A systems administrator is deploying a new, isolated network for a development lab. The servers in this lab require static IP addresses that will not be routed on the public internet and must not conflict with public IP assignments. Which of the following IP addresses should the administrator assign to a server in this lab to comply with RFC 1918 standards for private addressing?
The correct answer is 172.20.10.5. RFC 1918 defines specific IPv4 address ranges for private networks, which are not routable on the public internet. The three private ranges are:
10.0.0.0 to 10.255.255.255 (10.0.0.0/8)
172.16.0.0 to 172.31.255.255 (172.16.0.0/12)
192.168.0.0 to 192.168.255.255 (192.168.0.0/16)
The IP address 172.20.10.5 falls within the 172.16.0.0/12 block.
The address 169.254.10.5 is an Automatic Private IP Addressing (APIPA) address, which a host self-assigns if a DHCP server is unavailable; it is not meant for static assignment. The address 127.0.1.1 is a loopback address used for local testing on a host and cannot be used for network communication between devices. The address 198.51.100.5 belongs to the TEST-NET-2 range (198.51.100.0/24), which is reserved by RFC 5737 specifically for use in documentation and examples, not for actual network deployment.
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