Which protocol is used to acquire the physical addresses associated with a computer’s network interface card (NIC)?Group of answer choicesDHCPAPIPAARPUDP

Break Down the Problem

1. Identify the purpose of each network protocol listed in the options.
2. Determine which protocol is responsible for acquiring physical addresses (MAC addresses) associated with a NIC.

Relevant Concepts

1. DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol): It assigns IP addresses to devices on a network.
2. APIPA (Automatic Private IP Addressing): A feature that allows a device to automatically assign itself an IP address when it cannot obtain one from a DHCP server.
3. ARP (Address Resolution Protocol): This is a protocol used to translate IP addresses into physical MAC addresses, enabling communication within a local network.
4. UDP (User Datagram Protocol): A communication protocol used for transmitting data across a network, but not related to acquiring physical addresses.

Analysis and Detail

• The main objective here is to identify which of the listed protocols is specifically used to find the MAC address associated with a given IP address.
• ARP works on the principle of sending out a broadcast on the local network to ask, “Who has IP address X? Tell me your MAC address.” The device with the specified IP address responds with its physical address.

Verify and Summarize

• After reviewing the functions of each protocol, it is clear that ARP is the only protocol that specifically deals with the acquisition of physical MAC addresses from known IP addresses.

Final Answer

The protocol used to acquire the physical addresses associated with a computer’s network interface card (NIC) is ARP (Address Resolution Protocol).