Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA) Practice Exam

If the line status is administratively down and the protocol status is down, what does this indicate?

1. The cable is broken

2. The interface is in shutdown mode

3. There is a Layer 2 issue

4. The interface is up

The correct answer is: The interface is in shutdown mode

When the line status is administratively down and the protocol status is down, it indicates that the interface has been manually disabled by an administrator. This is referred to as being in shutdown mode. In this state, the interface does not actively participate in any network communication, which is why the protocol status is also down. Administratively down means that the interface has been specifically configured to be inactive through the command-line interface, typically using the "shutdown" command. This is often done for maintenance, configuration purposes, or to prevent network traffic on that interface without physically disconnecting it. In contrast, a broken cable would typically result in an interface showing as "down" due to link issues rather than being administratively down, and a Layer 2 issue would generally present itself differently, as it might involve problems with the Ethernet frames rather than the administrative state of the interface. Additionally, if the interface were showing as up, neither the line nor protocol status would indicate that they were down.