Question

Difficulty: EasyAccess Control Lists (Standard and Extended IPv4 ACLs)

A network administrator configures a single line standard IPv4 Access Control List (ACL) on a Cisco IOS router as follows:

`access-list 10 permit 192.168.1.50 0.0.0.0`

This ACL is applied inbound on interface GigabitEthernet0/0. What happens to incoming IP traffic with a source IPv4 address of 192.168.1.20 when it reaches interface GigabitEthernet0/0?

  1. The traffic is dropped because of the invisible implicit deny any clause at the end of the ACL.Answer
  2. B
    The traffic is permitted because standard ACLs allow all traffic by default unless explicitly denied.
  3. C
    The traffic is forwarded because single-statement ACLs only filter the specified host and ignore all other hosts.
  4. D
    The traffic bypasses interface processing because standard IPv4 ACLs can only be applied outbound.

Answer

The traffic is dropped because of the implicit deny any clause at the end of the access control list.
In Cisco IOS, every Access Control List ends with an unwritten, invisible implicit deny clause (`deny ip any any` or `deny any`). Because the packet from source address 192.168.1.20 does not match the explicit permit rule for host 192.168.1.50, it falls through to the end of the list and is dropped.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Examine the configured access control list entries.
The ACL contains only one explicit permit line matching source host address 192.168.1.50.
Traffic from source IP 192.168.1.20 does not match this permit statement.
2
Evaluate default Cisco IOS ACL sequential processing behavior.
Every IPv4 ACL ends with an unwritten 'deny ip any any' (or 'deny any') statement.
Since the packet does not match any explicit permit line, it matches the implicit deny statement.
3
Determine the forwarding disposition of the packet.
The packet from source 192.168.1.20 is silently dropped by the router.
Implicit deny drops all traffic that is not explicitly permitted.

Key Concept

ACL Implicit Deny Clause
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