A security administrator wants to ensure that the router setup prevents badly addressed packets from permanently circulating the network. Which of the following accomplishes this?

The Time to Live (TTL) value is crucial in preventing packets from endlessly circulating within a network. TTL is a field in the IP packet header that dictates the lifespan of the packet in terms of hops, or how many routers the packet can pass through before being discarded. Each time the packet passes through a router, the TTL value is decremented by one. When TTL reaches zero, the packet is dropped. This mechanism ensures that packets with routing issues do not loop indefinitely, conserving network resources and improving overall network stability.

In contrast, the other options serve different functions. For instance, DHCP is used for dynamically assigning IP addresses to devices on a network, while IPv6 is a protocol designed to replace IPv4, It does not specifically address the issue of packet circulation. ARP is utilized for mapping IP addresses to MAC addresses within a local network and does not relate to the TTL functionality. Understanding these distinctions highlights why TTL is the appropriate choice for addressing the concern of poorly addressed packets.