Where are my IT/Networking peeps?!?

[Jer]

I had an interview yesterday out-of-state and one of the panel members was a college professor that taught IT to include Cisco Networking. He presented me with a problem which I will include below in italics. Leaving out his answer as well as mine because I want to see what conclusion you draw. He did the work on a dry-erase board after I gave my answer and did it long-hand... old school. I verified my answer via an app on my phone today so now I'm not sure. It's a new app that I've never used so it could be that I'm using it wrong. At any rate, here's the deets:

Examine the exhibit (picture of E0 and HTTP server with single line connecting)

You have been assigned IP address 145.36.0.0/22
You need to assign the first available host address on the first available subnet to the router's E0 interface and next available host on that subnet to the HTTP server.

Which addresses should you assign? What's the subnet? Which class is it?

So, that's one of the questions. What answers do you get and how do you arrive at those? I liken this sort of thing to the teacher in elementary school who forced you to do math long-hand and now there's 17 calculators everywhere you are whenever you need to do math so that was a wasted 2 years as far as I'm concerned. I demonstrated that I at least had an idea how to get to the proper answer but if you have IP calculators for this exact reason... what's the point? I assert that he was just trying to trip me up but to be truthful my response would be that it's not really necessary to perform the job.

[bogie]

I've had a lot of experience with oral exams and have found that professors don't necessarily care about getting the correct answer, but more about how you tackle a problem. But they get pissed when you try to give them bull$hit answers too, so that's worse than saying you don't know. Sounds like you handled this well.

[cfortune]

Network/Subnet Address = 145.36.0.0 which is a class B address AKA what you would use to advertise this network to neighboring routers (via OSPF for instance) and will appear as a directly connected network in this particular routers routing table
Assign E0 145.36.0.1 255.255.252.0, though at work I always use the last available IP of the subnet.
Assign HTTP server 145.36.0.2 255.255.252.0, with a gateway of 145.36.0.1


Why such a huge network range for such a small network is what I'd ask lol. 1022 useable addresses for a network containing one host is a bit absurd.

[Jer]

Network/Subnet Address = 145.36.0.0 which is a class B address AKA what you would use to advertise this network to neighboring routers (via OSPF for instance) and will appear as a directly connected network in this particular routers routing table
Assign E0 145.36.0.1 255.255.252.0, though at work I always use the last available IP for the subnet.
Assign HTTP server 145.36.0.2 255.255.252.0, with a gateway of 145.36.0.1


Why such a huge network range for such a small network is what I'd ask lol. 1022 useable addresses for a network containing one host is a bit absurd.

So here's the funny part....

I looked it over... took a breath and started talking my way through the problem. He agreed that it was a difficult one and told me to take my time. I was talking about subnet at one point and he asked which class it was to which I replied it was class B. He agreed and confirmed that I was correct to the other two panel members. After some more thinking on it I arrived at the following answer:

First available IP: 145.36.0.1 with a subnet of 255.255.252.0
Second available: 145.36.0.2 with a gateway of 145.36.0.1 and a subnet of 255.255.252.0


....exactly what you just said.

He said I was wrong and asked the other panel members (Head of HR and company President) to borrow the dry erase board in the meeting room to demonstrate how to arrive at the proper answer. He broke down a lot of stuff and in the end he arrived at: 145.36.4.1 and 145.36.4.2.

Now, at first I wasn't going to argue with him in an interview because I was already stressed out enough by other situations (turns out this 'expert' they brought and I have a past and he was the LAST person I thought I would see when I walked in) and the last thing I wanted was to be wrong TWICE if you get my drift. I need to send a thank you email to all three and I plan to double and triple check my answer before I even bring up the topic of being wrong again because if it turns out I was indeed wrong I'd rather that not ever come up again. lol I feel like I was right though and if in my email I give them the correct answer and mention it was indeed the first answer I gave suddenly I look like a friggin genius. I know this is a very delicate subject so that's why I wanted some input from others who are in-the-know.

[Teufelhund]

Network/Subnet Address = 145.36.0.0 which is a class B address AKA what you would use to advertise this network to neighboring routers (via OSPF for instance) and will appear as a directly connected network in this particular routers routing table
Assign E0 145.36.0.1 255.255.252.0, though at work I always use the last available IP for the subnet.
Assign HTTP server 145.36.0.2 255.255.252.0, with a gateway of 145.36.0.1


Why such a huge network range for such a small network is what I'd ask lol. 1022 useable addresses for a network containing one host is a bit absurd.

This is the correct answer. I cannot imagine why anyone would waste so many addresses at a border router, but practicality is obviously not the object of the question. You got it right in the interview.

[waxthis]

Network/Subnet Address = 145.36.0.0 which is a class B address AKA what you would use to advertise this network to neighboring routers (via OSPF for instance) and will appear as a directly connected network in this particular routers routing table
Assign E0 145.36.0.1 255.255.252.0, though at work I always use the last available IP of the subnet.
Assign HTTP server 145.36.0.2 255.255.252.0, with a gateway of 145.36.0.1


Why such a huge network range for such a small network is what I'd ask lol. 1022 useable addresses for a network containing one host is a bit absurd.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^DIS^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

[ChadAmberg]

That's a subnet of 1024 addresses. Subnet mask 255.255.252.0.

It's in the class B address range technically, but that's actually irrelevant in real life, because no class A or B subnet is used as anything other than sets of small subnets. You can tell he's a professor, saying things that may be technically correct but doesn't work in the real world. Kind of like that 7 layers of networking crap. Every stupid test references it, but nothing uses it, especially TCPIP.

I'd say 145.36.0.1 would be the gateway on the router with 145.36.0.2 on the web server.

[Jer]

That's a subnet of 1024 addresses. Subnet mask 255.255.252.0.

It's in the class B address range technically, but that's actually irrelevant in real life, because no class A or B subnet is used as anything other than sets of small subnets. You can tell he's a professor, saying things that may be technically correct but doesn't work in the real world. Kind of like that 7 layers of networking crap. Every stupid test references it, but nothing uses it, especially TCPIP.

I'd say 145.36.0.1 would be the gateway on the router with 145.36.0.2 on the web server.

Mother of god... that was question #2. ROFL!

[Gman]

nevermind...

[cfortune]

I don't understand how you're given the address space 145.36.0.0/22 and you end up with a first available IP of 145.36.4.1/22

145.36.0.0/22 breaks down as:
Network address: 145.36.0.0/22, granted you don't live in like 1998 or some shit and "ip subnet zero" isn't an option on your Cisco.
Host addresses: 145.36.0.1-145.36.3.254
Broadcast address: 145.36.3.255

145.36.4.1 isn't even a valid address in the address space 145.36.0.0/22.