draft-ietf-ripv2-rfc1387-00.txt G. Malkin Internet Draft Xylogics, Inc. Obsoletes: RFC 1387 December 1993 RIP Version 2 Protocol Analysis Abstract As required by Routing Protocol Criteria (RFC 1264), this report documents the key features of the RIP-2 protocol and the current implementation experience. This report is a prerequisite to advancing RIP-2 on the standards track. Status of this Memo This document is an Internet Draft. Internet Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), its Areas, and its Working Groups. Note that other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet Drafts. Internet Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months. Internet Drafts may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is not appropriate to use Internet Drafts as reference material or to cite them other than as a "working draft" or "work in progress." Please check the I-D abstract listing contained in each Internet Draft directory to learn the current status of this or any other Internet Draft. It is intended that this document will be submitted to the IESG for consideration as a standards document. Distribution of this document is unlimited. Acknowledgements The RIP-2 protocol owes much to those who participated in the RIP-2 working group. A special thanks goes to Fred Baker, for his help on the MIB, and to Jeffrey Honig, for all his comments. Expiration: June 8, 1992 [Page 1] Internet Draft RIP-2 Analysis December 1993 1. Protocol Documents The RIP-2 protocol description is defined in Internet Draft "draft- ietf-ripv2-protocol-00.txt". This draft will obsolete RFC 1388, which specifies an update to the "Routing Information Protocol" RFC 1058 (STD 34). The RIP-2 MIB description is defined in Internet Draft "draft-ietf- ripv2-mibext2-00.txt". This draft will obsolete RFC 1389. 2. Key Features While RIP-2 shares the same basic algorythms as RIP-1, it supports several new features. They are: external route tags, subnet masks, next hop addresses, and authentication. 2.1 External Route Tags The route tag field may be used to propagate information acquired from an EGP. The definition of the contents of this field are beyond the scope of this protocol. However, it may be used, for example, to propagate an EGP AS number. 2.2 Subnet Masks Inclusion of subnet masks was the original intent of opening the RIP protocol for improvement. Subnet mask information makes RIP more useful in a variety of environments and allows the use of variable subnet masks on the network. Subnet masks are also necessary for implementation of "classless" addressing, as the CIDR work proposes. 2.3 Next Hop Addresses Support for next hop addresses allows for optimization of routes in an environment which uses multiple routing protocols. For example, if RIP-2 were being run on a network along with another IGP, and one router ran both protocols, then that router could indicate to the other RIP-2 routers that a better next hop than itself exists for a given destination. Expiration: June 8, 1992 [Page 2] Internet Draft RIP-2 Analysis December 1993 2.4 Authentication One significant improvement RIP-2 offers over RIP-1, is the addition of an authentication mechanism. Essentially, it is the same extensible mechanism provided by OSPF. Currently, only a plain-text password is defined for authentication. However, more sophisticated authentication schemes can easily be incorporated as they are defined. 2.5 Multicasting RIP-2 packets may be multicast instead of being broadcast. The use of an IP multicast address reduces the load on hosts which do not support routing protocols. It also allows RIP-2 routers to share information which RIP-1 routers cannot hear. This is useful since a RIP-1 router may missinterpret route information because it cannot apply the supplied subnet mask. 3. RIP-2 MIB The MIB for RIP-2 allows for monitoring and control of RIP's operation within the router. In addition to global and per-interface counters and controls, there are per-peer counters which provide the status of RIP-2 "neighbors". 4. Implementations Currently, there are three complete implementations of RIP-2: GATED, written by Jeffrey Honig at Cornell University; Xylogics's Annex Communication server; and an implementation for NOS, written by Jeff White. The GATED implementation is available by anonymous FTP from gated.cornell.edu as pub/gated/gated-alpha.tar.Z. The implementation for NOS is available by anonymous FTP from ucsd.edu as /hamradio/packet/tcpip/incoming/rip2.zip. 5. Security Security issues are discussed in section 2.4. 6. Author's Address Gary Scott Malkin Xylogics, Inc. Expiration: June 8, 1992 [Page 3] Internet Draft RIP-2 Analysis December 1993 53 Third Avenue Burlington, MA 01803 Phone: (617) 272-8140 EMail: gmalkin@Xylogics.COM Expiration: June 8, 1992 [Page 4]