Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA) 2026 – 400 Free Practice Questions to Pass the Exam

Link Aggregation Control Protocol (LACP) employs the designations of active and passive to manage the aggregation of network links effectively. In an active state, a device actively attempts to establish a LAG (Link Aggregation Group) by sending LACP packets to negotiate with another device. This proactive behavior ensures that the device is continuously trying to form or maintain a link aggregation.

Conversely, in passive mode, the device will wait for LACP packets from the active device to initiate the aggregation process. This means it will only respond to incoming LACP communications rather than initiating them. The combination of these two states—active and passive—allows for flexible configurations in diverse networking environments, ensuring efficient bandwidth utilization and redundancy.

The other designations, such as On and Off, Enabled and Disabled, and Desirable and Auto, are related to different link configuration methods, like static configurations or other protocols, but do not specifically pertain to LACP’s negotiation process. Therefore, understanding the roles of active and passive is crucial for configuring and troubleshooting LACP link aggregation setups.