Which statement about the BGP next-hop behavior for eBGP is true?

• A. The next-hop is the IP address to reach the next AS
• B. The next-hop is always the neighbor's interface address
• C. The next-hop is always the next router's IP
• D. There is no next-hop in BGP

Answer: (A)

In BGP, the next-hop attribute indicates the immediate router to forward to in order to reach the destination network. For routes learned via external BGP, the next-hop is set to the IP address of the advertising neighbor’s interface on the directly connected link. This means the next-hop is the IP address you would use to reach the next AS along the path—the address of the neighbor that announced the route.

This behavior ensures you have a valid, directly reachable next hop to forward traffic toward the destination AS. It isn’t a generic “final destination” address, and it isn’t a global constant; it’s specifically the neighbor’s address on the link between the peers.