Computer Networking Interview Questions

Here are the basic interview questions for the network administrators, system administrators and IT manager posts. These questions provide the basic information about the network communication technology, network topologies, network troubleshooting techniques, network devices and the basic overview of the LAN/WAN communication model.

What is DHCP?

DHCP stands for Dynamic Host Configuration Technology. The basic purpose of the DHCP is to assign the IP addresses and the other network configuration such as DNS, Gateway and other network settings to the client computers. DHCP reduces the administrative task of manually assigning the IP addresses to the large number of the computers in a network.

What is DNS and how it works?

DNS stands for Domain name system and it translates (converts) the host name into the IP address and IP address into to the host name. Every domain and the computer on the internet is assigned a unique IP address. The communication on the internet and in the network is based on the IP addresses. IP addresses are in this format 10.1.1.100, 220.12.1.22.3, 1.1.1.1 etc. IP addresses can't be remembered but the host names (e.g. www.networktutorials.info, xyz.com, abc.com) are easy to remember instead of their IP addresses.

What is a Firewall?

Firewall is a protective boundary for a network and it prevents the unauthorized access to a network. Most of the Windows operating system such as Windows XP Professional has built-in firewall utilities. There are the large number of the third party firewall software and the basic purpose of all the firewall software and hardware is same i.e. to block the unauthorized user access to a network.

What is WAN?

WAN stands for wide area network and it covers the broader geographical area. Basically there are three types of a computer network LAN (Local Area Network), MAN (Metropolitan Area Network) and WAN (Wide Area Network). The communication in a WAN is based on the Routers. A WAN network can cover a city, country or continents.

Define VOIP Communication Technology

VOIP stands for Voice over IP and this technology is used for transmitted the voice over the IP based long distance network to make phone calls. VOIP phone calls are very cheap and a large number of the corporate offices and home users are using VOIP technology to make long distance phone calls.

What is Wi Max Technology?

Wi Max is a wireless broadband technology and it is a advance shape of the Wi Fi (which was a base band technology). Wi Max supports data, video and audio communication at the same time at a very high speed up to 70 Mbps.

Define Network Gateway

Network Gateway can be software or a hardware. A gateway is usually a joining point in a network i.e. it connects two networks. A computer with two LAN cards can act as a gateway.

What is a Router?

A router routes the traffic to its destination based on the source and destination IP addresses, which are placed in the routing software known as routing table.

How Fiber Optic Cable Works

Fiber optics provides the fastest communication medium for data and voice. Data can travel at the speed of light through the fiber optic cables. ISPs and corporate offices are usually connected with each other with the fiber optic cables to provide high speed connectivity.

What is File Server?

A file server is a computer in a network that authenticates the user access in a network such as Windows 2000/2003 Servers.

Define Seven Layers of OSI Model

There are seven layers of the OSI model. The basic purpose of these layers is to understand the communication system and data transmission steps. The seven layers are Application, Presentation, Session, Transport, Network, Data Link and Physical. You can remember the name of these layers by this phrase. "All people seems to need data processing".

Define GSM Technology

GSM is a short range wireless technology and is usually used in the mobile phones, hand help devices, MP3 players, Laptops, computers and in cars.


B. Bashir manages this website Networking Tutorials and regularly writes articles on various topics such as Computer Networking, IP Address Network Wireless Networking, Computer Hardware, Certifications, How Tos, Network Glossary Overview and Computer tips.