RFC 1058

Network Working Group
Request for Comments: 1058

C. Hedrick
Rutgers University
June 1988

Status of this Memo

This RFC describes an existing protocol for exchanging routing information among gateways and other hosts. It is intended to be used as a basis for developing gateway software for use in the Internet community. Distribution of this memo is unlimited.

Table of Contents

Overview

This memo is intended to do the following things:

• Document a protocol and algorithms that are currently in wide use for routing, but which have never been formally documented.
• Specify some improvements in the algorithms which will improve stability of the routes in large networks. These improvements do not introduce any incompatibility with existing implementations. They are to be incorporated into all implementations of this protocol.
• Suggest some optional features to allow greater configurability and control. These features were developed specifically to solve problems that have shown up in actual use by the NSFnet community. However, they should have more general utility.

The Routing Information Protocol (RIP) described here is loosely based on the program "routed", distributed with the 4.3 Berkeley Software Distribution. However, there are several other implementations of what is supposed to be the same protocol. Unfortunately, these various implementations disagree in various details. The specifications here represent a combination of features taken from various implementations. We believe that a program designed according to this document will interoperate with routed, and with all other implementations of RIP of which we are aware.

Note that this description adopts a different view than most existing implementations about when metrics should be incremented. By making a corresponding change in the metric used for a local network, we have retained compatibility with other existing implementations. See section 3.6 for details on this issue.

• 1. Introduction
  • 1.1. Limitations of the protocol
  • 1.2. Organization of this document
• 2. Distance Vector Algorithms
  • 2.1. Dealing with changes in topology
  • 2.2. Preventing instability
    • 2.2.1. Split horizon
    • 2.2.2. Triggered updates
• 3. Specifications for the protocol
  • 3.1. Message formats
  • 3.2. Addressing considerations
  • 3.3. Timers
  • 3.4. Input processing
    • 3.4.1. Request
    • 3.4.2. Response
  • 3.5. Output Processing
  • 3.6. Compatibility
• 4. Control functions
• REFERENCES and BIBLIOGRAPHY

• Original text document
• Complete HTML RFC (TAR, TGZ, or ZIP format)