Dynamic Routing

Philip Smith

E2 Workshop, AfNOG2006

Static and Dynamic Routing

Static Routing is a simplistic approach Shortcomings

Cumbersome to configure Cannot adapt to addition of new links or nodes Cannot adapt to link or node failures Cannot easily handle multiple paths to a destination Does not scale to large networks

Solution is to use Dynamic Routing

Desirable Characteristics of Dynamic Routing

Automatically detect and adapt to topology changes Provide optimal routing Scalability Robustness Simplicity Rapid convergence Some control of routing choices

E.g. which links we prefer to use

Convergence why do I care?

Convergence is when all the routers have the same routing information When a network is not converged there is network downtime

Packets dont get to where they are supposed to go

Black holes (packets disappear) Routing Loops (packets go back and fore between the same devices)

Occurs when there is a change in status of router or the links

Interior Gateway Protocols

Four well known IGPs today

RIP EIGRP ISIS OSPF

RIP

Stands for Routing Information Protocol

Some call it Rest In Peace

Lots of scaling problems RIPv1 is classful, and officially obsolete RIPv2 is classless

has improvements over RIPv1 is not widely used in the Internet industry

Only use is at the internet edge, between dial aggregation devices which can only speak RIPv2 and the next layer of the network

Why not use RIP?

RIP is a Distance Vector Algorithm

Listen to neighbouring routes Install all routes in routing table

Lowest hop count wins Very simple, very stupid

Advertise all routes in table

Only metric is hop count Network is max 16 hops (not large enough) Slow convergence (routing loops) Poor robustness

IGRP/EIGRP

Enhanced Interior Gateway Routing Protocol Predecessor was IGRP which was classful

IGRP developed by Cisco in mid 1980s to overcome scalability problems with RIP

Cisco proprietary routing protocol Distance Vector Routing Protocol

Has very good metric control

Widely used in many enterprise networks and in some ISP networks

Multiprotocol (supports more than IP) Exhibits good scalability and rapid convergence Supports unequal cost load balancing

IS-IS

Intermediate System to Intermediate System Selected in 1987 by ANSI as OSI intradomain routing protocol (CLNP connectionless network protocol)

Based on work by DEC for DECnet/OSI (DECnet Phase V) NSFnet deployed, its IGP based on early ISIS-IP draft

Extensions for IP developed in 1988

IS-IS (cont)

Adopted as ISO proposed standard in 1989

Integrated ISIS supports IP and CLNP Several ISPs chose ISIS over OSPF due to superior Cisco implementation

Debate between benefits of ISIS and OSPF

1994-date: deployed by several larger ISPs Developments continuing in IETF in parallel with OSPF

OSPF

Open Shortest Path First

IETF Working Group formed in 1988 to design an IGP for IP OSPF v1 published in 1989 RFC1131 OSPF v2 published in 1991 RFC1247 Developments continued through the 90s and today

Open means it is public domain Uses Shortest Path First algorithm sometimes called the Dijkstra algorithm

OSPFv3 includes extensions to support IPv6

Why use OSPF?

Dynamic IGP, Link State Protocol

IETF standard RFC2328

many implementations

Encourages good network design

Areas naturally follow typical ISP network layouts

Relatively easy to learn Has fast convergence Scales well

Link State Algorithm

Each router contains a database containing a map of the whole topology

Links Their state (including cost)

All routers have the same information All routers calculate the best path to every destination Any link state changes are flooded across the network

Global spread of local knowledge

Routing versus Forwarding

IP Routing finding the path

Path is derived from information received from the routing protocol Several alternative paths may exist

best next hop stored in forwarding table

Decisions are updated periodically or as topology changes (event driven) Decisions are based on:

topology, policies and metrics (hop count, filtering, delay, bandwidth, etc.)

IP Forwarding

Router makes decision on which interface a packet is sent to Forwarding table populated by routing process Forwarding decisions:

Destination address class of service (fair queuing, precedence, others) local requirements (packet filtering)

Routing Tables Feed the Forwarding Table

Routing Information Base (RIB)

BGP 4 Routing Table

OSPF Link State Database

Static Routes

Summary

Now know:

Difference between static routes, RIP and OSPF Difference between Routing and Forwarding A Dynamic Routing Protocol should be used in any ISP network Static routes dont scale RIP doesnt scale (and is obsolete)