An employee's workstation is unable to access network resources and the troubleshooting process reveals the machine has been assigned an address starting with 169.254. Based on this information, what is the most likely cause of the networking issue?
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Another DHCP server is issuing incorrect settings to network clients.
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The workstation’s network mask setting is preventing it from communicating on the local network.
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The network’s DHCP service is not available or malfunctioning, leading to the workstation assigning itself an APIPA address.
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The workstation has been manually set with a static address outside the designated network range.
When a device is assigned an address that starts with 169.254, it indicates that it has self-assigned an Automatic Private IP Addressing (APIPA) address. This is a fallback mechanism used when a workstation configured to obtain an address automatically is unable to reach a DHCP server to obtain one. This typically points to issues with the DHCP server itself being unreachable or malfunctioning. It is not due to manual static address configuration, incorrect subnet settings, or interference from a rogue DHCP server, as those scenarios would lead to different outcomes such as deliberate network assignment, connectivity issues related to incorrect network segmentation, or invalid network configurations respectively.
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What is an APIPA address?
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What is DHCP and what role does it play in networking?
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