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EIGRP Tutorial
December 3rd, 2010 Go to comments
Feasible Distance (FD) and Advertised Distance (AD)
In the next part, we will define these terms and take an example to make them clear.
Advertised distance (AD): the cost from the neighbor to the destination.
Feasible distance (FD): The sum of the AD plus the cost between the local router and the next-hop
router
Successor: The primary route used to reach a destination. The successor route is kept in the routing
table. Notice that successor is the best route to that destination.
Feasible successor: The backup route. To be a feasible successor, the route must have an AD less than
the FD of the current successor route
Maybe its a bit confused with these terms so below is an example to make it clear.

Suppose you are in NEVADA and want to go to IOWA. From NEVADA you need to specify the best
path (smallest cost) to IOWA.
In this topology, suppose router A & B are exchanging their routing tables for the first time. Router B
says Hey, the best metric (cost) from me to IOWA is 50 and the metric from you to IOWA is 90 and
advertises it to router A. Router A considers the first metric (50) as the Advertised distance. The second
metric (90), which is from NEVADA to IOWA (through IDAHO), is called the Feasible distance.

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NEVADA also receives the cost path from NEVADA -> OKLAHOMA -> IOWA advertised by router
C with the Advertised distance of 70 and Feasible distance of 130.
All of these routes are placed in the topology table of router A:
Route

Advertised distance Feasible distance

NEVADA -> IDAHO -> IOWA

50

NEVADA -> OKLAHOMA -> IOWA 70

90
130

Router A will select the route to IOWA via IDAHO as it has the lowest Feasible distance and put it into
the routing table.
The last thing we need to consider is if the route NEVADA -> OKLAHOMA -> IOWA will be
considered as a feasible successor. To achieve this, it must satisfy the feasibility condition:
To qualify as a feasible successor, a router must have an AD less than the FD of the current
successor route
Maybe you will ask why do we need this feasibility condition? Well, the answer is because it
guarantees a loop-free path to the destination; in other words, it must not loop back to the current
successor.
If the route via the successor becomes invalid (because of a topology change) or if a neighbor changes
the metric, DUAL checks for feasible successors to the destination route. If one is found, DUAL uses it,
avoiding the need to recompute the route as the re-computation can be processor-intensive. If no suitable
feasible successor exists, a re-computation must occur to determine the new successor.
EIGRP calls these alternative, immediately usable, loop-free routes feasible successor routes, because
they can feasibly be used as a new successor route when the current successor route fails. The next-hop
router of such a route is called the feasible successor.
In this case, the route NEVADA -> OKLAHOMA -> IOWA has an AD (70) less than the FD of the
successor route (90) so it becomes the feasible successor route.
Of course in some cases the feasibility condition will wrongly drop loop-free paths. For example, if the
metric between OKLAHOMA and IOWA is greater than 90 then the route NEVADA -> OKLAHOMA
-> IOWA will not be considered as a feasible successor route although it is loop-free. But this condition
is necessary because it can guarantee the feasible successor routes are loop-free.
Notice that the feasible successors are placed in the topology table, not in the routing table.
Now router A has 3 complete tables as follows (we only consider route to IOWA network)

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Now you have a basic concept of EIGRP, in the next part we will dig into the 3 tables of EIGRP the
neighbor, topology & routing tables as understanding them is a requirement for a CCNA-taker and learn
how to calculate the metric of EIGRP.
Pages: 1 2 3
Comments (250) Comments
Comment pages
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1. routimt time ?
March 23rd, 2014
@9tut
the OSPF send routing table every 30 minutes
so what about EIGRP ?? when send routing table ?
2. Reza
April 2nd, 2014
Thanks 9tut for this very useful tutorial.
3. me
May 7th, 2014
thanks
4. lala
May 12th, 2014
EIGRP has triggerd-updates, which means, that it will only send update packets if the routing
table changes. Or a new Router is discoverd.
It is the 5. of the features mentioned on top of the page.
Hope it will help you to understand.

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5. Vivek
May 22nd, 2014
its a great tutorial for beginners, I salute the author
6. sony
June 1st, 2014
Thanks alots, you are the best, please include some more lab. e.g WAN, VPN etc
7. GP
June 14th, 2014
Quick question. On startup I believe neighbors exchange topology tables, not routing tables. I just
want to make sure I understand it correctly.
8. Anonymous
June 14th, 2014
Great tuturial! Thanks!!!
9. Mohsin
June 14th, 2014
Greatly explained..thanks a lot
10. Amit Pandey
June 15th, 2014
VERY NICE MANY MANY THANKS
11. maniganda p As a security analyst
June 20th, 2014
this site are very useful.
12. John Mtulya
June 24th, 2014
The tutorial was very helpful to me!much thank to you administrator!
13. CCNAgeek
June 27th, 2014
Outbound interface in the Nevada routing table is E0 (not 50).
14. charandeep kaur
July 4th, 2014

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thanks a lot
15. jj123
July 5th, 2014
Be careful on the exams. Here AD is what the Cisco Official cert guide calls RD (reported
distance) and it also calls AD (administrative distance)!
16. jj123
July 5th, 2014
But still a great tutorial :^)
17. Anonymous
July 11th, 2014
Absolutely very useful tutorial
Thanks
Ahmed
18. R@v!~der
July 19th, 2014
Thanks @9tut
19. Mohammad Zain ul Abideen
August 1st, 2014
It helps me a lot THANKS THANKS a lot
20. Em_ccna2014
August 3rd, 2014
Thanks 9tut for the awesome tutorials. Ive been putting this off for along time but am finally
ready to go get it. Anyone studying for he CCNA in the washing DC or DMV (DC, MD, VA)
area? looking for a study partner or group to get ready for ccna and hopefully ccnp
thanks everyone.
21. Asterisk2239
September 7th, 2014
@Em_ccna2014, are you still looking for partner for the ccnp? did you got the ccna?
22. ccna
September 11th, 2014
In EIGRP bandwidth and delay you can assign manual but reliability and load is dynamic.

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23. Amr
October 24th, 2014
Perfect!
24. Kasun
November 5th, 2014
Do we need to remember these metric calculation formulas and are there metric calculation
questions in the exam?
25. zubair
December 9th, 2014
thanks
26. johnjm
December 31st, 2014
can someone send the latest ccna dumbs to johnjm66@gmail.com
Thanks
27. SAIRA GULZAR
January 31st, 2015
WHY A ROUTER CONNECT TO ITS NEIGHOUR ROUTER
28. sibahle sibanda
February 25th, 2015
Great tutorial. Guys is there any cofigurations in icnd2 ?
29. Subhash Chander
April 2nd, 2015
Every thing for beginner, and explained very well. A give ***** rating to author
30. 3lok
April 12th, 2015
Fantastic.
31. Indonesia
April 12th, 2015
very useful
32. anymous
April 15th, 2015

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From so many different sites out there explaining EIGRP, this has by far been the easiest and most
useful explanation. Great article, thank you!
33. Al
May 7th, 2015
The section about nbr discovery says about the hello packets that These packets are sent over
TCP. Looking at sniffer logs, EIGRP hello packets are directly on top of IP and have IP Protocol
88.
34. Jz
May 18th, 2015
:)
35. Sanket Padwal
June 8th, 2015
can someone send me the dumps sanket.padwal77@gmail.com
36. abdi
July 5th, 2015
its very chance to get 9tut so must benefit it
37. fgersang
July 30th, 2015
Great Tutorial . no one like you admin awesome.
38. Farrukh
August 18th, 2015
Hi.i have to take CCNA exam in the last of this month any one send me the latest dumps at
farrukhsaleem813@gmail.com please
39. Anonymous
September 9th, 2015
HELLO ALL I have to take CCNA exam in the IN TWO WEEKS can anyone PLEASE send me
the latest dumps at ANTROD81@GMAIL.COM please!!
40. Great writeup. I am writing ccna exam in next 3-weeks. Plz, can anyone send me the latest ccna
dumps on sirjasper15@gmail.com. Please help a brother.
September 10th, 2015
Tunde.
41. adam

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September 16th, 2015

i think we need more information about EIGRP
42. mushtaq
October 13th, 2015
which is primary root and secondary root in eigrp ??
43. Ashraff
October 18th, 2015
Awesome
44. Coodyscoops
October 22nd, 2015
I am having the hardest time understanding k values
45. Veevek Raj
October 29th, 2015
Thanks. this type of explanation build confidence.
46. King
November 3rd, 2015
For the latest dumb please send your request to oduolsammy@yahoo.com
47. IT Noob
November 4th, 2015
Hi, I am a first time noob in IT. I was previously in Finance and left because of (obviously) what
occurs so I switched into IT. What are these dumps? What purpose do they serve? Can someone
provide assistance, I appreciate very much. My email is jyo@manningllp.com. thank you in
advance
48. Nigerianus
November 21st, 2015
@Tut
You are a great blessing to multitudes because of your great works! Thanks.
Kindly consider these corrections:
#The whole metric formula need be multiplied by 256
#EIGRP supports up to 32 equal load balancing; up to 6 unequal load-balancing; and 4 as a
default for both
#Transmission protocols for EIGRP packets RTP(query, reply & update) and UDP (hello and
ACK)

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You are the best!

49. suresh
December 1st, 2015
HI GUYS,
WHAT IS LOAD BALANCING? CAN U PLEASE EXPLAIN THIS QUESTION..
50. suresh
December 2nd, 2015
hi tut,
please help me to learn about LOAD BALANCING?
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