A city clerk wants ISP-A to prefer the northern civic entrance for return traffic when both entrances advertise the same prefixes. Which attribute is the classic weak hint for that inbound preference?
Select an answer to reveal the explanation.
Short Explanation
MED is a polite suggestion to the ISP: ‘if you’re comparing our two doors, the north door has the lower number.’ It’s not a command—the ISP can ignore it—but it’s the classic inbound hint between those entrances.
Full Explanation
Multi-Exit Discriminator (MED) lets an AS suggest which of its entry points an eBGP neighbor should prefer when multiple links exist; lower MED is preferred when MED is compared. The ISP retains policy control, so MED is a weak hint rather than a guarantee. LOCAL_PREF and Weight are not tools the city sets inside the ISP. AS-path prepending lengthens a path and would be applied on the entrance you want to de-prefer, not as a MED substitute on the preferred door.