Routing & Routing Protocols

Introduction

When networking was first introduced, only a small number of devices were interconnected As networks grew, broadcasts and collisions caused significant issues In order to reduce broadcasts, Layer 3 devices, protocols, and addresses are used to segment the network

Routing Basics

Reasons to segment a network at Layer 3 include:

Creation of small troubleshooting areas Creation of small administrator management areas Interconnection of remote offices using WAN technologies Grouping clients together with similar network resources

A router is required to properly forward data between clients on different segments. A router is a device that forwards data based on a logical Layer 3 address Many routers support the use of different protocols The routing process usually occurs between physical network interfaces but can also be accomplished between logical network interfaces When a single physical network interface has more than one address assigned, it is said to have a logical interface A router can be any network device with the proper software to make routing decisions

Two key pieces of information are required for any device to route packets:

A route to one or more networks A destination Layer 3 address

The routes to a given network are stored in the memory of the router and are referred to as a routing table On a Router there is an entry for each network and its corresponding network interface kept in memory The table allows the router to properly forward frames out the correct interface This occurs once the frame is received and the destination address has been processed A routing table only maintains the best possible route to a destination, not all possible routes Routing table entries have the following functions:

Network destination Netmask Gateway Interface Metric

The task of populating the routing table is accomplished by using either dynamic routing or static routing Dynamic Routing uses routing protocols to build route tables automatically Static routing requires manual route table entries and updates to different networks

Routing Protocols Routing Table & Routing protocol

The goal of a routing protocol is to build and maintain the routing table. This table contains the learned networks and associated ports for those networks. Routers use routing protocols to manage information received from other routers, information learned from the configuration of its own interfaces, along with manually configured routes

Routing Protocol Classification

Routing Protocols

Interior

Exterior

DistVector

LinkState

Hybrid

BGP

EGP

RIP

Dynamic routing using routing protocols IGRP

OSPF EIGRP

Purpose of routing protocols is to build a routing table with the best routes Interior Routing protocols are categorized into two types:

Distance Vector Link State Hybrid

Distance Vector Routing Protocols Distance vector routing protocols are simple Generally they are easy to configure They use simple logic to determine the best path to a given destination The term metric refers to the method or measurement used by the routing protocol logic to determine the best path to a given network

A distance vector routing protocol usually uses hop count as its metric A distance vector routing protocol is characterized by how it communicates with other routing devices Distance vector routing protocols use broadcasts to advertise their entire routing table to directly connected peer routers Convergence is the time it takes for a given set of routers to learn routes to all networks Convergence describes the time it takes a set of routers to learn of a change in the network Distance vector routing protocols generally take longer to converge than link state protocols because they use a periodic route advertisement schedule A routing loop occurs when routers get confused during update operations, causing frames to bounce back and forth between a set of interfaces

Two easy methods to identify routing loops:

Tracert or traceroute TCP/IP utilities View the routing table and the metric associated with the network

Prevent routing loops by using the following software based methods:

Split horizon Hold-down timers Triggered updates Hop count limits Poisoning

Link State Routing Protocols

Link state routing protocols are more intelligent than distance vector protocols The metric used by most link state protocols is bandwidth allowing more complex routing configurations Routing protocols capable of making complex decisions use a mathematical formula or algorithm for deriving the best path or route to a given network Some link state protocols are capable of determining the best route to a destination network based on the following:

Delay Load Reliability MTU

When more than one metric is used it is referred to as a composite metric Link state protocols only send updates when changes occur, and they only send the changes, not the entire route table

Link state protocols use multicast and unicast traffic instead of broadcast traffic Link state routers also develop an overall picture of the networks available by establishing neighbor relationships

Administrative Classification

Routing protocols are also separated by an administrative classification based on where they are used in the networking environment:
Interior Routing Vs Exterior Routing

Interior Routing protocols operated within an Autonomous System. Exterior Routing protocols operated between Autonomous Systems.

Interior gateway protocols (IGPs) are used within a companys network infrastructure to maintain routing tables and policies set by the network administrators The two industry standard IGPs are: Routing Information Protocol

Interior Gateway routing Protocol Open Shortest Path First

RIP is a distance vector protocol that uses hop count for its metric when determining the best route to a given network In most implementations, RIP uses split horizon, hop count limit, and poisoning for routing loop prevention RIP is a classful routing protocol IGRP is a distance-vector routing protocol developed by Cisco IGRP was developed specifically to address problems associated with routing in large networks that were beyond the range of protocols such as RIP IGRP can select the fastest available path based on delay, bandwidth, load, and reliability IGRP also has a much higher maximum hop count limit than RIP IGRP has proven to be one of the most successful routing protocols. A highly successful and widely deployed routing protocol. Preserving many the effective features of RIP, while greatly expanding its capabilities. Disadvantage of IGRP is the lack of supporting for variable-length subnet masks (VLSM). EIGRP comes to solve that problem. The shortest path as measured by Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) is actually the fastest path based on bandwidth Shortest refers to the shortest time OSPF is used in large networks and ones requiring more intelligence than distance vector routing protocols

OSPF communicates using unicast and multicast packets It only transmits changes or updates to the routing table when they occur It uses hello packets to determine the current state of a link between itself and its neighbors It utilizes a link state database to maintain a local view of the entire routing environment

The configuration possibilities using OSPF Areas Autonomous system (AS) Backbone router Area border router (ABR) Autonomous system boundary router (ASBR)

Exterior Routing Protocols

The decision making process of EGPs is far more complex than that of internal protocols The power and routing flexibility associated with EGPs requires knowledge and understanding of the complex nature of your network and its traffic EGPs can let you influence and manage traffic only as it enters or leaves your AS One member of EGPs is the Exterior Gateway Protocol (EGP) EGP was the first protocol developed that allowed isolation of autonomous systems EPG is not used today and is replaced by the Border Gateway Protocol

Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) version 4 is the

most widely used exterior protocol in the world BGP is a well established standard and commonly used by ISPs and in very large companies there are actually two different classifications of BGP internal external iBGP is used for internal routing eBGP is used for external routing iBGP functions under different rules than eBGP If two routers running BGP are in the same AS, they are running an iBGP connection BGP communication starts by establishing peers Once the peers have been established, BGP routing information is exchanged and updated as necessary BGP is an advanced distance vector protocol that uses triggered updates for communicating changes in the routing environment Routing loops in BGP are avoided by using the AS-path attribute BGP uses active TCP sessions that are setup and continuously maintained. Convergence in the routing environment is very fast BGP has features that you can use to help speed the convergence of the network routes under your control Hierarchical routing depends on hierarchical addressing It is a routing technique originally designed to help reduce the size of the routing tables on the Internet as well as speed up the overall routing process

Hierarchical Routing

The concept uses an address block or blocks to represent different sections of a network Summarizing routes is often referred to as supernetting networks The process of summarization is built around the binary bit patterns just as in subnetting The difference is that rather than extending the subnet mask by adding bits, we remove bits By using summarization, you reduce the routing tables on each router To accomplish the summarization, you need to determine how many bits to unmask or un-subnet in order to make the networks appear as one big address block The routing protocol must transmit the network prefix along with the network address during route advertisements