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Laboratory

RIP: Routing Information Protocol

A Routing Protocol Based on the Distance-Vector Algorithm
Objective

The objective of this lab is to configure and analyze the performance of the Routing
Information Protocol (RIP) model.

Overview

A router in the network needs to be able to look at a packet’s destination address and then
determine which of the output ports is the best choice to get the packet to that address.
The router makes this decision by consulting a forwarding table. The fundamental problem
of routing is: How do routers acquire the information in their forwarding tables?

Routing algorithms are required to build the routing tables and hence forwarding tables.
The basic problem of routing is to find the lowest-cost path between any two nodes, where
the cost of a path equals the sum of the costs of all the edges that make up the path.
Routing is achieved in most practical networks by running routing protocols among the
nodes. The protocols provide a distributed, dynamic way to solve the problem of finding
the lowest-cost path in the presence of link and node failures and changing edge costs.

One of the main classes of routing algorithms is the distance-vector algorithm. Each node
constructs a vector containing the distances (costs) to all other nodes and distributes that
vector to its immediate neighbors. RIP is the canonical example of a routing protocol built
on the distance-vector algorithm. Routers running RIP send their advertisements regularly
(e.g., every 30 seconds). A router also sends an update message whenever a triggered
update from another router causes it to change its routing table.

In this lab you will set up a network that utilizes RIP as its routing protocol. You will analyze
the routing tables generated in the routers, and you will observe how RIP is affected by
link failures.
 Procedure

Create a New Project

1. Start Riverbed Modeler Academic Edition ⇒ Choose New from the File menu.

2. Select Project and click OK ⇒ Name the project <your initials>_RIP, and the
scenario NO_Failure ⇒ Click OK.

3. In the Startup Wizard: Initial Topology dialog box, make sure that Create Empty
Scenario is selected ⇒ Click Next ⇒ Select Campus from the Network Scale
list ⇒ Click Next three times ⇒ Click Finish.

Create and Configure the Network

Initialize the Network:

1. The Object Palette dialog box should now be on top of your project workspace. If
The ethernet4_slip8_
gtwy node model it is not there, open it by clicking . Make sure that the internet_toolbox is
represents an IP-based selected from the pull-down menu on the object palette.
gateway supporting four
Ethernet hub interfaces
and eight serial line 2. Add to the project workspace the following objects from the palette: one
interfaces. IP packets ethernet4_slip8_gtwy router and two 100BaseT_LAN objects.
arriving on any interface
are routed to the
appropriate output a. To add an object from a palette, click its icon in the object palette ⇒ Move your
interface based on their mouse to the workspace ⇒ Click to place the object ⇒ Right-click to stop
destination IP address. creating objects of that type.
The Routing
Information Protocol
(RIP) or the Open 3. Use bidirectional 100BaseT links to connect the objects you just added as in the
Shortest Path First following figure. Also, rename the objects as shown (right-click on the node ⇒ Set
(OSPF) protocol may be
used to dynamically and Name).
automatically create the
gateway's routing tables 4. Close the Object Palette dialog box.
and select routes in an
adaptive manner.
5. Save your project.

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 Configure the Router:

1. Right-click on Router1 ⇒ Edit Attributes ⇒ Expand the Reports hierarchy

⇒ Expand the RIP Routing Table hierarchy and set the following:
i. Export Time(s) Specification = Once at End of Simulation. This asks the
router to export its routing table at the end of the simulation to the simulation
log.
ii. Status = Enable.

2. Expand the IP hierarchy ⇒ Expand the IP Routing Parameters hierarchy ⇒

Expand the Loopback Interfaces hierarchy ⇒ set the Number of Rows to 1.

3. Click OK and then save your project.

Add the Remaining LANs:

1. Highlight or select simultaneously (using shift and left-click) all five objects that
you currently have in the project workspace (one router, two LANs, and two links).
You can click-and-drag a box around the objects to do this.
2. Press Ctrl+C to copy the selected objects and then press Ctrl+V to paste them.

3. Repeat step 2 three times to generate three new copies of the objects and arrange
them in a way similar to the following figure. Rename all objects as shown.
4. Connect routers, as shown, using PPP_DS3 links.
The PPP_DS3 link has
a data rate of 44.736
Mbps.

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 Choose the Statistics
RIP traffic is the total To test the performance of the RIP protocol, we will collect the following statistics:
amount of RIP update
traffic (in bits) 1. Right-click anywhere in the project workspace and select Choose Individual
sent/received per
second by all the nodes
Statistics from the pop-up menu.
using RIP as the routing
protocol in the IP 2. In the Choose Results dialog box, check the following statistics:
interfaces in the node.
a. Global Statistics ⇒ RIP ⇒ Traffic Sent (bits/sec).
Total Number of b. Global Statistics ⇒ RIP ⇒ Traffic Received (bits/sec).
Updates is the number
of times the routing table c. Nodes Statistics ⇒ Route Table ⇒ Total Number of Updates.
at this node gets updated
(e.g., due to a new route
addition, an existing
3. Click OK and then save your project.
route deletion, and/or a
next hop update).

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 Configure and Run the Simulation

Here we need to configure some of the simulation parameters:

1. Click on and the Configure Simulation window should appear.

2. Set the duration to be 10.0 minutes.

3. Click on the Global Attributes tab and change the following attributes:
Auto Addressed means
that all IP interfaces are a. Expand the IP hierarchy ⇒ IP Dynamic Routing Protocol = RIP. This
assigned IP addresses
automatically during sets the RIP protocol to be the routing protocol of all routers in the
simulation. The class of network.
address (e.g., A, B, or C)
is determined based on b. Expand the IP hierarchy ⇒ IP Interface Addressing Mode = Auto
the number of hosts in
the designed network. Addressed/Export.
Subnet masks assigned
to these interfaces are c. Expand the Simulation Efficiency hierarchy ⇒ RIP Sim Efficiency =
the default subnet masks Disabled. If this attribute is enabled, RIP will stop after the "RIP Stop
for that class. Time." But we need the RIP to keep updating the routing table in case
there is any change in the network (as we will see in the second
Export causes the auto- scenario).
assigned IP interface to
be exported to a file
(name of the file is 4. Click OK and then save the
<net_name>- project.
ip_addresses.gdf and
gets saved in the primary
model directory).

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Duplicate the Scenario

In the network we just created, the routers will build their routing tables, and then they will
not need to update them further because we didn’t simulate any node or link failures. In
this scenario we will simulate failures so that we can compare the behavior of the routers
in both cases.

1. Select Duplicate Scenario from the Scenarios menu and name it Failure ⇒
Click OK.

2. Open Object Palette by clicking . Select the Utilities palette from the drop-
down menu.

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3. Add a Failure Recovery object to your workspace and name it Failure as shown
⇒ Close the Object Palette dialog box.

4. Right-click on the Failure object ⇒ Edit Attributes ⇒ Expand the Link

Failure/Recovery Specification hierarchy ⇒ Set rows to 1 ⇒ Set the attributes
of the added row, row 0, as follows:

This will “fail” the link between Router1 and Router2 200 seconds into the
simulation.

5. Click OK and then save the project.

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Run the Simulation

1. Click on and the Configure Simulation window should appear.

2. Check that all the configuration are as was configured previously and click Run.

View the Results

Compare the Number of Updates:

1. Select Compare Results from the Results in the DES menu.

2. Change the drop-down menu in the right-lower part of the Compare Results
dialog box to Stacked Statistics as shown.

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3. Select the Total Number of Updates statistic for Router1 and click Show.

4. You should get two graphs, one for each scenario. Right-click on each graph and
select Draw Style ⇒ Bar Chart.

5. The resulting graphs should resemble the following (you can zoom in on the
graphs by clicking-and-dragging a box over the region of interest):

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Obtain the IP Addresses of the Interface:

Before checking the contents of the routing tables, we need to determine the IP address
information for all interfaces in the current network. Recall that these IP addresses are
assigned automatically during simulation, and we set the global attribute IP Interface
Addressing Mode to export this information to a file.

1. From your favorite file explorer, find the directory in which your project is saved.

2. Locate the <your initials>_RIP-NO_Failure-ip_addresses.gdf file (the other file

created from the Failure scenario should contain the same information) ⇒ Make a
copy of this file and change the file type to .txt (meaning to <your initials>_RIP-
NO_Failure-ip_addresses.txt).

3. Use your favorite advanced text editor (If you don't have one installed, or if the one
you have does not perform well, you may use Notepad++ which can be downloaded
for free from: http://notepad-plus-plus.org/).

4. The following is a part of the gdf file content. It shows the IP addresses assigned to
the interfaces of Router1 in our network. For example the interface of Router1 that is
connected to Net10 has the IP address 192.0.0.1 (Note: Your result may vary due
to different nodes placement.) The Subnet Mask associated with that interface
indicates that the address of the subnetwork, to which the interface is connected, is
192.0.0.0 (i.e., the logical AND of the interface IP address and the subnet mask).

5. Print out the layout of the network you implemented in this lab. On this layout, from the
information included in the gdf file, write down the IP addresses associated with
Router1 as well as the addresses assigned to each subnetwork as shown in the
following two figures (Note: Your IP addresses may vary due to different nodes
placement.)

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 192.0.0.1 192.0.1.1

192.0.2.1 192.0.3.1

192.0.2.2 192.0.3.2

192.0.0.0
192.0.1.0

192.0.14.0 192.0.2.0 192.0.3.0 192.0.5.0

192.0.13.0
192.0.6.0

192.0.11.0 192.0.7.0

192.0.10.0
192.0.9.0

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Compare the Routing Tables Content:

1. To check the content of the routing tables in Router1 for both scenarios:
i. Select Router1 by clicking on it ⇒ Go to the Routing menu in IP in the
Protocols menu (Expand the hierarchy on the left as shown below) ⇒ Click on the
field Export Routing Tables….

ii. Run the simulation.

iii. Open View Results Select DES Run Tables tab ⇒ Expand the hierarchy on
the left as shown below

2. Carry out the previous step for both scenarios. The following are partial contents
of Router1’s routing table for both scenarios (Note: Your results may vary due to
different nodes placement):

In the above picture, the routing table of Router1 (NO_Failure scenario).

Loopback interface
allows a client and a Routing table of Router1 (Failure scenario):
server on the same host
to communicate with
each other using
TCP/IP.

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Further Readings

− RIP: IETF RFC number 2453 (www.ietf.org/rfc.html).

Questions

1) Obtain and analyze the graphs that compare the sent RIP traffic for both
scenarios. Make sure to change the draw style for the graphs to Bar Chart.

2) Describe and explain the effect of the failure of the link connecting Router1 to
Router2 on the routing tables.

3) Create another scenario as a duplicate of the Failure scenario. Name the new
scenario Q3_Recover. In this new scenario have the link connecting Router1 to
Router2 recover after 400 seconds. Generate and analyze the graph that shows
the effect of this recovery on the Total Number of Updates in the routing table of
Router1. Check the contents of Router1‘s routing table. Compare this table with
the corresponding routing tables generated in the NO_Failure and Failure
scenarios.

Lab Report

Prepare a report that follows the guidelines explained in Lab 0. The report should include
the answers to the above questions as well as the graphs you generated from the
simulation scenarios. Discuss the results you obtained and compare these results with your
expectations. Mention any anomalies or unexplained behaviors.

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