I'm learning the network basics at my university this semester. I had a question on the mid-term exam and unfortunately ,I answered it wrong. I have a final exam about an hour from now, and I still don't know what the correct answer of that question is. However, here is my question:
A network of several PCs, switches, and one router. PC 1 has a MAC address X. PC 1 usually sends packets to PC 5 and these packets pass through Switch Z. Inspecting the MAC address table of Switch Z for a very long period revealed that the PC 5 MAC address never shown in the table. Is there anything wrong with the switch? If yes, show what is wrong with switch, or otherwise, explain why such this is happening.
and here is my wrong answer:
Maybe because PC5 is recently connected to the network, hence it cannot find the MAC address in the table. So, it should send a broadcast to the network for gaining the MAC address of PC5.