what will a cisco lan switch do if it receives an incoming frame and the destination mac address is not listed in the mac address table?
What will a Cisco LAN switch do if it receives an incoming frame and the destination MAC address is not listed in the MAC address table?
Answer:
When a Cisco LAN switch receives an incoming frame and the destination MAC address is not listed in the MAC address table, the switch will broadcast the frame to all ports except the port it received the frame on. This process is known as “flooding.” By flooding the frame, the switch increases the chance that the intended destination will receive the frame even if its MAC address is not in the table. Once the destination device responds to the frame, the switch will update its MAC address table with the correct mapping of MAC address to port. This allows the switch to efficiently forward future frames directly to the correct port rather than flooding the network. Flooding helps in situations where the destination address is not yet known to the switch, such as when devices are communicating for the first time or after a network topology change.