PROLINK Huricane 9200/S User Manual

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Configuring the Routing Information Protocol

The Hurricane 9200/S can be configured to communicate with other

routing devices to determine the best path for sending data to its

intended destination. Routing devices communicate this information

using a variety of IP protocols. This chapter describes how to

configure the Hurricane 9200/S to use one of these, called the

Routing Information Protocol (RIP).

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RIP is an Internet protocol you can set up to share routing table

information with other routing devices on your LAN, at your ISP’s

location, or on remote networks connected via the ADSL line.

Generally, RIP is used to enable communication on autonomous

networks. An autonomous network is one in which all computers

are administered by the same entity. An autonomous network may

be a single network, or a grouping of several networks under the

same administration. An example of an autonomous network is a

corporate LAN, including devices that can access it from remote

locations, such as the computers telecommuters use.
Using RIP, each device sends its routing table to its closest

neighbor every 30 seconds. The neighboring device in turn passes

the information on to its next neighbor and so on until all devices in

the autonomous network have the same set of routes.

Most small home or office networks do not need to use RIP; they

have only one router, such as the Hurricane 9200/S, and one path

to an ISP. In these cases, there is no need to share routes, because

all Internet data from the network is sent to the same ISP gateway.
You may want to configure RIP if any of the following circumstances

apply to your network:

Your home network setup includes an additional router or

RIP-enabled PC (other than the Hurricane 9200/S). The

Hurricane 9200/S and the router will need to communicate

via RIP to share their routing tables.

Your network connects via the ADSL line to a remote

network, such as a corporate network. In order for your

LAN to learn the routes used within your corporate network,

they should both be configured with RIP.

Your ISP requests that you run RIP for communication with

devices on their network.