Introduction to Routing Protocols

The purpose of routing protocols is to enable end-to-end network layer connectivity

between endpoints. There is always a forward and reverse path selected between
endpoints for each session. The routing table is comprised of multiple routes to
different destination subnets that are learned from different route sources. The route
source can be classified as either connected, static, default, or dynamic. The
distinction is in how the local router learns of the route. For example, dynamic and
connected routes are automatically learned, while static and default routes are
manually configured.

Figure 1 Network Layer Forwarding Path

Static vs Dynamic
Static, default and connected routes are the most common route types since they
are found on most routers. Static and default routes are explicitly configured and
automatically added to the local routing table upon configuration. They have an
administrative distance of 1 and path metric of zero (0). The static route has an
administrative distance lower than any dynamically learned route, and preferred over
dynamic routes to the same destination.

Static routes are NOT advertised to neighbors unless they are advertised through a
dynamic routing protocol. Connected routes are automatically generated and added
to the routing table when a network interface with an IP address is enabled. They
have an administrative distance of zero and are preferred over all other route types.

There are various dynamic routing protocols that are designed to exchange route
information with neighbors. The network administrator does not configure dynamic
routes. Instead, they are learned from a connected neighbor so that each router
installs and selects routes for best path selection.
The routes advertised are based on the routing protocol configuration. Common
routing protocols such as OSPF, EIGRP, RIP, IS-IS, BGP, along with static and
default routes support IPv4 and IPv6 address space. Network devices such as
routers and Layer 3 switches support multiple dynamic routing protocols. Cisco ASA
firewalls also support routing services with routed mode operation. The distinction
between each routing protocol is how they learn, update, and advertise routes
between neighbors.

Distance Vector vs Link State

Dynamic routing protocols can be classified as either link state or distance vector
based on routing operation. The distinction between them is based on how
neighbors communicate, send routing updates and converge. Originally, before
internet connectivity, network domains were smaller and distance vector protocols
such as RIP were adequate. There has been a paradigm shift to an IP-only internet
connection model, with larger network domains and complex traffic routing. Distance
vector routing protocols are being replaced with link state protocols for scalability and
performance.

Distance vector routing protocols advertise their routing table to all connected
neighbors at regular intervals. That occurs whether or not a topology change occurs
or neighbor sends a request. Flooding of full routing tables occurs throughout the
network domain when there is a link failure. That causes slower convergence that
gets exponentially worse as the network domains become larger. There is also
routing instability and flapping since routers do not have accurate updated route
information.

Link state routing protocols are more sophisticated, since only event-triggered
routing updates are sent to neighbors. That occurs when an interface goes down and
a topology changes results. There is faster link failure detection, and only partial
updates are sent for any missing route/s. The result is faster convergence and
performance compared with distance vector protocols. Flooding occurs throughout
the routing domain, however it is limited between areas to a single advertisement.
SPF algorithm calculates shortest path based on an updated topology table.

Table 1 Distance Vector vs Link State Comparison

OSPF and IS-IS are considered link state protocols. RIP is really the only pure
distance vector protocol left, and has been updated with RIPv2 enhancements.
EIGRP is classified as an advanced distance vector protocol with characteristics of
both distance vector and link state protocols. EIGRP only has a neighbor topology
table instead of a complete network topology database. Similar to link state
protocols, EIGRP does form neighbor adjacencies and sends event-triggered
updates instead of periodic full routing table updates.

BGP is a path vector protocol that advertises the destination path comprised of
single of multiple autonomous system numbers (ASN) with each route. There are
some other path attributes that are advertised with each route as well. The routes
advertised from BGP neighbors include vector (direction) information for each
forwarding path with AS path attribute.

Route Selection Algorithm

There are rules for route selection between different routing protocols and within the
same routing protocol. The router first installs routes, and then selects the best path
or route based on a route selection algorithm. Route sources include dynamic
protocols (OSPF, EIGRP, IS-IS, BGP), static, default, and connected routes.

Figure 2 IP Routing Table

Sometimes there are multiple routes advertised from multiple route sources to the
same destination. Each dynamic routing protocol maintains a separate routing table
with best routes. The route with lowest administrative distance is installed in the
global routing table when multiple routes exist to the same destination. For example,
EIGRP has a lower administrative distance than OSPF or IS-IS. Conversely, static
routes are preferred over all dynamic routes.

Table 2 Administrative Distance

The route with lowest metric is installed when multiple routes exist from the same
routing protocol to the same destination. In addition, when multiple routes with equal
metric exist from the same routing protocol to the same destination, they are all
installed and load balancing is enabled. The number of routes installed in the routing
table for load balancing purposes, is based on routing protocol support.

Figure 3 Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) Table

The destination IP address field of each inbound packet is examined and a routing
table lookup occurs for the best route. Once a route is selected, that creates a next
hop forwarding path. There is frame rewrite of next hop MAC address obtained from
the ARP table, and the data message is sent.

Figure 4 Inbound Routing Lookup

For the purpose of installing routes in the routing table, the router considers different
prefix lengths as different destinations. That is why multiple routes from the same
and/or different routing protocols are installed in the routing table. Tie breaker is
longest match rule, that selects the route with the longest subnet mask (prefix) from
among routes already in the routing table.

1. Install route = lowest administrative distance –> multiple route sources

2. Install route/s = lowest metric –> same routing protocol only
3. Select route = longest match rule –> multiple routes and route sources
4. Select default route when no other route exists
5. Discard packet when no default route exists –> ICMP unreachable message

Single Routing Protocol Only

Anytime you have only a single routing protocol implemented on a router, then
administrative distance applies only if static routes are configured. For example, you
could have a static route and an OSPF route to the same destination. The static
route would then be installed in the routing table for that destination subnet. The
exception is if both routes have different prefix (subnet mask) lengths. At that point,
longest match rule is in effect and router would select the route with longest prefix for
packet forwarding.

Open Shortest Path First (OSPF)

Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) is a link-state routing protocol that routes IP-only. It
is a scalable, open standard interior gateway protocol (IGP) that supports
multivendor network devices. OSPF routers build and maintains a global topology
database with the exchange of link-state advertisements (LSA). The purpose of
LSAs are to advertise topology and routing information between OSPF enabled
routers. There are event-triggered updates that are sent only when a topology
change occurs (link failure) to conserve bandwidth.

Areas
OSPF is a hierarchical layered architecture that is defined with single or multiple
areas. The single area design is often implemented with smaller network domains to
enable faster convergence when a link failure occurs. The advantage of multiple
areas is primarily within larger network domains. There are smaller routing tables on
each router per area. Route summarization can be enabled at an area border router
(ABR) to reduce the size of routing tables and amount of LSA flooding. Routing
issues such as flapping are limited to each area with multi-area OSPF design.

Figure 5 OSPF Multi-Area Design

There is a mandatory common backbone area 0 only for multi-area OSPF. All other
areas must connect to the OSPF backbone area. That is required to advertise routes
between areas and prevent routing loops. The exception is when a virtual link is
configured to tunnel through a normal area to the backbone area. OSPFv2 refers to
the version of OSPF that only supports IPv4 addressing on network interfaces. It is
the most widely deployed version of OSPF. The area number for single-area OSPF
does not have to be numbered area 0.

Figure 6 OSPF Area Types

OSPF supports a variety of area types that are configured to advertise specific
routes. The most common are normal areas and the backbone area where most
LSAs are permitted. Stub areas are often implemented at remote and branch offices
for default routing to a data center. OSPF not-so-stubby-area (NSSA) forwards
redistributed routes from an external routing domain such as EIGRP.

OSPF router types are classified based on function and location. There are
backbone routers, normal routers, area border routers (ABR), and autonomous
system border router (ASBR). OSPF ABR routers have interfaces configured in more
than one area. They are responsible for advertising routes between areas. OSPF
ASBR is a redistribution point between OSPF and an external routing domain such
as EIGRP or BGP.

OSPF LSA route types denote the route topology information and where it
originated. Type 1 identifies a single router and referred to as Intra-Area (O). Type 2
is a network LSA since it is associated with a network segment (DR/BDR) and
designated as Intra-Area (O) as well. Type 3 is a summary LSA generated only by an
ABR and referred to as Inter-Area (IA). Type 4 LSA is a summary ASBR advertised
only from an ABR, that advertises a route to the ASBR. Type 7 is an NSSA LSA that
originates from an ASBR and is converted to Type 5 LSA at an ABR. They provide
routes to external routing domains for OSPF routers.

Table 3 OSPF Areas and LSA Types

Route Convergence
The primary characteristic of a link-state protocol is a global topology database
created when link states are exchanged between all neighbors within an area. There
are link states advertised between all areas as well, and routes are installed in the
routing table.

OSPF runs Dijkstra SPF algorithm for shortest path (lowest cost) computation to
each destination from the link state database and populates the routing table. This
makes link state protocols extremely scalable, with optimized routing and fast
convergence. After convergence when all OSPF tables are updated, there are only
event-triggered routing updates that are sent to neighbors.

The correct order of operation for OSPF convergence initially starts with OSPF
neighbors exchanging hello packets to form neighbor adjacency. Next all OSPF
connected neighbors exchange LSA packets. OSPF neighbors then exchange
database descriptor packets (DBD) to build the topology database. OSPF runs SPF
algorithm for shortest path computation to all destinations, and that is used to build
the routing table.

Neighbor Adjacency > Exchange LSAs > Build Topology Table > SPF Algorithm >
Build Routing Table

Path Selection
OSPF link-state advertisements (LSA) are comprised of topology and route
information. SPF calculates shortest (best) path to each destination based on route
type and metric. Any router with an OSPF only deployment does not consider
administrative distance unless there are static routes configured.

As a result, routes are installed based on route type first when there are multiple
OSPF routes to the same destination. OSPF installs the route with lowest metric
when there are multiple OSPF routes of the same route type. Finally, routes of the
same route type with equal cost metric are installed and up to six equal cost paths
are load balanced by default.

The order of preference starts with OSPF Intra-Area (O) route type. They represent
any OSPF route that originates from within the same area and have the highest
preference. OSPF Inter-Area (IA) routes are exchanged between areas and
preferred next after Intra-Area (O) routes. Finally there are NSSA and external routes
that originate from a different routing protocol through an OSPF ASBR redistribution
router.
NSSA and external routes have a lower preference than other previously mentioned
route types. LSA Type 7 originate from an ASBR and include NSSA Type 1 route
(N1) and NSSA Type 2 route (N2). N1 and N2 routes are advertised from an ASBR
and transit not-so-stubby-area (NSSA). They are converted to Type 5 LSA at an ABR
and flooded throughout the OSPF domain. The cost assigned to N1 is a default
metric cost (20) + internal path cost from ASBR to destination. The cost assigned to
N2 is a default metric cost (20) only and added at ASBR router redistribution point.

LSA Type 5 originate from an ABR and include External Type 1 route (E1) and
External Type 2 route (E2). They are flooded from an ABR throughout the OSPF
routing domain. The cost assigned to E1 route is a default metric cost (20) + internal
path cost from ASBR to destination. The cost assigned to E2 route is a default metric
cost (20) only and does not include internal path cost from ASBR to destination. It is
the least preferred route based on order of route type preference shown here.

Intra-Area (O) > Inter-Area (IA) > NSSA (N1) > External (E1) > NSSA (N2) > External
(E2)

Metric Calculation
Each routing protocol has a unique method for calculating route metric. OSPF
calculates a cost metric based on interface bandwidth. The default reference
bandwidth of an OSPF enabled interface = 100 Mbps.

interface cost = 100 Mbps / interface bandwidth

OSPF only considers the cost of all outbound interfaces when computing path
metric for a route. The lowest cost assignable to an OSPF link is 1. Any network
interface that is 100 Mbps or faster has a default cost of 1 even though calculation
could arrive at a lower number.

The reference bandwidth of OSPF is configurable to account for Ethernet interfaces

that start at Gigabit speed (1000 Mbps) and faster. The reference bandwidth must
match for all routers in the same OSPF routing domain. The following example
modifies reference bandwidth to 10 Gbps so that faster interfaces are considered.

router ospf 1
auto-cost reference-bandwidth 10000

The alternative to reference bandwidth method is ip ospf cost command. It allows

you to configure the cost metric manually on a network interface. The third option is
to manually configure interface speed with the interface bandwidth command. That
affects how OSPF calculates metric for that specific link only, and does not affect
physical interface speed. You would have to configure the same bandwidth on
neighbor interface to prevent negotiation of a lower speed. This method is not
recommended since it could affect how other routing protocols calculate metric.