Which of the following subnet masks would be appropriate for this setup?

A server technician is configuring the IP address on a newly installed server. The documented configuration specifies using an IP address of 10.20.10.15 and a default gateway of 10.20.10.254.

Which of the following subnet masks would be appropriate for this setup?
A . 255.255.255.0
B . 255.255.255.128
C . 255.255.255.240
D . 255.255.255.254

View Answer

Answer: A

Explanation:

The administrator should use a subnet mask of 255.255.255.0 for this setup. A subnet mask is a binary number that defines how many bits of an IP address are used for the network portion and how many bits are used for the host portion. The network portion identifies the specific network that the IP address belongs to, while the host portion identifies the specific device within that network. The subnet mask is usually written in dotted decimal notation, where each octet represents eight bits of the binary number. A 1 in the binary number means that the corresponding bit in the IP address is part of the network portion, while a 0 means that it is part of the host portion. For example, a subnet mask of 255.255.255.0 means that the first 24 bits (three octets) of the IP address are used for the network portion and the last 8 bits (one octet) are used for the host portion. This subnet mask allows up to 254 hosts per network (2^8 – 2). In this case, the IP address of 10.20.10.15 and the default gateway of 10.20.10.254 belong to the same network of 10.20.10.0/24 (where /24 indicates the number of bits used for the network portion), which can be defined by using a subnet mask of 255.255.255.0.