Cisco Certified Network Professional Practice Test 2025 – Your All-in-One Guide to Exam Success!

Clients use the Neighbor Discovery Protocol (NDP) in IPv6 to discover gateways, among other functionalities. NDP operates at the network layer and is essential for several key tasks in IPv6 networking, such as discovering other nodes on the network, determining their link-layer addresses, and identifying routers.

When a client connects to an IPv6 network, it sends out Neighbor Solicitation messages to find the addresses of local routers, which act as gateways to other networks. The routers then respond with Neighbor Advertisement messages, providing the client with the necessary information to route traffic beyond its local subnet.

NDP essentially replaces the Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) used in IPv4, allowing devices to perform similar discovery functions more efficiently in the IPv6 environment. Thus, NDP is critical for proper communication and routing in IPv6 networks.

The other options do not perform the specific function of discovering gateways. The Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) is used for assigning IP addresses and configuring network settings but does not discover gateways directly. The Address Resolution Protocol operates in IPv4 for resolving IP addresses to MAC addresses, which is not applicable to IPv6. The Routing Information Protocol (RIP) is a distance-vector routing protocol used for routing traffic between routers,