Allied Telesis AT-S63 User Manual

Page of 514
AT-S63 Management Software Features Guide
Section III: Snooping Protocols
185
Overview
The Router Redundancy Protocol (RRP) allows multiple routers to share 
the same virtual IP address and MAC address. In network topologies 
where redundant router paths or links exist, the protocol enables routers, 
through an election process, to designate one as the master router. This 
router functions as the provider of the primary path between LAN 
segments. Slave routers function as backup paths in the event that the 
master router or primary path fails.
Because the master and slave routers are able to share the same virtual 
IP address and MAC address, a change in data paths need not 
necessitate an adjustment to the default gateways on the network nodes 
that employ the routers. When a slave router transitions to master, it uses 
the same IP address as the previous master router, making the transition 
transparent to the network end nodes. In large networks, these 
transparent transitions can save the time and effort of having to manually 
reconfigure default gateway addresses on large numbers of network 
nodes when a router pathway fails.
RRP snooping on the AT-9400 Switch facilitates the transition to a new 
master router by minimizing the loss of traffic, and so reduces the impact 
the transition could have on your network traffic. RRP snooping monitors 
ingress RRP packets, determined by their source MAC address. Source 
MAC addresses considered by the AT-S63 Management Software as RRP 
packets are:
ˆ
00:E0:2B:00:00:80-9F
ˆ
00:A0:D2EB:FF:00
ˆ
00:00:5E:00:01:00-FF
A port receiving an RRP packet is deemed by the switch as the master 
RRP port. The virtual MAC address of the router is entered as a dynamic 
address on the port. If the switch starts to receive RRP packets on another 
port, it assumes that a backup or slave router has made the transition to 
the role of the new master router.
The switch responds by deleting all dynamic MAC addresses from the 
MAC address table. As the switch relearns the addresses, the virtual MAC 
address of the new master router is learned on the new master RRP port, 
rather than the old port. Any packets received by the switch and destined 
for the router are forwarded to the new master router.