Which field indicates how many hops a packet may traverse before it is discarded by a router?

Prepare for the Certified Ethical Hacker Version 11 Exam. Study with comprehensive questions and explanations. Equip yourself with the skills needed for success!

Multiple Choice

Which field indicates how many hops a packet may traverse before it is discarded by a router?

Explanation:
Time to Live (TTL) is the field that sets how many routers a packet may pass through before it is discarded. Each time a router handles the packet, it decreases TTL by one. When TTL reaches zero, the packet is dropped to prevent endless looping, and an ICMP Time Exceeded message may be returned to the sender. This mechanism helps detect routing loops and bounds the packet’s lifetime. The other terms don’t apply here: fragmentation relates to splitting packets to fit the network MTU, Unicode is a text encoding standard, and session splicing isn’t a standard IP concept.

Time to Live (TTL) is the field that sets how many routers a packet may pass through before it is discarded. Each time a router handles the packet, it decreases TTL by one. When TTL reaches zero, the packet is dropped to prevent endless looping, and an ICMP Time Exceeded message may be returned to the sender. This mechanism helps detect routing loops and bounds the packet’s lifetime. The other terms don’t apply here: fragmentation relates to splitting packets to fit the network MTU, Unicode is a text encoding standard, and session splicing isn’t a standard IP concept.

Subscribe

Get the latest from Passetra

You can unsubscribe at any time. Read our privacy policy