During a rapid BGP flood, which outcome is achieved by configuring max-prefix limits appropriately?

• A. Stop processing updates during rapid floods
• B. Preemptively reset BGP sessions
• C. Prevent memory exhaustion by limiting accepted routes during rapid changes
• D. Allow unlimited prefixes during floods

Answer: (C)

The key idea here is bounding resource use in BGP during unstable periods. Max-prefix limits set a ceiling on how many routes you will accept from a single neighbor. In a rapid flood, without this cap, a router could soak up thousands of prefixes, quickly exhausting memory and degrading performance or causing instability.

With an appropriate max-prefix setting, once the configured limit is reached, the router stops accepting further updates from that peer (and may reset the session). This keeps memory usage predictable and prevents exhaustion, which is exactly the outcome described: memory is protected by constraining the number of routes accepted during rapid changes.

The other options don’t fit as well. It doesn’t automatically stop processing all updates, nor does it inherently reset every BGP session preemptively. It also certainly doesn’t allow unlimited prefixes during floods.