Which of the following protocols assign(s) dynamic IP? i) POP ii) DHCP iii)…

Concept: A host normally cannot communicate on a network until it has an IP address. “Dynamic IP assignment” specifically refers to a protocol whose job is to hand a booting or connecting host an IP address (typically drawn from a server-side pool or table) at that moment — as opposed to protocols a host uses only after it already has an address, for entirely different services such as mail retrieval, device management, or control messaging.

Application: Checking each of the five listed protocols against this role:

• POP (Post Office Protocol): lets a mail client download messages from a mailbox server. It runs over a connection the client already has, using an IP address it already possesses — it has no mechanism to hand out an address.

• DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol): exists precisely to solve the address-assignment problem. A booting client broadcasts a request, and a DHCP server leases it an IP address — plus subnet mask, gateway, and DNS information — from a configured pool, for a renewable lease period.

• BOOTP (Bootstrap Protocol): DHCP’s direct predecessor, and performs the same core job — delivering an IP address (and boot-file location) to a client at startup — though its server draws the address from a fixed table of MAC-address-to-IP mappings rather than a leasable pool. It was widely used to bring up diskless workstations before DHCP layered automatic pooling and lease renewal on top of it.

• SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol): lets a management station poll status from, or push configuration to, network devices that are already addressed. It plays no part in giving a device its address.

• ICMP (Internet Control Message Protocol): carries control and diagnostic messages — for example the echo request/reply used by ping — between hosts that already have IP addresses. It also has no address-assignment role.

Cross-check: Grouping the five protocols by role confirms the split cleanly: DHCP and BOOTP are the only two whose entire function is delivering an address to a booting host; POP, SNMP, and ICMP all assume the host is already addressed and instead serve mail retrieval, device management, and diagnostics respectively — none of them assign anything.

Result: So the protocols that this exam key treats as assigning dynamic IP addresses are DHCP and BOOTP — options ii and iii. (Note: some technical references treat only DHCP as truly “dynamic,” since BOOTP maps each client to a preconfigured address rather than a leased pool; that finer distinction is noted here for completeness.)