NET 365

Routing Protocols

Anthony Lombardo
DePaul University
DePaul University 1
 Routing Protocols
◼ We want automatic routing table updates!
Routers use dynamic routing protocols to do
this.
◼ Dynamic Routing Protocols
◼ Routers exchange routing information packets with
other routers to learn about all possible routes to all
destination subnets within a routing domain.
◼ Routers choose least-cost route to each destination
subnet and keep that route in their routing table.
◼ Routing tables are dynamically updated when
network topology changes (i.e. a link goes up/down).

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 Dynamic Routing Protocols
▪ The purpose of a dynamic routing protocol is to:
-Discover remote networks
-Maintaining up-to-date routing information
-Choosing the best path to destination networks based on some
path metric (least cost routing).
-Ability to find a new best path if the current path is no longer
available

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 Routing Protocols Metrics
▪ Metric
A value used by a routing protocol to determine which
routes are better than others.

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 Routing Protocols Metrics
▪ Metrics used in IP routing protocols
-Bandwidth
-Cost
-Delay
-Hop count
-Load
-Reliability

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 Routing Protocols Metrics
▪ The Metric Field in the
Routing Table
▪ Metric used for each
routing protocol
-RIP - hop count
-IGRP & EIGRP -
Bandwidth (used by
default), Delay (used by
default), Load, Reliability
-IS-IS & OSPF – Cost,
Bandwidth (Cisco’s
implementation)

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 Cisco Routing Table
▪ IOS Command: show ip route

Code IP Subnet [ Admin Next Hop Time since Outgoing

(how Distance / last route Interface
route Metric ] update
was received
learned)
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 Routing Table Structure
▪ Routing Table is stored in ram and contains information
about:
▪Directly connected networks – these networks are stored in
Routing Table when you set an IP address & subnet mask on a
router interface (Code = C)
▪Remotely connected networks - this is a network that is not
directly connected to a particular router (must go through at
least one other router to reach this network)

▪ Show ip route command is used to view a routing table

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 Routing Protocols Metrics
▪ Load balancing
Routers will distribute packets equally among multiple
equal-cost paths

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 Administrative Distance of a Route
▪ Purpose of a metric
It’s a calculated value used to determine the best path to a
destination

▪ Purpose of Administrative Distance

It’s a numeric value that specifies the preference of a particular
routing protocol

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 Administrative Distance of a Route
▪ Identifying the Administrative Distance (AD) in a
routing table
It is the first number in the brackets in the routing table

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 Administrative Distance of a Route
▪ AD values of Dynamic Routing Protocols

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 Dynamic Routing Protocols
▪ Components of a routing protocol
Algorithm
Used for collecting/processing routing information and best
path determination
Routing protocol messages
These are messages for discovering neighbors and
exchange of routing information

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 Types of Routing Protocols
◼ Interior Gateway Protocols (IGPs)
◼ Routers within same Autonomous System exchange
routing information about subnets within that AS
(called the routing domain).
◼ Objective: synchronize routing tables so that all
routers contain correct routes to all subnets in AS.
◼ Exterior Gateway Protocols (EGPs)
◼ Border routers in different AS exchange routing
information with each other.
◼ Objective: Advertise routes from one Border Router
to another Border Router.

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 Classifying Routing Protocols
▪ Types of routing protocols:
-Interior Gateway Protocols (IGP)
-Exterior Gateway Protocols (EGP)

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 Classifying Routing Protocols
▪ Interior Gateway Protocol Types: Distance Vector &
Link State Routing Protocols
Distance vector
– routes are advertised as vectors
of distance & direction.
– incomplete view of network
topology (only neighbors).
– periodic updates.
Link state
– complete view of network
topology is created.
– updates are not
periodic.

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 – Criteria used to compare routing protocols
▪-Time to convergence
▪-Scalability
▪-Resource usage
▪-Implementation & maintenance
▪ Distance Vector protocol advantages:
▪ Lowest resource usage
▪ Easiest implementation and maintenance
▪ Link State protocol advantages:
▪ Fastest time to convergence
▪ Greatest scalability

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 Distance Vector Routing Protocols

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 Classful vs. Classless
Routing
◼ In Classful Routing, we make the following assumptions:
◼ RIRs, ISPs only allocate Class A, Class B or Class C address blocks
to customers.
◼ Internet backbone router table entries only use default masks.
◼ Customers use only straight subnetting – that is, all subnets are the
same size. All subnets of a particular network use the same mask.
◼ Subnets from the same classful network must be physically
contiguous – that is, they cannot be separated by another network.
◼ Routing protocols only advertise network addresses and do not
advertise subnet masks.

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 IPv4 Classful Subnets
Default Subnet Masks
Address Value in 1st byte Default Subnet
Class Mask
A 1-126 [Link] or
/8
B 128-191 [Link] or
/16
C 192-223 [Link]
or /24

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 Classless Routing
◼ In Classless Routing, the assumptions are:
◼ RIRs and ISPs can allocate address blocks in any 2x size.
◼ Internet backbone router table entries can use any mask.
This is called CIDR (Classless InterDomain Routing).
◼ Routers can use different masks on different subnets
from the same network. This is called Variable Length
Subnet Masks (VLSM).
◼ Subnets from the same address block can be separated
by other networks (not required to be contiguous).
◼ Routing protocols advertise subnet mask along with
network address
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 Routing Protocols

Note: IGRP and EIGRP are Cisco proprietary protocols. All

other protocols are public standards (RFCs).
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 Time Line

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