Data Communications
Routing Protocols
School of Computing and Engineering
University of West London, UK
Dr. Ikram Ur Rehman
Router Functionalities
➢ Determine best/optimal path (routing) to the networks
➢ The paths are listed in the router’s routing table used to forward
data.
➢ These include directly connected routers, routes statically
configured by the administrator and/or dynamic routes learnt
from the routing protocol.
➢ Note: Only best path(s) is listed in the routing table.
Directly Connected Routers
Step 1: Assign IP addresses to the routers
Example: Router(config)#interface fa0/0
Router(config-if)#ip address [Link] [Link]
Similarly, assign IP addresses to all the connected interfaces
Directly Connected Routers
Assign IP addresses to the routers
Example: Router(config)#interface fa0/0
Router(config-if)#ip address [Link] [Link]
Similarly, assign IP addresses to all the connected interfaces
Directly Connected Routers
Example: Show command
Router#show ip route
C [Link]/24 is directly connected, FastEthernet 0/0
Directly Connected Routers
(Packet Tracer Demo)
Static Routing
➢ Question: What if the router receives a traffic for a network that
is not directly connected to it (as seen in previous example)?
➢ The router needs to find a way to forward the traffic.
➢ Solution: Either manually provide static routing to
the destination or the router can learn it via routing
protocol.
➢ Once the route is established, it will be added the router’s
routing table.
Static Routing
(Packet Tracer Demo)
➢ The command to use for static
routing:
➢ ip route network address of destination
subnet mask ip address of the next hop
➢ The static route needs to be
provided on both routers
Dynamic Routing
➢ In dynamic routing, routers advertise their best paths of the
known networks amongst each other.
➢ In dynamic routing, if there is a change in the network (e.g. new
network added or link goes down), routers will update each
other.
➢ In case of changes in network, the router recalculates best path
and updates its routing table.
Dynamic Routing vs Static Routing
➢ Dynamic routing protocols are more scalable as compared to
user-assigned static routing.
➢ Static routing is only feasible in small networks environment
➢ Assigning static routes on a big network will become a tedious
process.
➢ Any changes in the network will require network engineer to
manually reassign the static routes.
➢ Recovery from failures is often a challenge with static routing.
Dynamic Routing
(Packet Tracer Demo - RIP)
Dynamic Routing
(Challenge Task )
➢ Add one more router (London) connected to Moscow via
network [Link]/24 and to its LAN (Switch connected to
a PC) via network [Link]/24.
➢ Use dynamic routing protocol and establish end-to-end
connectivity similar to the previous example scenario.
Types of Routing Protocol
➢ Two main types of routing protocols are:
▪ Interior Gateway Protocols (IGPs)
▪ Exterior Gateway Protocols (EGPs)
➢ IGP → used for routing within organisation
➢ EGP → used for routing between organisations
➢ The only EGP used today is Border Gateway Protocol (BGP)
Interior Gateway Protocols (IGPs)
➢ Two main types of IGPs are:
▪ Distance Vector Routing Protocols
▪ Link State Routing Protocols
Distance Vector Routing Protocol
➢ In DVRP, each router sends list of known networks to its
connected neighboring routers along with the its distance to the
networks.
➢ Routers using DVRP only contain information of its neighbours
and do not know the information of the entire network topology.
➢ They are often referred to as “Routing by rumor”.
Link state Routing Protocol
➢ In LSRP, each router sends information about itself and its
interfaces to its connected neighboring routers.
➢ Routers using LSRP contain information of every router, their
interfaces and their connections.
➢ In a nutshell, it has information about the entire network
topology.
Dynamic Routing Protocols
Dynamic Routing
(Packet Tracer Demo - EIGRP)
