The RFC Archive
 The RFC Archive   RFC 2081   « Jump to any RFC number directly 
 RFC Home
Full RFC Index
Recent RFCs
RFC Standards
Best Current Practice
RFC Errata
1 April RFC



IETF RFC 2081

RIPng Protocol Applicability Statement

Last modified on Wednesday, January 8th, 1997

Permanent link to RFC 2081
Search GitHub Wiki for RFC 2081
Show other RFCs mentioning RFC 2081







Network Working Group                                          G. Malkin
Request for Comments: 2081                                      Xylogics
Category: Informational                                   January 1997


                 RIPng Protocol Applicability Statement

 Status of this Memo

   This memo provides information for the Internet community.  This memo
   does not specify an Internet standard of any kind.  Distribution of
   this memo is unlimited.

 Abstract

   As required by Routing Protocol Criteria (RFC 1264), this report
   defines the applicability of the RIPng protocol within the Internet.
   This report is a prerequisite to advancing RIPng on the standards
   track.

1.  Protocol Documents

   The RIPng protocol description is defined in RFC 2080.

2.  Introduction

   This report describes how RIPng may be useful within the new IPv6
   Internet.  In essence, the environments in which RIPng is the IGP of
   choice is comparable to the environments in which RIP-2 (RFC 1723) is
   used in the IPv4 Internet.  It is important to remember that RIPng is
   a simple extrapolation of RIP-2; RIPng has nothing conceptually new.
   Thus, the operational aspects of distance-vector routing protocols,
   and RIP-2 in particular, within an autonomous system are well
   understood.

   It should be noted that RIPng is not intended to be a substitute for
   OSPFng in large autonomous systems; the restrictions on AS diameter
   and complexity which applied to RIP-2 also apply to RIPng.  Rather,
   RIPng allows the smaller, simpler, distance-vector protocol to be
   used in environments which require authentication or the use of
   variable length subnet masks, but are not of a size or complexity
   which require the use of the larger, more complex, link-state
   protocol.

   The remainder of this report describes how each of the features of
   RIPng is useful within IPv6.





Malkin                       Informational                   PAGE 1 top


RFC 2081 RIP-2 Applicability January 1997 3. Applicability A goal in developing RIPng was to make the minimum necessary change to RIP-2 to produce RIPng. In essence, the IPv4 address was expanded into an IPv6 address, the IPv4 subnet mask was replaced with an IPv6 prefix length, the next-hop field was eliminated but the functionality has been preserved, and authentication was removed. The route tag field has been preserved. The maximum diameter of the network (the maximum metric value) is 15; 16 still means infinity (unreachable). The basic RIP header is unchanged. However, the size of a routing packet is no longer arbitrarily limited. Because routing updates are never forwarded, the routing packet size is now determined by the physical media and the sizes of the headers which precede the routing data (i.e., media MTU minus the combined header lengths). The number routes which may be included in a routing update is the routing data length divided by the size of a routing entry. 3.1 Prefix The address field of a routing entry is 128 bits in length, expanded from the 32 bits available in RIP-2. This allows the RIP entry to carry an IPv6 prefix. 3.2 Prefix Length The 32-bit RIP-2 subnet mask field is replaced by an 8-bit prefix length field. It allows the specification of the number of bits in the prefix which form the actual prefix. 3.3 Next Hop The ability to specify the next hop, rather than simply allowing the recipient of the update to set the next hop to the sender of the update, allows for the elimination of unnecessary hops through routers which are running multiple routing protocols. Consider following example topology: ----- ----- ----- ----- |IR1| |IR2| |XR1| |XR2| --+-- --+-- --+-- --+-- | | | | --+-------+-------------+-------+-- |--------RIPng--------| Malkin Informational PAGE 2 top

RFC 2081 RIP-2 Applicability January 1997 The Internal Routers (IR1 and IR2) are only running RIPng. The External Routers (XR1 and XR2) are both running BGP, for example; however, only XR1 is running BGP and RIPng. Since XR2 is not running RIPng, the IRs will not know of its existance and will never use it as a next hop, even if it is a better next hop than XR1. Of course, XR1 knows this and can indicate, via the Next Hop mechanism, that XR2 is the better next hop for some routes. 3.4 Authentication Authentication, which was added to RIP-2 because RIP-1 did not have it, has been dropped from RIPng. This is safe to do because IPv6, which carries the RIPng packets, has build in security which IPv4 did not have. 3.5 Packet Length By allowing RIPng routing update packets to be as big as possible, the number of packets which must be sent for a complete update is greatly reduced. This in no way affects the operation of the distance-vector protocol; it is merely a performance enhancement. 3.6 Diameter and Complexity The limit of 15 cost-1 hops is a function of the distance-vector protocol, which depends on counting to infinity to resolve some routing loops. If infinity is too high, the time it would take to resolve, not to mention the number of routing updates which would be sent, would be prohibitive. If the infinity is too small, the protocol becomes useless in a reasonably sized network. The choice of 16 for infinity was made in the earliest of RIP implementations and experience has shown it to be a good compromise value. RIPng will efficiently support networks of moderate complexity. That is, topologies without too many multi-hop loops. RIPng also effeciently supports topologies which change frequently because routing table changes are made incrementally and do not require the computation which link-state protocols require to rebuild their maps. 4. Conclusion Because the basic protocol is unchanged, RIPng is as correct a routing protocol as RIP-2. RIPng serves the same niche for IPv6 as RIP-2 does for IPv4. 5. Security Considerations RIPng security is discussed in section 3.4. Malkin Informational PAGE 3 top

RFC 2081 RIP-2 Applicability January 1997 Author's Address Gary Scott Malkin Xylogics/Bay Networks 53 Third Avenue Burlington, MA 01803 Phone: (617) 238-6237 EMail: gmalkin@xylogics.com Malkin Informational PAGE 4 top

RIPng Protocol Applicability Statement RFC TOTAL SIZE: 6821 bytes PUBLICATION DATE: Wednesday, January 8th, 1997 LEGAL RIGHTS: The IETF Trust (see BCP 78)


RFC-ARCHIVE.ORG

© RFC 2081: The IETF Trust, Wednesday, January 8th, 1997
© the RFC Archive, 2024, RFC-Archive.org
Maintainer: J. Tunnissen

Privacy Statement