Unicast Routing Protocols:

RIP, OSPF, and BGP

Objectives
Upon completion you will be able to:
Distinguish between intra and interdomain routing
Understand distance vector routing and RIP
Understand link state routing and OSPF
Understand path vector routing and BGP

TCP/IP Protocol Suite

14.1 INTRA- AND INTERDOMAIN

ROUTING
Routing inside an autonomous system is referred to
routing. Routing between autonomous systems is
interdomain routing.

TCP/IP Protocol Suite

as intradomain
referred to as

Figure 14.1

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Autonomous systems

Figure 14.2

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Popular routing protocols

14.2 DISTANCE VECTOR ROUTING

In distance vector routing, the least cost route between any two nodes is
the route with minimum distance. In this protocol each node maintains a
vector (table) of minimum distances to every node

The topics discussed in this section include:

Initialization
Sharing
Updating
When to Share
Two-Node Loop Instability
Three-Node Instability

TCP/IP Protocol Suite

Figure 14.3

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Distance vector routing tables

Figure 14.4

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Initialization of tables in distance vector routing

Note:
In distance vector routing, each node
shares its routing table with its
immediate neighbors periodically and
when there is a change.

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Figure 14.5

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Updating in distance vector routing

Figure 14.6

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Two-node instability

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Figure 14.7

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Three-node instability

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14.3 RIP
The Routing Information Protocol (RIP) is an intradomain routing
protocol used inside an autonomous system. It is a very simple protocol
based on distance vector routing.
The destination in a routing table is a network, which means the first
column defines a network address.
The metric used by RIP is very simple; the distance is defined as the
number of links (networks) to reach the destination. For this reason, the
metric in RIP is called a hop count.
Infinity is defined as 16, which means that any route in an autonomous
system using RIP cannot have more than 15 hops.
The next-node column defines the address of the router to which the packet
is to be sent to reach its destination.
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Figure 14.8

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Example of a domain using RIP

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14.4 LINK STATE ROUTING

In link state routing, if each node in the domain has the entire topology
of the domain, the node can use Dijkstras algorithm to build a routing
table.

The topics discussed in this section include:

Building Routing Tables

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Figure 14.15

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Concept of link state routing

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Figure 14.16

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Link state knowledge

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Building Routing Tables

FOUR ACTIONS TO BE PERFORMED FOR

CREATING A ROUTING TABLE
Creation of Link State Packet(LSP)
Flooding of LSPs
Formation of Shortest path Trees: Dijkstra Algorithm
Calculation of Routing Table

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Figure 14.17

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Dijkstra algorithm

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Figure 14.18

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Example of formation of shortest path tree

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Table 14.1 Routing table for node A

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14.5 OSPF
The Open Shortest Path First
routing protocol based on link
autonomous system.

(OSPF) protocol
state routing. Its

is an intradomain
domain is also an

Divided into areas-A collection of networks, hosts, routers.

Special Routers-Area Border Routers at the borders.
Special Areas- Backbone with Backbone routers.

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Figure 14.19

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Areas in an autonomous system

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Figure 14.20

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Types of links

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Figure 14.21

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Point-to-point link

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Figure 14.22

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Transient link

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Figure 14.23

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Stub link

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14.6 PATH VECTOR ROUTING

Path vector routing is similar to distance vector routing. There is at least
one node, called the speaker node, in each AS that creates a routing
table and advertises it to speaker nodes in the neighboring ASs..

The topics discussed in this section include:

Initialization
Sharing
Updating

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Figure 14.48

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Initial routing tables in path vector routing

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Figure 14.49

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Stabilized tables for four autonomous systems

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14.7 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.

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Figure 14.50

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Internal and external BGP sessions

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