Campus: The second client subnet gets no reply
The incident
Staff workstations reach the student services platform through the campus distribution layer. Client and service access branches each have their own transit router on either side of the regional hub. Requests reach both service networks, but the second client subnet cannot receive replies. The first client subnet still works. Investigate student services from R1: 10.161.128.0/24 to 10.161.136.0/24 (TCP/443), and 10.161.129.0/24 to 10.161.137.0/24 (TCP/8443).
Your objective
Restore both authorized service transports and return reachability, including clients and service hosts in both halves of the primary subnet. Keep R6 blocked from both service transports, keep SSH blocked to both service subnets, and preserve monitoring between R1 and R2. Do not change physical topology or addressing. These are network forwarding checks, not application-level transactions.
The network
Link addressing (5)
- R1 R2
10.161.144.0/30 - R2 R3
10.161.145.0/30 - R3 R4
10.161.146.0/30 - R4 R5
10.161.147.0/30 - R3 R6
10.161.148.0/30
What you’ll practice
Interview exercises are inspired by common industry competencies. They are not proprietary interview questions.