Enhanced Interior
Gateway Routing
Protocol
Kmar Thaalbi
[email protected]
EIGRP
EIGRP is a distance vector, classless routing protocol that was
released in 1992 with IOS 9.21.
EIGRP is an enhancement of Cisco IGRP (Interior Gateway Routing
Protocol).
Both are Cisco proprietary protocols and only operate on Cisco
routers.
The main purpose in Cisco's development of EIGRP was to create a
classless version of IGRP.
EIGRP includes several features that include:
Reliable Transport Protocol (RTP)
Bounded Updates
Diffusing Update Algorithm (DUAL)
Establishing Adjacencies
Neighbor and Topology Tables
EIGRP
Although EIGRP may act like a link-state routing protocol, it is still a distance vector
routing protocol. EIGRP does not use link-state (LS) logic, instead using some
advanced distance vector (DV) logic
PS: The term hybrid routing protocol is sometimes used to define EIGRP.
A typical distance vector protocol saves the following information when computing
the best path to a destination: the distance (total metric or distance) and the vector
(the next hop).
The Algorithm
EIGRP uses the Diffusing Update Algorithm (DUAL).
EIGRP does not send periodic updates and route entries do not age out.
Only changes in the routing information, such as a new link or a link becoming unavailable cause a
routing update to occur.
EIGRP routing updates are still vectors of distances transmitted to directly connected neighbors.
EIGRP Timers
EIGRP sends hello packets every 5 seconds on high bandwidth links and
every 60 seconds on low bandwidth multipoint links.
The hold time is typically three times the hello interval, by default, 15
seconds and 180 seconds
adjust it per interface with theip hello-interval eigrp command
You can adjust the hold time with the ip hold-time eigrp command.
DUAL Algo.
ensure that a given route is recalculated globally whenever it
might cause a routing loop
DUAL uses three separate tables for the route calculation.
Neighbor table: contains information on all other directly connected routers.
This is achieved through "Hello" packets.
Topology table: contains the metric (cost information) of all routes to any
destination within the autonomous system
Routing table: contains the best route(s) to a destination
DUAL Algo.
DUAL evaluates the data received from other routers in the topology table and
calculates two routes:
the primary route: successor
The secondary route or feasible successor
FD (Feasible Distance): The calculated metric of a route to a destination within
the autonomous system.
RD (Reported Distance): The metric to a destination as advertised by a
neighboring router. RD is used to calculate the FD, and to determine if the
route meets the "feasibility condition
Feasibility condition: for a route to become a feasible successor, its RD must be
smaller than the FD of the successor
EIGRP Path Determination
Path Determination
EIGRP's DUAL maintains a topology table separate from the routing
table, which includes both the best path to a destination network and
any backup paths that DUAL has determined to be loop-free.
If a route becomes unavailable, DUAL will search its topology table
for a valid backup path.
If one exists, that route is immediately entered into the routing table.
If one does not exist, DUAL performs a network discovery process to
see if there happens to be a backup path that did not meet the
requirement of the feasibility condition.
EIGRP
EIGRP packet header contains
Opcode field
Update
Query
Reply
Hello
Autonomous System number
The AS number is used to track multiple instances of EIGRP.
EIGRP Parameters contains
Weights
EIGRP uses for its composite metric.
By default, only bandwidth and delay are weighted. Both are set to
1.
The other K values are set to zero.
Hold time
The amount of time the EIGRP neighbor receiving this message
should wait before considering the advertising router to be down.
EIGRP Metric Calculation
EIGRP Composite Metric & the K Values
EIGRP uses the following values in its composite metric
-Bandwidth, delay, reliability, and load (reliability and load are not used)
The composite metric used by EIGRP
formula used has values K1 K5
K1 & K3
K2, K4, K5
=1
=0
EIGRP Metric Calculation
Use the sh ip protocols command to verify the K values
Changing these
values to other than
the default is not
recommended
unless the network
administrator has a
very good reason to
do so.
EIGRP
TLV: IP internal
contains (EIGRP routes within an autonomous system)
Metric field (Delay and Bandwidth)
Delay is calculated as the sum of delays from source to destination in units of 10 microseconds.
Bandwidth is the lowest configured bandwidth of any interface along the route.
Subnet mask field
The subnet mask is specified as the prefix length or the number of network bits in the subnet mask.
Destination field
the address of the destination network.
Although only 24 bits are shown in this figure.
If a network address is longer than 24 bits, then the Destination field is extended for another 32 bits
EIGRP
Query
Reliable
multicast
Update
Reliable
Multicast &
unicast
Reply
Reliable
unicast
Hello
Acknowledge
Unreliable
Unreliable
(not require
acknowledgment )
(a hello packet that
has no data )
multicast
unicast
EIGRP
EIGRP Bounded Updates
EIGRP only sends update when there is a change in route status
Partial update
A partial update includes only the route information that has changed
the whole routing table is NOT sent
Bounded update
When a route changes, only those devices that are impacted will be notified
of the change
EIGRPs use of partial bounded updates minimizes use of bandwidth
EIGRP
Administrative Distance (AD)
Defined as the trustworthiness of the source route
EIGRP default administrative
distances
Summary routes = 5
Internal routes = 90
Imported routes = 170
Verifying EIGRP Operation
Router# show ip eigrp neighbors : Displays the neighbors
discovered by EIGRP
Router# show ip eigrp topology : Displays the EIGRP topology table
Router# show ip route eigrp : Displays current EIGRP entries in the
routing table
Router# show ip protocols : Displays the parameters and current
state of the active routing protocol process
Router# show ip eigrp traffic : Displays the number of EIGRP
packets sent and received
EIGRP advantages
very low usage of network resources during normal operation:
only hello packets are transmitted on a stable network
when a change occurs, only routing table changes are
propagated, not the entire routing table:
this reduces the load the routing protocol itself places on the
network
rapid convergence times for changes in the network topology.
