In an ARP request, which statement about the target MAC address is true?

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Multiple Choice

In an ARP request, which statement about the target MAC address is true?

Explanation:
In an ARP request, you’re asking “who has this IP?” and you don’t know the hardware (MAC) address yet. That target hardware address field is therefore set to all zeros (00:00:00:00:00:00) in the ARP payload. The Ethernet frame carrying that ARP request is sent to the broadcast MAC (ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff) so every device on the local network sees the request, and the owner of the target IP can respond with its MAC. So the statement about the target MAC address being all zeros is the one that matches how ARP requests are built. The broadcast MAC belongs to the Ethernet header, not the ARP target field, and the other addresses shown aren’t used for the ARP target in a request.

In an ARP request, you’re asking “who has this IP?” and you don’t know the hardware (MAC) address yet. That target hardware address field is therefore set to all zeros (00:00:00:00:00:00) in the ARP payload. The Ethernet frame carrying that ARP request is sent to the broadcast MAC (ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff) so every device on the local network sees the request, and the owner of the target IP can respond with its MAC.

So the statement about the target MAC address being all zeros is the one that matches how ARP requests are built. The broadcast MAC belongs to the Ethernet header, not the ARP target field, and the other addresses shown aren’t used for the ARP target in a request.

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