DELL N3000 User Manual

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Configuring RIP
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Configuring RIP
This chapter describes how to configure Routing Information Protocol (RIP) 
on the switch. RIP is a dynamic routing protocol for IPv4 networks. 
The topics covered in this chapter include:
RIP Overview
RIP is an Interior Gateway Protocol (IGP) that performs dynamic routing 
within a network. Dell Networking series switches support two dynamic 
routing protocols: OSPF and Routing Information Protocol (RIP). 
Unlike OSPF, RIP is a distance-vector protocol and uses UDP broadcasts to 
maintain topology information and hop counts to determine the best route to 
transmit IP traffic. RIP is best suited for small, homogenous networks. 
How Does RIP Determine Route Information?
The routing information is propagated in RIP update packets that are sent 
out both periodically and in the event of a network topology change. On 
receipt of a RIP update, depending on whether the specified route exists or 
does not exist in the route table, the router may modify, delete or add the 
route to its route table.
RIP uses hop count, which is the number of routers an IP packet must pass 
through, to calculate the best route for a packet. A route with a low hop count 
is preferred over a route with a higher hop count. A directly-connected route 
has a hop-count of 0. With RIP, the maximum number of hops from source to 
destination is 15. Packets with a hop count greater than 15 are dropped 
because the destination network is considered unreachable.