RIP

Good old RIP! The oldest distance vector routing protocol which exists here since early 1969

So what is the magic? And why we are going to keep using this old routing protocol?

The answer is very simple – simplicity and wide spread usage.

RIP is very simple routing protocol, which doesn't require complex routing calculations, large database or even the craving for memory unlike his more sophisticated brothers (EIGRP, OSPF, ISIS).

Due to his nature he is suitable for small LAN's and can be integrated in large wide networks were the end points are low-end non-brand routers (D-Link, Linksys, Edimax etc.). Furthermore RIP can be found in Microsoft Windows servers and UNIX/Linux systems and by that allow these machines to participate and to be aware to routing decisions.

RIP (routing Information Protocol) Summary

The metric of RIP is hop count were 1 is for directly connected neighbor and 16 for unreachable destination

RIP uses UDP port 520

There are two version of RIP: v1 and v2, the main difference between the two are classful and classless routing and the way they are sending updates (broadcast and multicast)

Each RIP packet is composed from 4 bytes for initial message, 20 bytes for each route advertised (up to 25 routes per packet) and more 8 bytes for UDP header will set the maximum packet size to 512 bytes.

RIP has 2 Message types: Request and Response, both are represented by the command area in the packet decode with the number 1 or 2 accordingly.

Timers

Update timer – every 30 seconds the RIP router sends update message with full routing table to each RIP enabled interface.

Invalid timer – the time that pass before a route become invalid. Cisco IOS default is 180 seconds (six update period)

Flush timer – 240 seconds before the router will flush the route from the routing table. Until then it will remain in the routing table and marked as unreachable.

Holddown timer – An update with a hop count higher than the metric recorded in the routing table will cause the route to go into holddown for 180 seconds.

Sleep timer – This timer, which sets in milliseconds, prevent routing flooding in case of flush event. The value should be less then update timer else routing tables will be unsynchronized.

These timers can be manipulated by the command:

timers basic update invalid holddown flush sleep

Flash-update Threshold

Suppress a flush update if regular update occurs within the specific time

router(config-router)#flash-update-threshold 10

Source IP Validates

RIP and IGRP are the only routing protocols that validate the source IP address of incoming updates.

In order to disable this behavior use the command:

router(Config-router)#no validate-source ip

Split –horizon

Basic routing-loop prevention mechanism which doesn't allow a router to advertise a route prefix back to an interface, which the router, has learned this route.

On a Frame-Relay topology where multipoint is used on a physical interface, split-horizon is disabled. While using multipoint on a sub-interface, split-horizon is enabled.

To disable split-horizon used interface configuration mode command:

router(Config-if)#no split-horizon

Triggered Updates

Suppress periodic updates and sends only triggered updates

router(Config-if)#ip rip triggered

This command works on Point-to-point and some multipoint configurations and should be configured on both sides of the link.

Passive-interface

When passive-interface is configured on a RIP router it prevents from the router to send updates on the configured interface, but the router will continue to listen and receive RIP updates.

router(config-router)#passive-interface fastEthernet 0/0

Unicast updates

By default RIP sends and receive updates through broadcast (RIPv1) or Multicast (RIPv2 224.0.0.9).

In order to send and receive updates using unicast, first configure passive-interface to prevent multicast and then configure the neighbor command:

router(config-router)#neighbor 10.1.24.2

RIPv2 Broadcast

In order to configure RIPv2 routers to exchange updates using broadcast configure:

router(config-if)#ip rip v2-broadcast

Summary Address

To summarize an address:

router(config-if)#ip summary-address rip 150.1.0.0 255.255.255.0

Output Delay

In order to prevent routing information lose while sending updates we can configure a delay between using the following command:

router(config-router)#output-delay 10

Input Queue

Changing the receiving router's queue for getting updates:

router(config-router)#input-queue 75

The default is 50

Authentication

Using RIP authentication on interface level with two modes: clear text and MD5

In MD5 key number must be match.

MD5 Authentication example:

First create a key chain:

Router(Config)#key chain TST

Router(Config-keychain)#key 1

Router(Config-keychain-key)#key-string cisco

Configure authentication type (Clear-text or MD5 and key-chain on interface level)

Router(Config-if)#ip rip authentication mode md5

Router(Config-if)#ip rip authentication key-chain TST

Basic RIP Route Influence

Access-list with route-maps while injecting conditional default-route example:

router rip

version 2

default-information originate route-map TST

no auto-summary

access-list 1 permit 112.1.1.0 0.0.0.255

access-list 1 permit 112.2.2.0 0.0.0.255

route-map TST permit 10

match ip address 1

While 112.1.1.0/24 and 112.2.2.0/24 are in the routing table, this router will inject a default route into RIP domain.

Offset-list example:

router rip

version 2

offset-list 1 out 12 Serial0/0.12

offset-list 1 out 13 Serial0/0.14

no auto-summary

access-list 1 permit 103.0.0.0 0.63.255.255

access-list 1 permit 104.0.0.0 0.31.255.255

In this example the router will advertise routes 103.0.0.0/18 and 104.0.0.0/19 to interface serial 0/0.12 with hop count of 12 and to interface serial 0/0.14 with hop count of 14.