Routing Protocol : RIPv1 & RIPv2

Today we are going to talk about the one of the dynamic routing protocol and the protocol which we are going to discuss is RIP. Before we start with the RIP protocol, first we need to understand what is routing protocol actually is.

What is Routing Protocol ?
Routing protocol is called the set of the rules on to the router which sends the packets from source to destination according to the routing table creating on the router, Of course that routing table is generally made on the set of the rules, like in distance vector routing protocol or can be via link state routing protocol or mixed of it.

So we have number of the routing protocols exists, but in this post we are basically discussing about the RIP protocol ( make sure you know the full form of this protocol)

RIP - Rest in Peace . No No .. Its Routing information Protocol ..  :)

Note : Now, one of the important part that you always remember is the AD value ( Administrative Distance ). The value of AD in the case of RIP is 120.

What is AD aka Administrative Distance ?
Well AD or the Administrative Distance is the truthiness or reliability of the routing protocol. Lesser the AD, higher the reliability of the routing protocol and will be preferred. Not understand ?

If we have two protocol, one with AD 120 and other with AD 110 , then the routing protocol for route selection will be preferred will be with the AD of 110.

So RIP is in the category of distance vector routing protocol. RIP basically broadcast its information to its neighbor after every 30 sec of time interval. RIP uses best path as shortest HOP count from source to destination. When we said HOP Count, we meant for a router as a hop. 

So let us suppose, we have two path from one source to destination. One path says distance between source to destination is 10 Hops means 10 routers are there in between and other path says the distance between source to destination is 12 HOPs means 12 routers in between source and destination. So the best path is the path with the HOP count of 10. Hope you understand the concept of the path selection in the RIP protocol.

Note : If the HOP count in the RIP is more than 15, the destination is defined as unreachable

What ? I really didn't understand. Well this means the source and the destination will not be as far as 16 Hops else this protocol make that path as unreachable and will not shown in the routing protocol.

Below is the topology showing the use of the RIPv1 and RIPv2 protocols.

Fig 1.1- Sample Network Topology

The Topology is just an example and the IP addresses uses in the topology is for the demo purposes and has no relevance with any of the enterprise network.

So how RIP sharing information within the topology ?

Well RIP- routing information Protocol always share the full topology table with its neighbor after every 30 seconds for the update or changes in the topology. It always send broadcast on the IP address 255.255.255.255 for destination. Also we need to keep this in mind that RIP uses the split horizon with poison reverse method to prevent the count-to-infinity problem.

Well we will discuss the more facts around RIP like the versions in RIP ( RIPv1 and RIPv2) , The split horizon rule, RIP timers, the fact of load balancing in RIP and route poising in the RIP. Its the basic post regarding the RIP. We will come up with many more posts on RIP.

Configuring the basic RIP- Router Information Protocol