Understanding the Primary Purpose of First Hop Redundancy Protocol

D.

The primary purpose of a First Hop Redundancy Protocol (FHRP) is to provide redundancy and fault tolerance for the default gateway of a LAN. In a typical LAN environment, hosts on the network send packets to their default gateway, which then forwards them to the destination network. If the default gateway fails, the hosts are unable to communicate with other networks. This is where FHRP comes in.

FHRP is a protocol that allows multiple routers to work together to provide redundancy for the default gateway. The routers that participate in FHRP share a virtual IP address that is used as the default gateway for hosts on the LAN. The routers also communicate with each other using a hello protocol to detect any failures in the network.

When a failure is detected, one of the routers assumes the role of the active gateway and starts forwarding packets. The other routers in the network become standby gateways, ready to take over in case the active gateway fails. This provides fault tolerance for the default gateway, ensuring that hosts can continue to communicate with other networks even if one of the routers fails.

Now let's look at the options in the question and see which one is the best answer:

A. It allows directly connected neighbors to share configuration information This statement is not related to FHRP. FHRP is a protocol that provides redundancy for the default gateway, and does not involve sharing configuration information between neighbors.

B. It reduces routing failures by allowing Layer 3 load balancing between OSPF neighbors that have the same link metric This statement is also not related to FHRP. Layer 3 load balancing is a technique used to distribute traffic across multiple paths, and it is not specific to FHRP.

C. It allows a router to use bridge priorities to create multiple loop-free paths to a single destination This statement is not correct. FHRP does not use bridge priorities to create multiple loop-free paths to a single destination. FHRP is a protocol that provides redundancy for the default gateway, and it is not related to creating loop-free paths.

D. It reduces routing failures by allowing more than one router to represent itself as the default gateway of a network. This statement is correct. FHRP allows multiple routers to work together to provide redundancy for the default gateway. By allowing more than one router to represent itself as the default gateway, FHRP ensures that hosts on the LAN can continue to communicate with other networks even if one of the routers fails. Therefore, option D is the correct answer.