A systems administrator is setting up a new, isolated network segment for a development lab. This lab will host several virtual servers that need to communicate with each other but must not be directly accessible from the public internet. The company's internal network already uses the 10.0.0.0/8 and 172.16.0.0/12 address spaces extensively. To avoid IP conflicts and ensure proper network design, which of the following IP address ranges should the administrator use for the new development lab network?
The correct answer is 192.168.1.0/24. According to RFC 1918, there are three blocks of IP addresses reserved for private networks: 10.0.0.0/8, 172.16.0.0/12, and 192.168.0.0/16. The scenario states that the 10.0.0.0/8 and 172.16.0.0/12 ranges are already in use, making the 192.168.0.0/16 range the best choice to avoid overlapping subnets and potential IP address conflicts.
The 172.32.1.0/24 range is incorrect because it is a public IP address range. The private range for this block only extends from 172.16.0.0 to 172.31.255.255.
The 169.254.1.0/24 range is incorrect as this falls within the Automatic Private IP Addressing (APIPA) range (169.254.0.0/16). APIPA addresses are self-assigned by devices when they cannot contact a DHCP server and are not intended for static configuration of a network segment.
The 10.100.1.0/24 range is part of the 10.0.0.0/8 block, which the scenario explicitly states is already in extensive use. Choosing this range would risk creating an IP address conflict.
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