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Interview Questions for Network Support Interview Questions for Network Support Technician Q.

Please describe the importance you place on customer service versus technical skills. A. Most interviewers like to start with big picture questions and then work thei r way into more technical areas. IT is a service organization and customer servi ce is at its core. In particular, customer service skills are just as important as technical skills, particularly in panic situations when systems are down or t he user has just deleted their board presentation that s due in 30 minutes. We ve al l had these situations. You should be prepared to talk about a specific situatio n where you ve excelled and received accolades from an end-user. If they put it in writing, mention that as well. Q. What steps do you take when troubleshooting a networking issue? A. As a support technician, your job is to solve problems. This question provide s the interviewer with insight into your troubleshooting skills. Of course, the most important part of troubleshooting any problem is to divide the tasks of pro blem resolution into a systematic process of elimination, like this: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. Define the problem. Gather detailed information. Consider probable cause for the failure. Devise a plan to solve the problem. Implement the plan. Observe the results of the implementation. Repeat the process if the plan does not resolve the problem. Document the changes made to solve the problem.

Be prepared before the interview, so you can provide an example of these skills in action. Q. How would you prioritize support issues? A. It is unlikely that as a network administrator or technician you will receive problem calls one at a time. Typically, when you receive one call, you already have three people waiting for service. For this reason, you must learn to priori tize. Your answer to this question will provide the interviewer with insight int o how effectively you prioritize. It s not a trick question, though sometimes it c an feel that way. You probably have a process that you use instinctually. Talk a bout it. It probably includes many of the following components: Total network failure (affects everyone) Partial network failure (affects small groups of users) Small network failure (affects a small, single group of users) Total workstation failure (single user can t work at all) Partial workstation failure (single user can t do most tasks) Minor issue (single user has problems that crop up now and again) Q. Users can send e-mail locally, but cannot send e-mail to external recipients. How would you troubleshoot this situation? A. The interviewer will run you through a series of questions like this one to s ee how you would use your troubleshooting skills in a common, real-life situatio n. He not only gets to see how your mind works, but also begins to get an insigh t into your technical capabilities. In your answer, be methodical in your approa ch, identifying the most likely possibility and testing it. Be sure to let the i nterviewer know that if your first attempt doesn t work, you know how to move on t o the next possibility. Q. A user complains that when she prints a document in any application, the prin

ter prints garbage. What is the most likely cause of the problem? A. This question starts the behavioral interviewing questions based on real-life situations that assess your problem-solving skills and your technical skills. T hey will range from the general (like this question) to very specific technical questions that determine your knowledge level and skill set. Don t worry if you do n t have all the answers. The interviewer is mostly interested in how you would re solve the situation and what resources you would use to do so. Q. A user s roaming profile is not accessible. Describe how you would solve this p roblem. A. This question tests your troubleshooting skills. In this situation you may wa nt to talk about which tests you would perform in order to resolve the issue. Th ese may include: Ensuring that the path to the profile directory is correct on the user s accou nt properties. Ensuring that the server where the profile resides is accessible. Ensuring that the user has Full Control permissions to the Profile directory . Q. A user has left the company and you need to create a new user with the same r ights and permissions. Please describe some of the ways to create the new user. A. This question tests your ability to get the job done in the most efficient wa y possible. For example, you can create new accounts from scratch and assign the original rights to the accounts or you can simply rename the old account for th e new user, which saves you a lot of time and effort. Q. What are the first things you check when a user is experiencing problems acce ssing the network? A. This question assesses your basic network troubleshooting skills. You can t mis s this one! You should be able to answer it in your sleep. You can liven up the interview by providing a funny story about user errors that you ve encountered. Q. What tools do you have available to you for troubleshooting? A. At this point, the interviewer is testing your resourcefulness. This is a pre tty generic question, so make sure that your answer is consistent with the overa ll theme of the interview. The tools available may include server log files, net work analyzers, error messages, README files, telephone support, or vendor techn ical support web sites or CD-ROMs. Don t forget to mention vendor-specific resourc es that you may use, like TechNet Online, or any other subscriptions that you ma y have in your bag of tricks. The final resource is of course your colleagues wh o may have run into this situation in the past. Q. A user cannot access the local intranet. What would you try first in helping to determine how to narrow the problem down to the intranet? A. Don t make this question harder than it really is. Sometimes the interviewer wi ll try to trip you up to test your common sense. Go for the obvious, rather than complicating the situation. In this case, simply trying to access the intranet from another workstation would help isolate the problem to the machine. Q. Several users can t log in to the server. What would you do to narrow the probl em down to the workstations, network, or server? A. The situation gets a little more interesting. Again, keep it simple, such as checking the server console for user connections to see if other users are able to log into the server. If they can, the problem is most likely related to those users workstations. If they can t, the problem is either the server or network con nection. Q. Which software troubleshooting tool could you use to determine which protocol is configured with the wrong address?

A. Questions like these assess your knowledge of troubleshooting tools that can help you resolve problems faster. In this case, a typical tool used to determine incorrectly configured addresses is a protocol analyzer. It can be used to exam ine the details of packets as they travel across the wire. This is a sophisticat ed tool that requires a deeper understanding of network protocols. Any interview er will be impressed if you ve used such a tool in troubleshooting. Q. Which hardware troubleshooting tool(s) could you use to find out where a cable is routed? A. Here s another question regarding troubleshooting tools. In this case you might want to use a tone generator and tone locator to find out where cables are rout ed. These tools are alternately known as fox and hound devices. These are more a dvanced tools that represent a higher skill level. Whenever possible, provide an example of a sticky situation where you ve had to rely on tools such as these for troubleshooting. Q. Which Windows NT utility do you use to manage the major Windows NT log files? A. Typically, the interviewer or someone more technical than the IT manager will ask you detailed operating system specific questions to assess your knowledge of the various products. Alternately, you may be asked to take an assessment exam l ike Brainbench. Q. A user calls you, complaining that he can t access the corporate intranet web s erver. You try the same address, and you receive a Host Not Found error. Several minutes later, another user reports the same problem. You can still send e-mail and transfer files to another server. What is the most likely cause of the prob lem? A. The interviewer will assess your skills as they relate to all aspects of netw orking, not just servers. This means you should be prepared to answer questions on web servers as well as local networks. In this case, because other people are experiencing the problem, the problem is most likely either network- or serverrelated. And because you can transfer files to and from another server, it can t b e the network. Thus, the problem is related to the web server. Q. You are connecting a cubicle farm to your network. You install NICs in all th e workstations and run cables to a workgroup hub. You then connect the MDI port on the workgroup hub to the main hub with a standard patch cable. Upon powering up the cubicle farm computers, none of them can see the servers on the network. What could you replace to solve this problem? A. Networking devices like hubs, switches, and routers will also be part of the technical interview. It is expected that you can speak fluently on both software and hardware issues. Q. A user from the marketing department calls complaining that she can t log in or see any servers on the network. Her computer operates fine otherwise. No other users from the marketing department are reporting any problems. What is the firs t thing you could check? A. You should also expect to be assessed on your knowledge of the physical layer of the OSI model. Q. You are working alone when the following calls come in: The CEO can t access his e-mail. Your good friend can t print. A crabby user can t log in to the network. The Internet router goes down. What would you do in this situation? A. The interviewer is testing your ability to prioritize very difficult situatio

ns. Don t worry, it s not a trick question you just need to apply your prioritization skills. Another critical part of this situation is the proper setting of expecta tions so the users who don t end up at the top of the list aren t upset with you. In providing your answer, don t forget that you are part of a team. You do have the ability to delegate support to other team members while you handle the most crit ical task. In this situation, at the top of the list is getting the Internet rou ter back up, because it affects the most number of people. Assisting other peopl e can be delegated to other team members. Q. You are installing a Windows XP based TCP/IP network. You accidentally set work station B to the same IP address as workstation A. Which workstation(s) will rec eive an error message? A. This type of question assesses your TCP/IP configuration knowledge. It s a comm on problem, but a little tricky based on the configuration mentioned above. The correct answer here is that through broadcasts, both workstations will detect if there is a duplicate IP address on the network and will display error messages to that effect. Q. Which TCP/IP utility is most often used to test whether an IP host is up and functional? A. TCP/IP is at the core of just about every network today. You must be familiar with the most often used commands for managing this network environment. This i ncludes Ping, ipconfig, FTP, and tracert. You should also be ready to apply thes e commands and utilities to various situations, as the next question demonstrate s. Some sample additional questions include: Which utility can you use to find the MAC and TCP/IP address of your Windows NT or 2000 workstation? Which program can you use to upload and download files to a Unix server? Which utility can you use to verify a packet s path? Q. You are the network administrator. A user calls you complaining that the perf ormance of the intranet web server is sluggish. When you try to ping the server, it takes several seconds for the server to respond. You suspect the problem is related to a router that is seriously overloaded. Which workstation utility coul d you use to find out which router is causing this problem? A. The answer here is the tracert utility, which will tell you which router is h aving the performance problem and how long it would take to travel between each host. You should be knowledgeable on the application of the most common IP comma nds for the various operating systems you support. Other questions along this li ne that you may run into include: Which ipconfig switch will display the most complete listing of IP configura tion information for that station? Which Windows TCP/IP utility could you use to find out whether a server is r esponding on TCP port 21? Q. Depending on the Windows client operating system version, which commands can you use to find out what is installed on a system? A. You may run into operating system specific questions like this one as you are b eing interviewed by prospective peers. You should be familiar with the most comm on commands. Don t worry about memorizing command syntax. That s what the /? is for. Q. Which power condition occurs when the voltage level drops below 120 volts and stays below for an extended period of time? A. Questions about power conditions don t rank very high, though they are importan t. Network support technicians will be faced with many different scenarios. Be f amiliar with these types of conditions just in case.

Q. You are setting up a workstation for remote access to the office. The office has a modem pool configured, and it is working correctly. The required results a re that the workstation and modem bank must establish a connection and that the server at the office must authenticate the workstation. Optionally, the workstat ion and office must be able to communicate by using a single protocol, and the w orkstation must be able to access all network devices at the office. The propose d solution is to install a POTS telephone line, modem cable, and modem connected to the workstation. How would you configure the protocols to achieve the desire d results? A. A question like this tests your ability to determine the best protocol soluti on for a given situation. With so many options available to network engineers, i t s important to understand the benefits and common denominators that will best fi t a situation. In this case, TCP/IP would be the best solution. With TCP/IP installed and configured on the workstation, and TCP/IP wi th DHCP, as well as IPX, installed and configured on the office server, you have a common protocol for communication. So .are you ready to rock? :) Q51. What are the data units at different layers of the TCP / IP protocol suite? Ans. The data unit created at the application layer is called a message, at the transport layer the data unit created is called either a segment or an user data gram, at the network layer the data unit created is called the datagram, at the data link layer the datagram is encapsulated in to a frame and finally transmitt ed as signals along the transmission media. Q52. What is Project 802? Ans. It is a project started by IEEE to set standards that enable intercommunica tion between equipment from a variety of manufacturers. It is a way for specifyi ng functions of the physical layer, the data link layer and to some extent the n etwork layer to allow for interconnectivity of major LAN protocols. It consists of the following: 802.1 is an internetworking standard for compatibility of different LANs and MANs across protocols. 802.2 Logical link control (LLC) is the upper sublayer of the data link laye r which is non-architecture-specific, that is remains the same for all IEEE-defi ned LANs. Media access control (MAC) is the lower sublayer of the data link layer that contains some distinct modules each carrying proprietary information specific t o the LAN product being used. The modules are Ethernet LAN (802.3), Token ring L AN (802.4), Token bus LAN (802.5). 802.6 is distributed queue dual bus (DQDB) designed to be used in MANs. Q53. What is Bandwidth? Ans. Every line has an upper limit and a lower limit on the frequency of signals it can carry. This limited range is called the bandwidth. Q54. Difference between bit rate and baud rate. Ans. Bit rate is the number of bits transmitted during one second whereas baud r ate refers to the number of signal units per second that are required to represe nt those bits. baud rate = bit rate / N where N is no-of-bits represented by each signal shift. Q55. What is MAC address? Ans. The address for a device as it is identified at the Media Access Control (M AC) layer in the network architecture. MAC address is usually stored in ROM on t he network adapter card and is unique. Q56. What is attenuation?

Ans. The degeneration of a signal over distance on a network cable is called att enuation. Q57. What is cladding? Ans. A layer of a glass surrounding the center fiber of glass inside a fiber-opt ic cable. Q58. What is RAID? Ans. A method for providing fault tolerance by using multiple hard disk drives. Q59. What is NETBIOS and NETBEUI? Ans. NETBIOS is a programming interface that allows I/O requests to be sent to a nd received from a remote computer and it hides the networking hardware from app lications. NETBEUI is NetBIOS extended user interface. A transport protocol designed by mic rosoft and IBM for the use on small subnets. Q60. What is redirector? Ans. Redirector is software that intercepts file or prints I/O requests and tran slates them into network requests. This comes under presentation layer. Q61. What is Beaconing? Ans. The process that allows a network to self-repair networks problems. The sta tions on the network notify the other stations on the ring when they are not rec eiving the transmissions. Beaconing is used in Token ring and FDDI networks. Q62. What is terminal emulation, in which layer it comes? Ans. Telnet is also called as terminal emulation. It belongs to application laye r. Q63. What is frame relay, in which layer it comes? Ans. Frame relay is a packet switching technology. It will operate in the data l ink layer. Q64. What do you meant by triple X in Networks? Ans. The function of PAD (Packet Assembler Disassembler) is described in a docum ent known as X.3. The standard protocol has been defined between the terminal an d the PAD, called X.28; another standard protocol exists between hte PAD and the network, called X.29. Together, these three recommendations are often called tri ple X Q65. What is SAP? Ans. Series of interface points that allow other computers to communicate with t he other layers of network protocol stack. Q66. What is subnet? Ans. A generic term for section of a large networks usually separated by a bridg e or router. Q67. What is Brouter? Ans. Hybrid devices that combine the features of both bridges and routers. Q68. How Gateway is different from Routers? Ans. A gateway operates at the upper levels of the OSI model and translates info rmation between two completely different network architectures or data formats. Q69. Ans. Also ical What are the different type of networking / internetworking devices? Repeater: called a regenerator, it is an electronic device that operates only at phys layer. It receives the signal in the network before it becomes weak, regene

rates the original bit pattern and puts the refreshed copy back in to the link. Bridges: These operate both in the physical and data link layers of LANs of same type. Th ey divide a larger network in to smaller segments. They contain logic that allow them to keep the traffic for each segment separate and thus are repeaters that relay a frame only the side of the segment containing the intended recipent and control congestion. Routers: They relay packets among multiple interconnected networks (i.e. LANs of differen t type). They operate in the physical, data link and network layers. They contai n software that enable them to determine which of the several possible paths is the best for a particular transmission. Gateways: They relay packets among networks that have different protocols (e.g. between a LAN and a WAN). They accept a packet formatted for one protocol and convert it t o a packet formatted for another protocol before forwarding it. They operate in all seven layers of the OSI model. Q70. What is mesh network? Ans. A network in which there are multiple network links between computers to pr ovide multiple paths for data to travel. Q71. What is passive topology? Ans. When the computers on the network simply listen and receive the signal, the y are referred to as passive because they don t amplify the signal in any way. Exa mple for passive topology linear bus. Q72. What are the important topologies for networks? Ans. BUS topology: In this each computer is directly connected to primary network cable in a single line. Advantages: Inexpensive, easy to install, simple to understand, easy to extend. STAR topology: In this all computers are connected using a central hub. Adva ntages: Can be inexpensive, easy to install and reconfigure and easy to trouble shoot ph ysical problems. RING topology: In this all computers are connected in loop. Advantages: All computers have equal access to network media, installation can be simple, an d signal does not degrade as much as in other topologies because each computer r egenerates it. Q73. What are major types of networks and explain Server-based network Peer-to-peer network. Ans. Peer-to-peer network, computers can act as both servers sharing resources a nd as clients using the resources. Server-based networks provide centralized control of network resources and rely on server computers to provide security and network administration Q74. What is Protocol Data Unit?

Ans. The data unit in the LLC level is called the protocol data unit (PDU). The PDU contains of four fields a destination service access point (DSAP), a source service access point (SSAP), a control field and an information field. DSAP, SSA P are addresses used by the LLC to identify the protocol stacks on the receiving and sending machines that are generating and using the data. The control field specifies whether the PDU frame is a information frame (I -frame) or a superviso ry frame (S frame) or a unnumbered frame (U frame). Q75. What is difference between baseband and broadband transmission? Ans. In a baseband transmission, the entire bandwidth of the cable is consumed b y a single signal. In broadband transmission, signals are sent on multiple frequ encies, allowing multiple signals to be sent simultaneously. Q76. What are the possible ways of data exchange? Ans. (i) Simplex (ii) Half-duplex (iii) Full-duplex. Q77. What are the types of Transmission media? Ans. Signals are usually transmitted over some transmission media that are broad ly classified in to two categories. Guided Media: These are those that provide a conduit from one device to another that include t wisted-pair, coaxial cable and fiber-optic cable. A signal traveling along any o f these media is directed and is contained by the physical limits of the medium. Twisted-pair and coaxial cable use metallic that accept and transport signals i n the form of electrical current. Optical fiber is a glass or plastic cable that accepts and transports signals in the form of light. Unguided Media: This is the wireless media that transport electromagnetic waves without using a physical conductor. Signals are broadcast either through air. This is done throu gh radio communication, satellite communication and cellular telephony. Q78. Difference between the communication and transmission. Ans. Transmission is a physical movement of information and concern issues like bit polarity, synchronization, clock etc. Communication means the meaning full exchange of information between two communi cation media. Q79.The Internet Control Message Protocol occurs at what layer of the seven laye r model? Ans. Network Q80.Which protocol resolves an IP address to a MAC address? Ans. ARP Q81.MIDI and MPEG are examples of what layer of the OSI seven layer model? Ans. Presentation Q82.What is the protocol number for UDP? Ans. 17 Q83.Which protocol is used for booting diskless workstations? Ans. RARP Q84.Which layer is responsible for putting 1s and 0s into a logical group? Ans. Physical Q85.What does P mean when running a Trace? Ans. Protocol unreachable Q86.UDP works at which layer of the DOD model?

Ans. Host to Host Q87.What is the default encapsulation of Netware 3.12? Ans. 802.2 Q88.Ping uses which Internet layer protocol? Ans. ICMP Q89.Which switching technology can reduce the size of a broadcast domain? Ans. VLAN Q90.What is the first step in data encapsulation? Ans. User information is converted into data. Q91.What is the protocol number for TCP? Ans. 6 Q92.What do you use the Aux port for? Ans. Modem Q93.Repeaters work at which layer of the OSI model? Ans. Physical Q94.WAN stands for which of the following? Ans. Wide Area Network Q95.What ISDN protocol specifies concepts, terminology, and services? Ans. I Q96.LAN stands for which of the following? Ans. Local Are Network Q97.DHCP stands for Ans. Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol Q98.What does the acronym ARP stand for? Ans. Address Resolution Protocol Q99.Which layer is responsible for identifying and establishing the availability of the intended communication partner? Ans. Application. Q100.Which OSI layer provides mechanical, electrical, procedural for activating, maintaining physical link? Ans. Physical.

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