o'reily ip routing memo part02

Chapter 2 – RIP
1. how RIP finds shortest paths
a. RIP updates
RIP updates are encapsulated in UDP. The well-known port number for RIP updates is 520.
RIP allows a station to request routes. So a machine that has just booted up can request the routing table from its neighboring routers instead of wating until the next cycle of updates.
The destination IP address in RIP update is 255.255.255.255, the source IP address is the IP address of the interface from which the update is issued.
b. RIP metric
a measure of the number of hops to a destination network.
16 hops will be unreachable.
c. processing RIP updates
destination network unknown –––––––– install
destination network known with a smaller metric ––––––––modify
destination network known with a larger metric ––––––––ignore
destination network known with a higher metric from the same next hop ––––––––update
destination network known with a same metric from different next hop ––––––––RFC1058: ignore/Cisco: installed as a parallel path (up to 4), used for loading balance.
d. parallel paths
how will traffic split over two equal links depends on the switching mode configured on the Cisco router. Two common switching modes are process switching and fast switching.
(i) process switching
Results in packet-by-packet load balancing
Very CPU intensive
Commands:
Config#int s0
Config-if#no ip route-cache
(ii) fast switching
Fast switching thus load-balances destination-by-destination (or session-by-session).

2.convergence
a. four key timers of DV protocol
(i) update timer (default : 30 seconds)
Period between updates
(ii) invalid timer (default : 180 seconds)
Six consecutive updates were missed, the source of the routing information is considered suspect. (but packets are STILL forwarded to the next hop specified in the routing table)
(iii) hold-down timer (default : 180 seconds)
When invalid timer expires, route automatically enters the hold-down phase. During hold-down, all updates regarding the route are disregarded.
(iv) flush timer (default : 240 seconds)
Set to 0 when an update is received. When expires, the route is removed from the routing table nd the router is ready to receive an update.
Flush timer overrides hold-down timer.