What is the purpose of the VMAC in HSRP?

The purpose of the VMAC (Virtual MAC) in HSRP (Hot Standby Router Protocol) is to uniquely identify the active and standby routers involved in the HSRP group. In a typical HSRP setup, the routers in the group share a virtual IP address, but to facilitate traffic routing, they also utilize a virtual MAC address. This VMAC is used by the devices in the network to send their data to the active router, which seamlessly maintains a live connection even if the primary router fails.

When a device on the network attempts to reach the virtual IP address, it sends its traffic to the corresponding VMAC. The active router, which owns the VMAC, processes the traffic, while the standby router remains in a ready state to take over if the active router becomes unavailable. This dual use of a virtual IP and VMAC is crucial for ensuring high availability and redundancy in a network environment, allowing for quick failover without requiring any changes in the device configurations.

Other possible answers may address aspects of network operations, but they do not accurately describe the specific function that VMAC performs in the context of HSRP. The VMAC is not for providing Layer 2 redundancy, assisting with VLAN tagging, or maintaining switch operations