Answer for Switch Port Packet Capture

A technician has been assigned to capture packets on a specific switchport.

Which of the following switch features MUST be used to accomplish this?

A.

Spanning tree

B.

Trunking

C.

Port aggregation

D.

Port mirroring.

D.

The correct answer to the question is D, port mirroring.

Port mirroring, also known as Switched Port Analyzer (SPAN), is a feature that allows the network administrator to copy traffic from one or more switch ports and forward the traffic to another port on the same switch. Port mirroring is commonly used for network troubleshooting, intrusion detection, and traffic analysis.

By using port mirroring, the technician can capture all the traffic passing through a specific switch port without affecting the normal operation of the switch. This is important because capturing packets can potentially increase network congestion, and it is important not to affect the network performance.

Spanning tree is a protocol used to prevent loops in a network topology. Trunking is a feature that allows multiple VLANs to be carried over a single physical link. Port aggregation is a feature that allows multiple physical links to be combined into a single logical link for increased bandwidth and redundancy.

While these features are important for network operation, none of them provide the ability to capture packets on a specific switchport. Therefore, the correct answer is D, port mirroring.