:OSPF DR election applies to a routing protocol on suitable multiaccess segments and is unrelated to the D flag on a Layer 2 EtherChannel summary. Port-channel notation does not report router IDs or OSPF neighbor priority. The relevant check concerns member aggregation and logical interface availability.
D:Po1 names a logical Port-channel interface on the switch; its flags describe switch aggregation properties, not an IPv6 group address. IPv6 multicast addresses begin with ff, and they cannot be inferred from an EtherChannel display. Diagnose this as a down Layer 2 bundle rather than an address classification issue.
Question 553
A TCP receiver advertises a zero receive window while the sender still has data. What does this signal?
- The remote system has requested a new DNS resolver
- IP packet time-to-live has exceeded its limit
- Flow control: the receiver currently cannot accept additional buffered stream data
- Ethernet speed negotiation is restarting because of full duplex
Explanation
Correct Answer
C:A TCP receiver advertising a zero window tells the sender that it presently has no additional receive-buffer space for stream bytes. This is TCP flow control, which prevents the sender from overwhelming a slow consumer; it differs from congestion control responding to conditions in the network path. The connection may use window probes and resume when the peer advertises new capacity. A zero window does not itself mean the Ethernet link has failed or the session must be recreated.
Incorrect Answers
A:The remote DNS resolver is selected by application or interface configuration, not by TCP's advertised receive window. A zero-window advertisement is a transport-level flow-control message about a connection already established between peers. Changing resolvers would not clear receiver-buffer pressure on that stream and could introduce a separate name-resolution fault.
B:IPv4 time-to-live is reduced by routers to prevent indefinitely looping packets; a zero TCP receive window has different units and purpose. It describes the receiver's currently available buffer space, not the number of forwarding hops remaining. The sender can continue connection management and probe for a window update rather than treating the path as expired.
D:Full-duplex Ethernet speed negotiation is a physical/link-layer procedure and is not initiated simply because a TCP application buffer fills. An established TCP session can advertise zero receive capacity while both Ethernet partners remain fully operational. Troubleshoot receiver application processing and transport flow control rather than forcing interface speed or duplex.
Question 554
Two table entries use 10.88.0.0/16 and 10.88.7.0/24. Which one is more specific by prefix definition?
- 10.88.7.0/24 because it fixes 24 leading network bits
- Both are equally specific since both begin with 10
- Neither can be IPv4 because the addresses contain zeroes
- 10.88.0.0/16 because it spans more addresses
Explanation
Correct Answer
A:A 10.88.7.0/24 route specifies 24 leading destination bits and therefore matches a smaller block than 10.88.0.0/16. For traffic inside 10.88.7.0/24, a usable installed /24 takes precedence under longest-prefix matching even if the /16 has a different next hop. This comparison concerns prefix specificity, not administrative distance; route-source preference matters only among routes to an identical prefix.
Incorrect Answers
B:Sharing the first IPv4 octet 10 does not make two routes equally specific. Prefix length counts how many leading bits of a destination must match: /16 specifies two octets, whereas /24 specifies three. Equal specificity requires the same length, and two different lengths can produce different forwarding choices for an address they both cover.
C:Zeros are ordinary valid bits in an IPv4 network identifier, and network routes often end in zero because host bits are cleared. Both 10.88.0.0/16 and 10.88.7.0/24 are syntactically conventional destination prefixes. Rejecting either for containing zeros would misunderstand how CIDR network addresses are represented.
D:The /16 route spans 65,536 IPv4 addresses, while a /24 spans 256, but a larger covered range means LESS specificity rather than more. A router may retain a /16 summary for broad reachability and use /24 routes for individual subnets. Prefix selection favors the narrower installed destination match, assuming the route is otherwise usable.
Question 555
A controller uses one logical topology model to evaluate network-wide path policy. What traditional-management limitation does this improve?
- Requirement for each PC to use its own public IPv4 address
- Fragmented device-by-device configuration and visibility
- Absence of a DNS MX record for each network switch
- Lack of a physical Ethernet cable between endpoints
Explanation
Correct Answer
B:A controller can maintain a network-wide view and apply an approved policy to multiple managed devices, reducing the fragmentation of individually configured switches and routers. This makes consistent path design and compliance checks easier than relying on isolated device-by-device sessions. Devices still forward traffic locally through their installed tables, and the controller must verify reconciliation, version compatibility and failure handling. A central interface is a management/control advantage rather than a guarantee of perfect policy enforcement.
Incorrect Answers
A:Public IPv4 addresses are not required for every PC in a controller-managed enterprise. Private RFC1918 hosts can communicate through routed internal networks and use NAT at an appropriate edge when needed. Central topology policy concerns device configuration and control, not forcing all endpoints onto globally unique addresses. Changing addressing would not solve inconsistent per-device changes.
C:DNS MX records describe mail exchange for a domain and have no role in aggregating switch topology or pushing network policy. Network controllers may use DNS to resolve their management services, but an MX record per switch does not create device-wide configuration visibility. The original limitation is human operational fragmentation, not mail transport configuration.
D:Controllers do not eliminate the need for physical or logical connectivity between network endpoints. Switches, routers and uplinks still provide a data plane for actual packets, while the controller coordinates desired policy. A topology map cannot repair a disconnected cable without separate fault response. The requested improvement is centralized visibility and orchestration across already connected devices.
Question 556
A router puts latency-sensitive RTP in a priority queue but the WAN link remains congested. Which mechanism handles transmitting the preferred queue first?
- Disabling interface packet counters
- Priority scheduling or low-latency queuing for the voice class
- Adding static routes for every UDP source port
- DNS round-robin among voice servers only
Explanation
Correct Answer
B:Low-latency queuing or a priority scheduler services qualifying real-time RTP packets ahead of lower-priority traffic according to the configured class policy. That reduces queuing delay during congestion but cannot create additional physical bandwidth or guarantee zero loss. Classify voice correctly, apply the policy in the right direction and verify rate limits to prevent priority traffic from starving other classes. Inspect QoS counters and latency under load to confirm intended service.
Incorrect Answers
A:Disabling packet counters removes valuable monitoring evidence but does not prioritize any frame on a congested link. Queues are serviced by scheduler behavior at the outbound interface. Counters help verify drops, utilization and class-based treatment; suppressing them would make it harder to establish whether a voice policy is working.
C:Static IP routes choose next hops for destination networks; creating one route for every UDP source port is not how an egress QoS queue selects packets. Routers can classify traffic by ports or markings as part of a class map, but routing entries remain destination-oriented. The requirement is scheduling after classification, not per-flow route construction.
D:DNS round-robin distributes name answers for services and does not control which packet is transmitted first from a congested WAN output queue. Selecting a different voice server might affect application placement, but it would not implement the requested priority service on this link. Configure scheduling policy on the egress interface.
Question 557
An ACL has deny ip any host 203.0.113.9 followed by permit ip any any. How is traffic to 203.0.113.9 evaluated?
- The first matching deny ACE blocks it before the later permit
- The final permit overrides all earlier denies regardless of order
- The router chooses an OSPF metric instead of processing the ACL
- The packet is converted to IPv6 and permitted automatically
Explanation
Correct Answer
A:Cisco ACLs evaluate entries in configured sequence and take the action of the first matching access-control entry. The destination 203.0.113.9 matches deny ip any host 203.0.113.9, so processing stops and the packet is denied before the general permit. Reversing rule order could change results because an earlier permit might accept the traffic. Verify the ACL is applied to the appropriate interface and direction; a correct list that is never attached does not enforce policy.
Incorrect Answers
B:The later permit ip any any applies only to packets that did not match an earlier ACE. It does not override a preceding deny for the host 203.0.113.9. An administrator who assumes last-match-wins behavior would misunderstand Cisco ACL evaluation and may unintentionally open or block network traffic.
C:OSPF metrics influence which route carries a packet after routing calculations, but they do not replace processing of an ACL attached to a forwarding interface. The question is an access-control decision based on an ordered destination match. A lower-cost OSPF path cannot bypass a matching deny ACE.
D:An IPv4 ACL does not implicitly convert denied packets into IPv6 or permit them through a different address family. IPv4 and IPv6 have separate packet formats and appropriate filter policies. The host-specific destination deny directly addresses the IPv4 packet before the later broad permit can be reached.
Question 558
A workstation-facing PortFast interface unexpectedly receives an STP BPDU from an unauthorized small switch. Which safety control should disable the interface?
- BPDU Guard on the edge port
- PortFast with no BPDU protection at all
- Disable 802.1Q tagging on the default gateway
- Root guard on every interface regardless of role
Explanation
Correct Answer
A:BPDU Guard is intended for edge ports that should never participate in a switch-to-switch spanning-tree exchange. If an unauthorized bridge sends a BPDU to a protected PortFast port, the switch can put that port into error-disabled state to prevent an unexpected Layer 2 topology from forming. Configure it on appropriate client-facing ports and confirm error recovery is controlled; using it on legitimate switch interconnects would cause avoidable outages. It complements, rather than replaces, proper network access controls.
Incorrect Answers
B:PortFast allows a configured edge port to reach forwarding rapidly, but it does not by itself enforce a shutdown when a BPDU arrives. Leaving such a port unprotected can allow an unauthorized small switch to influence STP or introduce a loop. The question asks for a control that reacts to a received BPDU with disablement, which is BPDU Guard.
C:Turning off 802.1Q tagging at the default gateway would affect VLAN traffic handling, not the arrival of STP BPDUs on a user-facing switchport. BPDUs are control frames exchanged by bridges to manage loop-free topology. A VLAN-tagging change does not substitute for a protective error-disable policy on an unexpected edge neighbor.
D:Root Guard protects designated ports against an unexpected superior BPDU and is useful in particular switch-to-switch hierarchy designs. It is not the edge-port security mechanism designed to error-disable a PortFast interface upon receiving any BPDU. Applying it indiscriminately could block legitimate topology changes; the scenario is explicitly a workstation-facing edge port receiving an unauthorized bridge advertisement.
Question 559
A field engineer needs the first conventional usable IPv4 host in the network containing 192.168.91.57/27. Which address is correct?
- 192.168.91.32
- 192.168.91.63
- 192.168.91.33
- 192.168.91.62
Explanation
Correct Answer
C:A /27 uses 32-address blocks in the final IPv4 octet. The host 192.168.91.57 lies in the.32–.63 block, so the network identifier is 192.168.91.32 and the first conventional usable host is.33. The last ordinary host is.62, with.63 reserved for broadcast. No gateway address is mathematically pre-reserved beyond these network and broadcast endpoints, although site policy may assign one.
Incorrect Answers
A:Address 192.168.91.32 is the network identifier of the /27 block containing.57, not an ordinary host endpoint. A /27 has 32 addresses, with host bits all zero at the lower boundary. Assigning that network ID as a normal workstation IP would violate conventional subnet allocation and does not identify the first usable address.
B:Address.63 is the directed broadcast for 192.168.91.32/27, whose range spans.32 through.63. It is the high endpoint and is reserved for the subnet's conventional broadcast function. Choosing it as the first usable host would reverse the network and broadcast roles and prevent normal unicast assignment.
D:Address.62 is a valid conventional host in the specified /27, but it is the last usable one rather than the first. It lies immediately below the broadcast.63. The question asks for the lowest assignable address, which is one above network identifier.32, not the highest available host value.
Question 560
Four route sources offer identical prefix 10.81.0.0/16 for 10.81.0.7: EIGRP [AD 90, metric 120], OSPF [AD 110, metric 30], RIP [AD 120, metric 2], Static backup [AD 220, metric 0]. If all paths are usable, which source is installed by administrative distance?
- EIGRP route with AD 90
- Static backup route with AD 220
- RIP route with AD 120
- OSPF route with AD 110
Explanation
Correct Answer
A:All four candidate routes have the identical prefix 10.81.0.0/16 and are assumed usable, so Cisco IOS uses administrative distance to prefer the routing source. EIGRP's stated distance 90 is lower than OSPF 110, RIP 120 and the floating static 220; therefore the EIGRP entry is installed. The different protocol metrics cannot be directly ranked against one another to override source preference. Check actual platform settings if distances are modified or routes are withdrawn.
Incorrect Answers
B:The floating static route intentionally uses an increased administrative distance, here 220, so it remains a fallback behind lower-distance paths to the same prefix. Its metric 0 does not override AD 90 from EIGRP. It can become active only when preferred equal-prefix candidates are withdrawn or unusable, subject to next-hop resolution and tracking.
C:RIP advertises a hop-count metric, but its stated administrative distance 120 is higher than the competing EIGRP distance 90. Metrics of different routing protocols are not compared directly to choose which source enters the routing table for the identical prefix. The RIP path may still provide backup reachability if EIGRP and other preferred choices disappear.
D:OSPF's internal cost 30 is meaningful when comparing eligible OSPF paths to the same destination, not when ranking an OSPF route against EIGRP based on raw metric size. OSPF has stated distance 110, so the EIGRP 90 path wins at the route-source decision. The OSPF route may become installed when the EIGRP choice is absent or disqualified.