When using Wireshark to acquire packet capture on a network, which device would enable the capture of all traffic on the wire?

A network tap (Test Access Point) is a passive hardware device inserted inline on a network segment that creates an exact copy of all passing traffic and forwards it to a monitoring port. Unlike port mirroring or SPAN, a tap captures every packet bidirectionally without introducing latency or dropping packets under load. This makes it the standard tool for full-fidelity packet capture in professional network analysis.

A Layer 3 switch routes packets between subnets but does not inherently copy all traffic to a capture interface - it would require SPAN port configuration and still may miss traffic on other segments.

A network bridge forwards frames between two network segments based on MAC addresses but does not duplicate traffic to an out-of-band monitoring interface.

An application firewall inspects and filters traffic at Layer 7 but is not designed to passively mirror all wire traffic to a packet capture tool.