The symptoms described—network outages for some users appearing later in the day after a new DHCP server installation—are characteristic of DHCP scope exhaustion. The DHCP server is configured with a finite pool (scope) of IP addresses to lease to clients. Early in the morning, connecting users successfully obtain an IP address. As more users connect throughout the day, the limited pool of addresses is depleted. When the pool is empty, subsequent users attempting to connect in the afternoon cannot obtain an IP address, leading to a network outage for those specific users.

B. The administrator configured an incorrect default gateway.

An incorrect default gateway would prevent access to other subnets (like the internet) for all clients receiving the lease, and this issue would have been apparent immediately.

C. The administrator did not provision enough routes.

DHCP servers do not provision routing tables to clients; they typically only provide a default route (the default gateway). Routing is a function of routers.

D. The administrator did not provision enough MAC addresses.

DHCP servers use client MAC addresses for identification but do not provision or assign them. A shortage of MAC addresses is not a valid DHCP server configuration issue.

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1. Kurose

J. F.

& Ross

K. W. (2021). Computer Networking: A Top-Down Approach (8th ed.). Pearson.

Section 5.2.2

"The Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP)": This section explains that a DHCP server manages a "pool of available IP addresses." The text describes the process of a client acquiring a lease from this pool. The logical failure mode

which is a core concept of this mechanism

is the exhaustion of this finite pool

preventing new clients from obtaining an address.

2. Microsoft Corporation. (2021). DHCP Best Practices. Microsoft Learn.

Section: "For DHCP Scopes": The official documentation states

"When you plan your scopes

you should configure an IP address range for each subnet that has enough IP addresses for all of the DHCP clients on that subnet... We recommend that you allocate an address pool where the number of addresses is at least 25% larger than the number of DHCP clients on the subnet." This directly supports the principle that provisioning an insufficient number of addresses is a critical configuration error that leads to service failure.

3. University of California

Berkeley. (n.d.). bNet DHCP Service. Information Services and Technology.

Section: "How it Works": University courseware and technical documentation often describe the DHCP process. This document explains

"The DHCP server will then offer an IP address from the pool of addresses set aside for that network." This reinforces that the pool is a finite resource

and its depletion is the most likely cause for service failure under the described circumstances.