Chapter 7

EIGRP (Enhanced Interior Gateway Routing Protocol) & OSPF (Open Shortest Path First)

EIGRP
Cisco proprietary protocol.

Classless, Enhanced distance-vector protocol.

Supports VLSM. Supports route summarization. Also called Hybrid Routing Protocol as it has both characteristic of distance-vector & link-state protocols.

EIGRP compared with IGRP

Supports IPv4 & IPv6. Classless. Supports VLSM/CIDR. Supports Route summarization. Efficient neighbor discovery. Communication via Reliable Transport Protocol. Best path selection via Diffusing Update Algorithm (DUAL).

EIGRP
Protocol-Dependent Modules
Supports routing for multiple network layer protocols like IP/IPX/AppleTalk/IPv6.
Separate routing tables maintained for each protocols. This support is through separate PDM for each network layer protocols.

EIGRP-Neighbor Discovery
Before EIGRP routers are willing to exchange database they have to become neighbors. Following are three conditions to become neighbors:
Hello or ACK received.
Order to maintain neighbor ship hello messages are passed

AS number match.
Neighbor ship not formed between different ASes

Identical Metrics (K Value).

EIGRP-Neighbor Discovery
In the following example, R1 has just had EIGRP enabled on a Serial interface. R1 will send an EIGRP Hello packet out that interface in an attempt to find potential neighbors. EIGRP Hello packets are multicast to 224.0.0.10.

EIGRP-Neighbor Discovery
A downstream router, R2, receives this Hello and responds with a Hello of its own. That router will also send an EIGRP Update packet, which contains all the EIGRP-derived routes that R2 knows - with one exception. R2 cannot advertise an EIGRP route on the same interface that R2 used to learn about the route in the first place (Split Horizon).

EIGRP Terminologies
Neighbor Table
Each router keeps state information about adjacent neighbors. When a newly discovered neighbor is learned, the address and interface of the neighbor are recorded, and this information is held in the neighbor table, stored in RAM.

Topology Table
It contains all destinations advertised by neighboring routers, holding each destination address and a list of neighbors that have advertised the destination.

Reported / Advertising Distance

This is the metric of a remote network, as reported by a neighbor.

Feasible Distance
This is the best metric along all paths to a remote network, including the metric to the neighbor that is advertising that remote network. This is the route that you will find in the routing table because it is considered the best path.

EIGRP Terminologies
Successor
A successor route (think successful!) is the best route to a remote network. A successor route is used by EIGRP to forward traffic to a destination and is stored in the routing table.

Feasible Successor
A feasible successor is a path whose reported distance is less than the feasible distance, and it is considered a backup route. EIGRP will keep up to six feasible successors in the topology table. The show ip eigrp topology command will display all the EIGRP feasible successor routes known to a router.

Reliable Transport Protocol (RTP)

EIGRP uses a proprietary protocol called Reliable Transport Protocol (RTP) to manage the communication of messages between EIGRP-speaking routers. Cisco has designed a mechanism that leverages multicasts and unicasts to deliver updates quickly and to track the receipt of the data. When EIGRP sends multicast traffic, it uses the Class D address 224.0.0.10 to its neighbors, it maintains a list of the neighbors who have replied. If EIGRP doesnt get a reply from a neighbor, it will switch to using unicasts to resend the same data. If it still doesnt get a reply after 16 unicast attempts, the neighbor is declared dead. People often refer to this process as reliable multicast. Routers keep track of the information they send by assigning a sequence number to each packet. With this technique, its possible for them to detect the arrival of old, redundant, or out-of-sequence information.

Diffusing Update Algorithm (DUAL)

EIGRP uses Diffusing Update Algorithm (DUAL) for selecting and maintaining the best path to each remote network. This algorithm allows for the following:
Backup route determination if one is available Support of VLSMs Dynamic route recoveries Queries for an alternate route if no route can be found.

DUAL provides EIGRP with possibly the fastest route convergence time among all protocols.
Uses Feasible Successor as next alternative if best path goes down. Second, if there isnt a good alternative in the local topology table, EIGRP routers very quickly ask their neighbors for help finding one.

EIGRP on Large Networks

Cool features that make it suitable for use in large networks:
Support for multiple ASes on a single router Support for VLSM and summarization Route discovery and maintenance

Multiple ASes
EIGRP uses autonomous system numbers to identify the collection of routers that share route information. Only routers that have the same autonomous system numbers share routes. In large networks, you can easily end up with really complicated topology and route tables, and that can markedly slow convergence during diffusing computation operations. its possible to divide the network into multiple distinct EIGRP autonomous systems, or ASes. Route information can be shared among the different ASes via redistribution.

Internal EIGRP ( AD 90 ) & External EIGRP ( AD 170 )

EIGRP on Large Networks

EIGRP supports the use of VLSM. And because the subnet mask is propagated with every route update, EIGRP also supports the use of discontiguous subnets. Whats a discontiguous network?
Its one that has two or more subnetworks of a classful network connected together by different classful networks.

EIGRP on Large Networks

Its important to understand that discontiguous networks just wont work with RIPv1 or IGRP at all. And they dont work by default on RIPv2 or EIGRP either, but discontiguous networks do work on OSPF networks by default because OSPF does not auto-summarize like EIGRP. EIGRP also supports the manual creation of summaries at any and all EIGRP routers, which can substantially reduce the size of the route table. However, EIGRP automatically summarizes networks at their classful boundaries.

Route Discovery and Maintenance

Like many link-state protocols, EIGRP supports the concept of neighbors that are discovered via a Hello process and whose states are monitored. Like many distance-vector protocols, EIGRP uses the routing-by-rumor mechanism. EIGRP uses a series of tables to store important information about its environment:
Neighbor ship table Topology table Route table