A network technician sets up a computer on the accounting department floor for a user from the marketing department. The user reports that they cannot access the marketing department’s shared drives but can access the internet. Which of the following is the most likely cause of this issue?

The user's computer is physically connected to a network port on the accounting department's floor. Network ports are typically pre-configured and assigned to a specific Virtual LAN (VLAN) based on their physical location and departmental function. In this case, the port is likely assigned to the "Accounting" VLAN. This places the user's computer on the accounting logical network, separate from the "Marketing" VLAN where the required shared drives reside. While the accounting VLAN is configured to allow internet access through its default gateway, inter-VLAN routing to the marketing network segment may be restricted by access control lists (ACLs) for security purposes, thus blocking access to those specific resources.

A. Mismatched switchport duplex: This would cause performance issues like packet loss and slow speeds for all network traffic, not a selective inability to access specific shares.
B. Misconfigured gateway settings: An incorrect gateway configuration on the user's computer would prevent access to all resources outside the local subnet, including the internet.
D. SVI is assigned to the wrong IP address: An incorrect Switched Virtual Interface (SVI) IP address would act as a faulty gateway for all users on that VLAN, likely disrupting their internet and inter-VLAN connectivity, not just a single user. ---

1. Kurose

J. F.

& Ross

K. W. (2021). Computer Networking: A Top-Down Approach (8th ed.). Pearson.

Section 6.3

"Virtual Local Area Networks (VLANs)": This section explains that VLANs allow a single physical LAN infrastructure to be partitioned into multiple logical LANs. It states

"hosts in different VLANs cannot send frames to each other. Rather

if a host in one VLAN wants to send packets to a host in another VLAN

the packet must be sent to a router." This supports the conclusion that being in the wrong VLAN (Accounting) prevents direct communication with resources in another VLAN (Marketing).

2. Cisco. (2023). VLANs Configuration Guide

Cisco IOS XE Amsterdam 17.3.x.

Chapter: "Configuring VLANs

" Section: "Information About VLANs": The documentation states

"A VLAN is a group of devices on one or more LANs that are configured to communicate as if they were attached to the same wire

when in fact they are located on a number of different LAN segments. Because VLANs are based on logical instead of physical connections

they are extremely flexible." This highlights the logical segmentation that is the root cause of the user's issue. The user's logical connection (VLAN) does not match their required resource's location.

3. He

H.

& van der Merwe

J. (2017). Lecture 4: Switching. CS 6453: Graduate Computer Networks. University of Utah School of Computing.

Slide 31

"Virtual LANs (VLANs)": The lecture notes describe VLANs as a mechanism to "Restrict broadcast domains" and "Enforce security policies." It clarifies that communication between VLANs requires a router. This directly relates to the scenario where a user in one VLAN (Accounting) is blocked from accessing resources in another (Marketing) due to this enforced segmentation.