A router is the correct choice. In a typical small office/home office (SOHO) setup, the single network drop from the wall provides one IP address from the ISP. A router performs Network Address Translation (NAT), allowing multiple internal devices (like the printer, desktop, and access point) to share that single public IP. It also provides DHCP to assign local IP addresses and has a built-in switch for wired connections.

The ability to reach the internet indicates the default gateway and DNS are likely working. The specific failure to reach an internal server suggests a local routing issue. If the computer’s subnet mask is incorrect, it may not correctly identify the file server’s IP address (10.10.5.25) as being on the same local network, causing it to send traffic to the default gateway instead of directly to the server.

Single-mode fiber optic cable uses light to transmit data and is made of glass or plastic, making it completely immune to electromagnetic interference (EMI) and radio-frequency interference (RFI). This is a critical advantage in environments with heavy machinery or many electrical cables. Copper (Cat 6a) is susceptible to EMI, which can degrade signal quality.

The star topology features all devices (nodes) connected to a central network device, such as a switch or hub. The primary advantage is fault isolation; if one cable fails, only the device on that cable is disconnected, and the rest of the network remains operational. This is the most common topology in modern Ethernet LANs.

Stateful Packet Inspection (SPI) is a firewall feature that tracks the state of active connections. It allows return traffic that is part of an established, legitimate session initiated from inside the network (like a response to a web request) while blocking unsolicited incoming traffic that does not match a known state. This provides a fundamental layer of security.

In many network diagrams, a pair of parallel lines or arrows connecting two switches represents an EtherChannel (or Link Aggregation Group). This technology combines multiple physical Ethernet links into a single logical link to increase bandwidth and provide redundancy. The distinct dual-arrow imagery is a common visual cue for this bundled connection.

The symptom “can ping local, cannot ping remote” is a classic indicator of a default gateway problem. The default gateway (router) is responsible for forwarding traffic destined for networks outside the local subnet. If its IP address is misconfigured on the device, or if the gateway itself is down, remote communication will fail, while local communication (which doesn’t require the gateway) will work.

A subnet mask is a 32-bit number that masks an IP address and divides it into network and host addresses. The ‘1’ bits in the mask cover the network portion, and the ‘0’ bits cover the host portion. This allows a device or router to determine if a destination IP address is on the same local network (and can be sent directly) or on a remote network (and must be sent to the default gateway).

The initial configuration of a new Cisco device is typically done via a direct, physical out-of-band connection using a rollover (console) cable from a computer’s serial port (or USB with a converter) to the device’s console port. This provides direct access to the CLI before the device has any IP configuration for network-based management (like SSH or Telnet).

A router is the correct choice. In a typical small office/home office (SOHO) setup, the single network drop from the wall provides one IP address from the ISP. A router performs Network Address Translation (NAT), allowing multiple internal devices (like the printer, desktop, and access point) to share that single public IP. It also provides DHCP to assign local IP addresses and has a built-in switch for wired connections.0