UNIT III: NETWORK LAYER PROTOCOLS

Static Routing

Introduction to dynamic Routing Protocols

RIP v1 and RIP v2,OSPF

EIGRP

BGP

Routing is the process of selecting a path for traffic in a network, or between or across
multiple networks. Routing is performed for many types of networks, including circuit-switched
networks, such as the public switched telephone network (PSTN), computer networks, such as
the Internet.
Routing table
• A routing table can be either static or dynamic.
• A static table is one with manual entries.
• A dynamic table is one that is updated automatically when there is a change somewhere
in the Internet.
Routing Protocol
• A routing protocol is a combination of rules and procedures that lets routers in the
Internet inform each other of changes.
• INTERDOMAIN ------------path vector(BGP)
• INTRA DOMAIN
• ------------DISTANCE VECTOR(RIP)
• -------------LINK STATE(OSPF)
Autonomous System: Group of networks and routers under the authority of a Based on
single administration.
• Routing inside an autonomous system is referred to as intradomian (interior) routing.
• Routing between autonomous systems is referred to as interdomian (exterior) routing.

Static Routing
• static routing table is created, maintained, and updated by a network administrator,
manually.
• A static route to every network must be configured on every router for full connectivity.
• This provides a granular level of control over routing, but quickly becomes impractical
on large networks.
• Routers will not share static routes with each other, thus reducing CPU/RAM overhead
and saving bandwidth.
• static routing is not fault-tolerant, as any change to the routing infrastructure (such as a
link going down, or a new network added) requires manual intervention.
• Routers operating in a purely static environment cannot seamlessly choose a better route
if a link becomes unavailable.
• Advantages of Static Routing
 •Minimal CPU/Memory overhead
•No bandwidth overhead (updates are not shared between routers)
• Granular control on how traffic is routed
Disadvantages of Static Routing
• Infrastructure changes must be manually adjusted
• No “dynamic” fault tolerance if a link goes down
• Impractical on large network
DYNAMIC ROUTING
• A dynamic routing table is created, maintained, and updated by a routing protocol
running on the router.
• Examples of routing protocols include RIP
• (Routing Information Protocol), EIGRP (Enhanced Interior GatewayRouting Protocol),
and OSPF (Open Shortest Path First)
• Routers do share dynamic routing information with each other, which increases CPU,
RAM, and bandwidth usage.
• However, routing protocols are capable of dynamically choosing a different (or better)
path when there is a change to the routing infrastructure.
Advantages of Dynamic Routing
• Simpler to configure on larger networks
• Will dynamically choose a different (or better)route if a link goes down
• Ability to load balance between multiple links
Disadvantages of Dynamic Routing
• Updates are shared between routers, thus consuming bandwidth
• Routing protocols put additional load on router CPU/RAM
• The choice of the “best route” is in the hands of the routing protocol, and not the
network administrator

RIP
The Routing Information Protocol (RIP) is an intra-domain (interior) routing protocol
used inside an autonomous system. It is a very simple protocol based on distance vector
routing. RIP implements distance vector routing directly with some considerations.
 RIP uses the services of UDP on well-known port 520.

RIP messages
• Request
– A request message is sent by a router that has just come up or by a router that has
some time-out entries
– A request can ask about specific entries or all entries
• Response
– A response can be either solicited or unsolicited (30s or when there is a change in
the routing table)
RIP Timers
• Periodic timer
– It controls the advertising of regular update message (25 ~ 30 sec)
• Expiration timer
– It governs the validity of a route (180 sec)
 – The route is considered expired and the hop count of the route is set to 16
• Garbage collection timer
– A invalid route is not purged from the routing table until this timer expires (120
sec)
RIPv2 vs. RIPv1
• Classless Addressing
• Authentication
• Multicasting
– RIPv1 uses broadcasting to send RIP messages to every neighbors. Routers as
well as hosts receive the packets
– RIPv2 uses the all-router multicast address to send the RIP messages only to RIP
routers in the network

RIP message format

RIP version 2 format

 Com: Command, request (1), response (2)

 Ver: Version, current version is 2
 Family:  Family of protocol, for TCP/IP value is 2
 Tag: Information about autonomous system
 Network address: Destination address
 Subnet mask: Prefix length
 Next-hop address: Address length
 Distance: Number of hops to the destination
OSPF
 The Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) protocol is an intra-domain routing protocol based
on link state routing. Its domain is also an autonomous system.
 OSPF packets are encapsulated in IP datagrams.

Figure Areas in an autonomous system

Area in OSPF(1)
• A collection of networks with area ID
• Routers inside an area flood the area with routing information
• Area border routers summarize the information about the area and send it to other areas
• Backbone area and backbone routers
– All of the area inside an AS must be connected to the backbone
Area in OSPF (2)
• Virtual link
– If, because of some problem, the connectivity between a backbone and an area is
broken, a virtual link between routers must be created by the administration to
allow continuity of the functions of the backbone as the primary area

OSPF common header

LSA(link state advertiser) general header

LSA General Header (1)

• Link state age
– When a router creates the message, the value of this field is 0
– When each successive router forwards this message, it estimates the transit time
and adds it to the cumulative value of this field
LSA General Header (2)
• E flag
 – If this flag is set to 1, it means the area is a stub area (an area that is connected to
the backbone area by only one path
• T flag
– If this flag is set to 1, it means the router can handle multiple types of services
LSA General Header (3)
• Advertising router
– The IP address of the router advertising this message
• Link state sequence number
– A sequence number assigned to each link state update message
Hello packet

 OSPF uses the hello message to create neighborhood relationship and to test the
reachability of neighbors.
 This is the first step in link state routing. Before a router can flood all of the other routers
with information about its neighbors, it must first greet it neighbors.

Database description packet

 When a router is connected to the system for the first time or after a failure, it needs the
complete link state database immediately.
 Therefore, it sends hello packets to greet its neighbors. If this is the first time that the
neighbors hear from the router, they send a database description message.
 The database description packet does not contain complete database information; it only
gives an outline, the title of each lines in the database.
EIGRP stands for Enhanced Interior Gateway Routing Protocol

It is a Hybrid protocol also called an advanced Distance Vector routing protocol

It is called Hybrid because it has features of both Distance vector and link-state routing protocols

-         It uses DUAL – Diffusing Update Algorithm to determine the best path among available
paths. DUAL helps in a loop free routing.
-         It forms neighbors relationships with adjacent routers in the same Autonomous system
number
-         Sends traffic using uni cast or as multicast, depending on the packet type. It use the
multicast IP address 224.0.0.10
-         It uses Reliable Transport Protocol (RTP) for reliable delivery of packets
-         Easy in design ( Not complex like OSPF)
-         Incremental Updates: Means updates are sent when there is change in the topology. These
updates are reliable and are acknowledged on being received.
-         Partial Updates: Means send only what has changed not the entire routing table, this
conserves Network bandwidth
-         Uses Hello packets to maintain neighbor relationship
-         Fast convergence with concept of Successor and Feasible Successor
-         Supports VLSM
-         Classless Routing protocol
-         Administrative Distance of 90 for routes that originate from within the local Autonomous
System
-         Administrative Distance of 170 for external routes that come from outside the local
autonomous system
-         The maximum hop count is 224, default is 100
-         EIGRP routes can be summarized. Auto and manual summarization supported.
-         Hello packets are sent every 5 seconds

EIGRP uses three tables to maintain a database, similar to OSPF:

1. Neighbor Table: Lists the neighboring routers formed by using EIGRP Hellos. The
neighbors must belong to the same Autonomous System number. Lists all directly
connected neighbors. It shows the Next hop router and the interface through which it can
reach there. ‘show ipeigrp neighbors’ 
2. Topology Table: Lists all the path to destination of routes learned i.e. all routes in the
Autonomous System. All the routes learnt from EIGRP neighbors. Shows destination and
metric. ‘show ipeigrp topology’ 
3. Routing Table:the best path to a destination is entered in this table. This is used to route
traffic. Best routes from topology table are copied to the routing table. ‘show ip route’

EIGRP Packet Types

There are five packets type in EIGRP as mentioned below.

 1. Hello:Identifies neighbors and forms neighbor relationship. Hellos serve like the
keepalive mechanism. They are multicast to IP address 224.0.0.10. If the router receives a
hello packet from the neighbor its means the neighbor is up and available. 
2. Update: These packets are sent reliably to which ever router that needs the information.
The information contained is Routing information.  Sending Update packets help build
topology and routing tables. The update can be either unicast if sending to single
neighbor or multicast if sending to multiple neighbors. If multicast it is sent to IP address
224.0.0.10. 
3. Query: These packets are sent when EIGRP loses a network and does have any backup
paths i.e. if it loses a successor route and no feasible successor is available in the
topology table. The packet is sent reliable requesting for route information and sent as
multicast to address 224.0.0.10 
4. Reply: These packets are the response to the Query packet. It is sent reliably to the
querying router as unicast. 
5. Acknowledgement: Also known as ACKs are hello packets without any information. It
only contains the acknowledgement number. These packets acknowledge the receipt of
Update, Query and Reply packets. Acknowledgement packets are sent as unicast.

Neighbor Discovery

In the neighbor discovery process we will understand what happens when you configure
two routes for EIGRP.
1. Hello Sent: When EIGRP first starts, Hellos are used to build the Neighbor table.
These neighbor relationships are called adjacencies.

Once Router A and Router B are configured with EIGRP, hellos are sent. Here we see Router A
sending the Hello first.

2. UPDATE: Then the Router B sends a Hello and Update packet. The update contain all the
routing information
3.Acknowledge the Update. : router A then acknowledge the update it received from router B

4. Router A sends an update to Router B

5. Router B now will acknowledge the update received from Router A

EIGRP Route Selection / Metric

Each advertisement that a router receives from its neighbors has an Advertised Distance
(AD) and Feasible Distance (FD) to a route
The AD is a metric from neighbor to destination

The FD is a metric from the router(source) to the destination.

Successor/Feasible successor

 The successor is the best path to the destination.since it is the best path to the
destination.It will be copied from topology table to routing table.
 The feasible successor is the second best path or backup path to the destination.

BGP

 Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) is an interdomain routing protocol using path

vector routing. It first appeared in 1989 and has gone through four versions.
 BGP supports classless addressing and CIDR.
 BGP uses the services of TCP on port 179.

Internal and external BGP sessions

A speaker node advertises the path, not the metric of the nodes, in its AS or other ASs.
Path Vector Routing (1)
• Sharing
– A speaker in an AS shares its table with immediate neighbors
• Updating
– Adding the nodes that are not in its routing table and adding its own AS and the
AS that sent the table
– The routing table shows the path completely
Path Vector Routing (2)
• Loop prevention
– A route checks to see if its AS is in the path list to the destination
• Policy routing
– If one of the ASs listed in the path is against its policy, it can ignore that path and
that destination
– It does not update its routing table with the path, and it does not send this message
to its neighbors

Path Vector Routing (3)

• Optimum path
– Problem: each AS that is included in the path may use a different criteria for the
metric
– The optimum path is the path that fits the organization
– For Fig. 14-49, the author chose the one that had the smaller number of ASs
– Other criteria: security, safety, reliability, etc.

Types of Autonomous System(AS)

• Stub AS
– Only one connection to another AS (only a source or sink for data traffic)
• Multihomed AS
– More than one connection to other AS, but it is still only a source or sink for data
traffic
• Transit AS
– Multihomed AS that also allows transient traffic

Types of BGP messages

OPEN MESSAGE:
To create a neighborhood message.router running BGP opens a TCP connection
with a neighbour sends an open message.
UPDATE MESSAGE:
Heart of BGP protocol.it is used by a router to withdraw destinations , to
announce a new route to a destination.
KEEPALIVE:
BGP peers that are running exchange keep alive messages regularly(before their
hold time expires) to tell each other that they are alive.
NOTIFICATION:
notification is sent by a router whenever an error condition is detected or a router
wants to close the session.

BGP packet header

• Marker : reserved for authentication
• Length: length of total message in bytes.
• Type: type of message(1to 4)

Open message

Update message

Path Attributes
• ORIGIN(type 1)
– The source of the routing information (RIP, OSPF, etc)
• AS_PATH(type 2)
– The list of ASs through which the destination can be reached
• NEXT-HOP(type 3)
– The next router to which the data packet should be sent
• MULT-EXIT-DISC(TYPE 4) : THE MULTIPLE EXIT DISCRIMINATOR is a optional
intransitive attribute which discriminates among multiple exit paths to destination.
• LOCAL-PREF(TYPE 5):the routes the administrator prefers are given a high local
preference value.
• Atomic aggregate(type 6): it only defines single destination network.length of field is 0.
• Aggregator(type 7):optional.the attribute value gives the last AS follwed by ip address of
router.
• Network layer reachability information
– It defines the network that is actually advertised by this message
– Length field and IP address prefix
– BGP4 supports classless addressing and CIDR