Network device configuration (ITec4113) Chapter Four Routing Protocols configuration

CHAPTER FOUR

ROUTING PROTOCOLS CONFIGURATION

4.1 Introduction to Routing

Routers are small physical devices that join multiple networks together. Technically, a router is a
Layer 3 gateway device, meaning that it connects two or more networks and that the router operates
at the network layer of the OSI model.

Routing a process accomplished by router and defined as follows:

• The process during which data packets are forwarded from one machine or device
(technically referred to as a node) to another on a network until they reach their destinations.
• Selecting the minimum cost, distance, and/or time path from several alternatives for a good or
message to reach its destination.
• The same as switching (with some very technical differences). IP routing uses IP addresses to
forward IP packets from their sources to their destinations. IP adopts packet switching.

The term routing encapsulates two tasks―deciding the paths for data transferred, and sending the
packets on these paths. Routing is a function carried out at the 3rd layer of the OSI reference model.
A routing algorithm decides the output line to transfer the incoming packets; algorithms are based on
the routing protocol that uses metrics―bandwidth, delay, and reliability-to assess whether a
particular path is the optimal path available for transfer of the data packets.

How routing works?

Let us consider a scenario where simachew’s sends a message from his computer in north gondar to
mulatu’s machine in Debre Tabor. TCP and other protocols do their work with the data on
simachew's machine; then it is sent to the IP protocol's module, where the data packets are bundled
into IP packets and sent over the network (Internet).

These data packets have to cross through a lot of routers to reach their destination. The work these
routers do is called routing. Each packet carries the IP addresses of the source and destination
machine.

Each of the intermediate routers consult the IP address of each packet received. Based on this, each
will know exactly in which direction to forward the packet. Normally, each router has a routing table,
where data about the neighboring routers is stored. This data (data in routing table) is used to
calculate and decide where to send the packets.

The packets go each one its own way and can move through different networks and take different
paths. They all finally get routed to one same destination machine.

On reaching Mulatu’s machine, the destination address and the machine address will match. The
packets will be consumed by the machine, where the IP module on it will reassemble them and send

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the resulting data above to the TCP service for further processing. This picture briefly depicts IP
Routing.

Fig. Packets can take different paths to their destination

A routing table is a type of data file that acts as a map and is often installed on a router, networked
computer or other hardware. A routing table is either a document stored in the router or on a network
computer in the form of a database, or is simply a file stored in the router. The data entered in the
routing table is referred to when the best possible path to transfer information across two computers
in a network is to be determined. The routing table contains information about various routes
between devices in order to present the most efficient paths for data packets. The table is a small in-
memory database managed by the router's built-in hardware and software.

A routing table uses static and dynamic Internet protocol or IP addresses to identify devices, and
works with an ARP cache that holds these addresses. The routing table is commonly referred to as a
resource for finding the next hop, or subsequent route for a data packet. Static or dynamic routes may
be compared in order to find the best path for data.

Part of the challenge of designing a routing table is in recording information on many devices with a
fixed memory or storage space. There’s also the issue of working with an ARP cache and correctly
maintaining lists of available routes for data. This is often referred to as incorrect definition of the
topology of a network. Other routing problems, such as black holes, which cause ineffective delivery,
should also be considered when using a routing table.

Routing tables contain a list of IP addresses. Each IP address identifies a remote router (or other
network gateway) that the local router is configured to recognize. For each IP address, the routing
table additionally stores a network mask and other data that specifies the destination IP address
ranges that remote device will accept.

Home network routers utilize a very small routing table because they simply forward all outbound
traffic to the Internet Service Provider (ISP) gateway which takes care of all other routing steps.
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Home router tables typically contain ten or fewer entries. By comparison, the largest routers at the
core of the Internet backbone must maintain the full Internet routing table that exceeds 100,000
entries and growing as the Internet expands.

4.2 Types of routing

The two classifications of routing are static routing and dynamic routing. These classifications are
based on the way in which routing tables are created and updated every time they are used. Routings
in which the data in routing table is stored and updated manually called static routing. On the other
hand, routings in which the information in routing table is changed dynamically, by the router itself,
are referred to as dynamic routing.

4.2.1 Static Routing

Static routing is not really a routing protocol. Static routing is simply the process of manually
entering routes into a device's routing table via a configuration file that is loaded when the routing
device starts up. As an alternative, these routes can be entered by a network administrator who
configures the routes manually. Since these manually configured routes don't change after they are
configured (unless a human changes them) they are called 'static' routes.

A static routing table is created, maintained, and updated by a network administrator, manually. A
static route to every network must be configured on every router for full connectivity. This provides
a granular level of control over routing, but quickly becomes impractical on large networks. Routers
will not share static routes with each other, thus reducing CPU/RAM overhead and saving
bandwidth. However, static routing is not fault-tolerant, as any change to the routing infrastructure
(such as a link going down, or a new network added) requires manual intervention. Routers operating
in a purely static environment cannot seamlessly choose a better route if a link becomes unavailable.
Static routes have an Administrative Distance (AD) of 1, and thus are always preferred over dynamic
routes, unless the default AD is changed. A static route with an adjusted AD is called a floating static
route.

Use static routing when you have very few devices to configure and when you know the routes will
probably never change.

Static routing also does not handle failures in external networks well because any route that is
configured manually must be updated or reconfigured manually to fix or repair any lost connectivity.

Static routing occurs when you manually add routes in each router’s routing table. There are pros and
cons to static routing, but that’s true for all routing processes.
Static routing has the following advantage and disadvantages:

Advantages of Static Routing Disadvantages of Static Routing

Minimal CPU/Memory overhead Infrastructure changes must be manually
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adjusted
No bandwidth overhead (updates are not shared No “dynamic” fault tolerance if a link
between routers) goes down – the administrator is
responsible
Granular control on how traffic is routed – adds Impractical on large network
security

Here’s the command syntax you use to add a static route to a routing table:

ip route [destination_network] [mask] [next-hop_address or

exit interface] [administrative_distance] [permanent]

This list describes each command in the string:

→ ip route The command used to create the static route.
→ Destination_network The network you’re placing in the routing table.
→ Mask The subnet mask being used on the network.
→ Next-hop_address The address of the next-hop router that will receive the packet and
forward it to the remote network. This is a router interface that’s on a directly connected
network. You must be able to ping the router interface before you add the route. If you type in
the wrong next-hop address or the interface to that router is down, the static route will show
up in the router’s configuration but not in the routing table.
→ Exit interface Used in place of the next-hop address if you want, and shows up as directly
connected route.
→ Administrative_distance By default, static routes have an administrative distance of 1 (or
even 0 if you use an exit interface instead of a next-hop address). You can change the default
value by adding an administrative weight at the end of the command.
→ Permanent If the interface is shut down or the router can’t communicate to the next-hop
router, the route will automatically be discarded from the routing table. Choosing the
permanent option keeps the entry in the routing table no matter what happens.
Default Route
When the router is unable to find a matching address to the packets destination address in its routing
table, it forwards the packet to its exit interface or next hop address configured with a default route
0.0.0.0/0.
Syntax
ip route 0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 [next-hop_address or exit interface]

Use the following network topology to configure static route, default route, EIGRP, and
OSPF.

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Configuration of static route

Exercise:

1. Configure a static route on both Router 1 and Router 2 so that PCs in 192.168.10.0/24
network are able to communicate with PC 3 in 10.10.10.0/24 network and vice versa.
2. First remove the static configuration and then configure a default route on both Router 1
and Router 2 so that PCs in 192.168.10.0/24 network are able to communicate with PC 3
in 10.10.10.0/24 network and vice versa.
4.2.2 Dynamic Routing
Dynamic routing uses a routing protocol and this protocols uses software and routing algorithms
running on the routing device (the router) to determine optimal network data transfer and
communication paths between network nodes. Routing protocols facilitate router communication and
overall network topology understanding. Routers in dynamic routing dynamically learn network
destinations and how to get to them and also advertise those destinations to other routers. This
advertisement function allows all the routers to learn about all the destination networks that exist and
how to go those networks.

A dynamic routing table is created, maintained, and updated by a routing protocol running on the
router. Routers do share dynamic routing information with each other, which increases CPU, RAM,
and bandwidth usage. However, routing protocols are capable of dynamically choosing a different
(or better) path when there is a change to the routing infrastructure.

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A router using dynamic routing will 'learn' the routes to all networks that are directly connected to
the device. Next, the router will learn routes from other routers that run the same routing protocol
(RIP, RIP2, EIGRP, OSPF, IS-IS, BGP etc.). Each router will then sort through its list of routes and
select one or more 'best' routes for each network destination the router knows or has learned.

Dynamic routing protocols will then distribute this 'best route' information to other routers running
the same routing protocol, thereby extending the information on what networks exist and can be
reached. This gives dynamic routing protocols the ability to adapt to logical network topology
changes, equipment failures or network outages 'on the fly'.

The following briefly outlines the advantages and disadvantages of dynamic routing:
Advantages of Dynamic Routing Disadvantages of Dynamic Routing
Simpler to configure on larger networks Updates are shared between routers, thus
consuming bandwidth
Will dynamically choose a different (or better) Routing protocols put additional load on router
route if a link goes down CPU/RAM
Ability to load balance between multiple links The choice of the “best route” is in the hands
of the routing protocol, and not the network
Administrator

Most Internet Protocol (IP) networks use the following dynamic routing protocols. The dynamic
routing protocols classified into two categories.
1. Distance Vector Routing Protocols (DVRP) – The distance-vector protocols find the best path
to a remote network by judging distance. Each time a packet goes through a router, that’s called a
hop. The route with the least number of hops to the network is determined to be the best route.
The vector indicates the direction to the remote network. Both RIP and IGRP are examples of
distance-vector routing protocols. They send the entire routing table to directly connected
neighbors.

All distance-vector routing protocols share several key characteristics:

• Periodic updates of the full routing table are sent to routing neighbors.
• Distance-vector protocols suffer from slow convergence, and are highly susceptible to loops.
• Some form of distance is used to calculate a route’s metric.
• The Bellman-Ford algorithm is used to determine the shortest path.

A distance-vector routing protocol begins by advertising directly-connected networks to its

neighbors. These updates are sent regularly (RIP – every 30 seconds; IGRP – every 90 seconds).

Neighbors will add the routes from these updates to their own routing tables. Each neighbor trusts
this information completely, and will forward their full routing table (connected and learned routes)
to every other neighbor. Thus, routers fully (and blindly) rely on neighbors for route information, a
concept known as routing by rumor.

Distance-vector protocols utilize some form of distance to calculate a route’s metric. RIP uses hop
count as its distance metric, and IGRP uses a composite of bandwidth and delay. EIGRP is also an
advanced distance-vector protocol.
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2. Link State Routing Protocol (LSRP) – In link-state protocols, also called shortest-path-first
protocols, each router create three separate tables. One of these tables keeps track of directly
attached neighbors, one determines the topology of the entire internetwork, and one is used as the
routing table. Link state routers know more about the internetwork than any distance-vector
routing protocol. OSPF is an IP routing protocol that is completely link state. Link-state protocols
send updates containing the state of their own links to all other routers on the network.
It uses sophisticated algorithms that maintain a complex database of internetworking topology.
Examples are:
o Intermediate System-to-Intermediate System (IS-IS) and
o Open Shortest Path First (OSPF)
Link-state routing protocols were developed to alleviate the convergence and loop issues of distance-
vector protocols. Link-state protocols maintain three separate tables:
• Neighbor table – contains a list of all neighbors, and the interface each neighbor is connected
off of. Neighbors are formed by sending Hello packets.
• Topology table – also known as the “link-state” table contains a map of all links within an
area, including each link’s status.
• Shortest-Path table – contains the best routes to each particular destination (also known as
the “routing” table”)

Link-state protocols do not “route by rumor.” Instead, routers send updates advertising the state of
their links (a link is a directly-connected network). All routers know the state of all existing links
within their area, and store this information in a topology table. All routers within an area have
identical topology tables.
The best route to each link (network) is stored in the routing (or shortest- path) table. If the state of a
link changes, such as a router interface failing, an advertisement containing only this link-state
change will be sent to all routers within that area. Each router will adjust its topology table
accordingly, and will calculate a new best route if required. By maintaining a consistent topology
table among all routers within an area, link-state protocols can converge very quickly and are
immune to routing loops.

Additionally, because updates are sent only during a link-state change, and contain only the change
(and not the full table), link-state protocols are less bandwidth intensive than distance-vector
protocols. However, the three link-state tables utilize more RAM and CPU on the router itself. Link-
state protocols utilize some form of cost, usually based on bandwidth, to calculate a route’s metric.
The Dijkstra formula is used to determine the shortest path.

Do not confuse routing protocols with routed protocols:

• A routed protocol is a Layer 3 protocol that applies logical addresses to devices and routes
data between networks (such as IP)
• A routing protocol dynamically builds the network, topology, and next hop information in
routing tables (such as RIP, EIGRP, etc.)

Difference between Static and Dynamic Routing

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► Static routing manually sets up optimal paths between the source and destination computers. On
the other hand, dynamic routing uses dynamic protocols to update the routing table and to find the
optimal path between the source and the destination computers.
► Routers that use static routing do not have any controlling mechanism if they come across any
faults in the routing paths. These routers do not sense faulty computers encountered while finding the
path between two computers or routers in a network. Dynamic routing algorithms can sense a faulty
router in the network. Also, dynamic routers eliminate the faulty router and find out another optimal
path from the source to the destination. If any router is down or faulty due to certain reasons, this
fault is circulated in the entire network. Due to this quality of dynamic
routers, they are also called adaptive routers.
► Static routing is suitable for very small networks; they cannot be used in large networks. As
against this, dynamic routing is used for larger networks. Manual routing has no specific routing
algorithm. Dynamic routers are based on various routing algorithms like OSPF (Open Shortest Path
First), IGRP (Interior Gateway Routing Protocol) and RIP (Routing Information Protocol).
► Static routing is the simplest way of routing data packets from a source to a destination in a
network. Dynamic routing uses complex algorithms for routing data packets.

The differences between dynamic and static routing are that static routing manually written into
routing tables. This is done through a configuration file to set up the optimal path between the source
and destination computers. Dynamic routing uses dynamic protocols to update the routing table and
find the optimal path between the source and destination computers.

4.3 Basic Concepts

There are some important things you should know about routing protocols before getting deeper into
them. Specifically, you need to understand administrative distances, metric and wild mask.

Administrative Distance
An administrative distance is the metric used by routers to choose the best path when there are two or
more routes to the same destination from two different routing protocols. An administrative distance
guides the selection of one routing protocol (or static route) over another, when more than one
protocol adds the same route to the uncast routing table. Each routing protocol is prioritized in order
of most to least reliable using an administrative distance value.
Static routes have a default administrative distance of 1. A router prefers a static route to a dynamic
route because the router considers a route with a low number to be the shortest. If you want a
dynamic route to override a static route, you can specify an administrative distance for the static
route. For example, if you have two dynamic routes with an administrative distance of 120, you
would specify an administrative distance that is greater than 120 for the static route if you want the
dynamic route to override the static route.

The administrative distance (AD) is used to rate the trustworthiness of routing information received
on a router from a neighbor router. An administrative distance is an integer from 0 to 255, where 0 is
the most trusted and 255 means no traffic will be passed via this route. If a router receives two

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updates listing the same remote network, the first thing the router checks is the AD. If one of the
advertised routes has a lower AD than the other, then the route with the lowest AD will be placed in
the routing table.

If both advertised routes to the same network have the same AD, then routing protocol metrics (such
as hop count or bandwidth of the lines) will be used to find the best path to the remote network. The
advertised route with the lowest metric will be placed in the routing table. But if both advertised
routes have the same AD as well as the same metrics, then the routing protocol will load-balance to
the remote network (which means that it sends packets down each link).
Table below shows the default administrative distances that a Cisco router uses to decide which route
to take to a remote network.

Fig. 2 Default Administrative Distances

If a network is directly connected, the router will always use the interface connected to the network.
If an administrator configures a static route, the router will believe that route over any other learned
routes.
For example, if you have a static route, a RIP-advertised route, and an IGRP-advertised route listing
the same network, then by default, the router will always use the static route unless you change the
AD of the static route.

Metric
There are cases when a routing protocol learns of more than one route to the same destination. To
select the best path, the routing protocol must be able to evaluate and differentiate between the
available paths. For this purpose a metric is used. A metric is a value used by routing protocols to
assign costs to reach remote networks. The metric is used to determine which path is most preferable
when there are multiple paths to the same remote network.

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Each routing protocol uses its own metric. For example, RIP uses hop count, EIGRP uses a
combination of bandwidth and delay, and Cisco's implementation of OSPF uses bandwidth. Hop
count is the easiest metric to envision. The hop count refers to the number of routers a packet must
cross to reach the destination network.

Wildcard mask
A wildcard mask is a mask of bits that indicates which parts of an IP address can assume any value.
In the Cisco IOS, they are used in several places, for example:

• To indicate the size of a network or subnet for some routing protocols, such as OSPF.
• To indicate what IP addresses should be permitted or denied in access control lists (ACLs).

A wildcard mask can be thought of as a subnet mask, with ones and zeros inverted; for example, a
wildcard mask of 0.0.0.255 corresponds to a subnet mask of 255.255.255.0. A wildcard mask is
usually used in combination with an IP address. For example, in a standard ACL, a statement like
the following: allows data from subnet 10.0.3.0/24 to pass, that is, the first three octets must match
exactly, whereas all the bits in the fourth octet can take on any value.

However, any bits can be marked as "don't care". For example, a wildcard mask of 0.0.0.254 (binary
equivalent = 00000000.00000000.00000000.11111110) in an ACL might accept (or deny) all even-
numbered IP addresses in a specific network.

Wildcard masks are used in situations where the subnet mask may not apply. For example, in an
ACL, two affected hosts may fall in different subnets, but the use of a wildcard mask can group the
two together.

To calculate wildcard mask

Simply subtract your mask from 255.255.255.255 to get your wildcard mask.
Example:
The wildcard mask of /26 is:
255.255.255.255 - 255.255.255.192 = 0.0.0.63
The wildcard mask of /19 is:
255.255.255.255 - 255.255.224.0 = 0.0.31.255
The wildcard mask of /12 is:
255.255.255.255 - 255.240.0.0 = 0.15.255.255

Wildcard Mask Exercises -

1. You wish to match all hosts on the 192.168.1.0/24 network. What address and wildcard mask
combination should you use?
2. You wish to match the specific host 172.16.1.1. What address and wildcard mask combination
should you use?

4.3.1 Routing Information Protocol (RIP)

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Routing Information Protocol (RIP) is a standards-based, distance-vector, interior gateway

protocol (IGP) used by routers to exchange routing information. RIP only uses hop count to
determine the best path between two locations. Hop count is the number of routers the packet must
go through till it reaches the destination network. The maximum allowable number of hops a packet
can traverse in an IP network implementing RIP is 15 hops. It has a maximum allowable hop count
of 15 by default, meaning that 16 is deemed unreachable. The hop count represents the total number
of routing devices a given piece of data (packet) passes through. Repeaters, Hubs, the end stations,
and Switches (do not include them in the hop count) - these devices are all transparent, and do not
route - and therefore is not included in the hop count. Typically Hop Count = routers and also
Firewall that are Routers can be included in the Hop Count. RIP works well in small networks, but
it's inefficient on large networks with slow WAN links or on networks with a large number of routers
installed. In a RIP network, each router broadcasts its entire RIP table to its neighboring routers
every 30 seconds. When a router receives a neighbor's RIP table, it uses the information provided to
update its own routing table and then sends the updated table to its neighbors.

RIP plays an important role providing the shortest and best path for data to take from node to node.
The hop is the step towards the next existing device, which could be a router, computer or other
device. Once the length of the hop is determined, the information is stored in a routing table for
future use. RIP is being used in both local and wide area networks and is generally considered to be
easily configured and implemented.

RIP uses only hop count to determine the best path to a network. If RIP finds more than one link to
the same remote network with the same hop count, it will automatically perform a round-robin load
balancing. RIP can perform load balancing for up to six equal-cost links (four by default). However,
a problem with this type of routing metric arises when the two links to a remote network are different
bandwidths but the same hop count.

The differences between RIPv1 and RIPv2

RIPv1
– It is a classful protocol (which means that all devices in the network must use the same subnet
mask). This is because RIP version 1 doesn’t send updates with subnet mask information.
– RIP supports up to six equal-cost paths to a single destination, where all six paths can be
placed in the routing table and the router can load-balance across them. The default is actually
four paths, but this can be increased up to a maximum of six. Remember that an equal-cost
path is where the hop count value is the same. RIP will not load-balance across unequal-cost
paths.
– Outdated
RIPv2
– RIPv2 uses multicasts
– RIPv2 supports triggered updates—when a change occurs, a RIPv2 router will immediately
propagate its routing information to its connected neighbors.
– RIPv2 is a classless protocol. RIPv2 supports variable-length subnet masking (VLSM)

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– RIPv2 supports authentication. You can restrict what routers you want to participate in
RIPv2. This is accomplished using a hashed password value.
RIP Timers
RIP uses four different kinds of timers to regulate its performance:
Route update timer
Sets the interval (typically 30 seconds) between periodic routing updates in which the router sends a
complete copy of its routing table out to all neighbors.
Hold-down timer
This sets the amount of time during which routing information is suppressed. Routes will enter into
the hold-down state when an update packet is received that indicated the route is unreachable. This
continues either until an update packet is received with a better metric or until the hold-down timer
expires. The default is 180 seconds.
Route invalid timer
It determines the length of time that must elapse (180 seconds) before a router determines that a route
has become invalid. It will come to this conclusion if it hasn’t heard any updates about a particular
route for that period. When that happens, the router will send out updates to all its neighbors letting
them know that the route is invalid.

Route flush timer

This sets the time between a route becoming invalid and its removal from the routing table (240
seconds). Before it's removed from the table, the router notifies its neighbors of that route's
impending failure. The value of the route invalid timer must be less than that of the route flush timer.
This gives the router enough time to tell its neighbors about the invalid route before the local routing
table is updated.

RIP configuration (Refer your lecture note or lab#4 exercises for RIPv1 and RIPv2 configuration)

Syntax:

RIPv1 RIPv2

router rip router rip

network Network_Address vesion 2

network Network_Address
4.3.2 Interior Gateway Routing Protocol (IGRP)

Interior Gateway Routing Protocol (IGRP) is a dynamic class routing protocol used by
autonomous system (AS) routers running on TCP/IP hosts. An AS is a collection of networks under a
common administrative domain, which basically means that all routers sharing the same routing table
information are in the same AS. EGPs are used to communicate between ASs.

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IGRP overcomes Routing Information Protocol (RIP) network limitations and supports multiple
routing metrics, including delay, bandwidth, load and reliability. Routing updates are broadcast every
90 seconds (by default).

The followings are the characteristics of IGRP:

- Developed by Cisco
- Uses composite metrics
- Uses multipath routing
- Supports unequal-cost load balancing
- Supports hold-downs
- Supports split horizon
- Deprecated *

4.3.3 Enhanced Interior Gateway Routing Protocol (EIGRP)

EIGRP is an advanced distance vector routing protocol based on the principles of the Interior
Gateway Routing Protocol (IGRP).

EIGRP is a successor to the Interior Gateway Routing Protocol (IGRP). Both are owned by Cisco
and operate only on their devices. Cisco introduced EIGRP because it needed a protocol with faster
converging abilities, route selection and calculation and the ability to record information from
neighboring devices.

EIGRP has the following characteristics:

1. Advanced operational efficiency
2. Capabilities of both link state and distance vector
3. A classless routing protocol
4. Unique features including use of Reliable Transport Protocol (RTP- capable of transmitting
both multicast and unicast), a diffusing update algorithm (DUAL), updates and updated
information about neighbors
5. Faster converging because it pre-calculates routes and does not broadcast hold-down timer
packets before converging
6. Supports discontiguous network
7. Supports all layer 3 protocols (IPv4, IPX, and IPv6)

EIGRP uses bandwidth, delay, load and reliability to calculate the metric for its routing table (not
hop count used by legacy protocols). For this reason, EIGRP always selects and calculates the most
optimal route for efficiency. EIGRP uses a DUAL algorithm to avoid loops and send occasional hello
packets to check the status of neighbor routers.

It uses the following tables for route discovery i.e. neighbor table, topology table and route table.

EIGRP configuration (Refer your lecture note or Lab#5&6)

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Syntax: router eigrp area_no

network Network_Address | network Network_Address Wildcard mask

*area_no can be any number in the range from 1 to 65535 both inclusive.

4.3.4 Open Shortest Path First (OSPF)

OSPF is a link state routing protocol (LSRP) that uses the Shortest Path First (SPF) network
communication algorithm (Dijkstra's algorithm) to calculate the shortest connection path between
known devices.

OSPF is an Interior Gateway Routing Protocol (IGP) that routes Internet Protocol (IP) packets within
a single routing network domain only. OSPF finds the best network layout (topology) by calculating
shortest device connection paths using the Shortest Path First (SPF) algorithm.

For example, a person in city A wants to travel to city M and is given two options:
• Travel via cities B and C. The route would be ABCM. And the distance (or bandwidth cost in
the networking case) for A-B is 10 miles, B-C is 5 miles and C-M is 10 miles.
• Travel via city F. The route would be AFM. And the distance for A-F is 20 miles and F-M is
10 miles.

The shortest route is always the one with least amount of distance covered in total. Thus, the ABCM
route is the better option (10+5+10=25), even though the person has to travel to two cities as the
associated total cost to travel to the destination is less than the second option with a single city
(20+10=30). OSPF performs a similar algorithm by first calculating the shortest path between the
source and destination based on link bandwidth cost and then allows the network to send and receive
IP packets via the shortest route.

The larger network can be broken into the slam areas so the router in one area know less topology
and they don’t have information about other areas routers. Creating OSPF areas result in smaller
database which reduce the memory consumption and processing.
OSPF maintains a two layer hierarchy consisting of:
- Backbone area (area 0)
- Off backbone area ( area 1 -65, 535)
The followings are the characteristics of OSPF:
- AD value is 110
- Supports classless network
- Supports VLSM/CIDR and has unlimited hop counts
- Supports hierarchical network
- Route propagation using multicasting

OSPF Configuration (Refer your lecture)

router ospf area_no.

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Syntax: network Network_Address Wildcard_mask area 0

*area_no can be any number in the range from 1 to 65535 both inclusive.

Routing Protocol Comparison

Name Class Type AD Metric Classful/ Algorithm Transport

type
less

RIPv1 Distance IGP 120 Hop count Classful Bellman- UDP/520

Vector Fold

RIPv2 Distance IGP 120 Hop count Classless Bellman- UDP/520

Vector Fold

IGRP Distance IGP 100 Composite Classful Dijkstra(SPF) IP Protocol

Vector (BW+DLY) 9

EIGRP Advanced IGP 90 (internal) Composite Classless DUAL EIGRP

Distance (BW+DLY) Protocol 88
Vector 170(external)

OSPF Link State IGP 110 Cost Classless Dijkstra(SPF) OSPF

Protocol 89

4.4 Introduction to DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol)

- An extension of BOOTP, very similar to DHCP
- Same port numbers as BOOTP
- Extensions:
▪ Supports temporary allocation (“leases”) of IP addresses
▪ DHCP client can acquire all IP configuration parameters needed to operate
- DHCP is the preferred mechanism for dynamic assignment of IP addresses
- DHCP can interoperate with BOOTP clients.

DHCP configuration (Refer your lecture note or Lab# 5&6)

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Configure DHCP on R1 so that all devices (PCs) in Student_LAN get their IP address, subnet mask,
default gateway, DNS address from this router.

4.5 ACL (Access Control List)

ACLs can be used for two purposes on Cisco devices:
• To filter traffic
• To identify traffic
Access lists are a set of rules, organized in a rule table. Each rule or line in an access-list provides a
condition, either permit or deny:
When using an access-list to filter traffic, a permit statement is used to “allow” traffic, while a deny
statement is used to “block” traffic. Similarly, when using an access list to identify traffic, a permit
statement is used to “include” traffic, while a deny statement states that the traffic should “not” be
included. It is thus interpreted as a true/false statement.

Access control lists enable you to permit or deny packets based on source and destination IP address,
IP protocol information, or TCP or UDP protocol information.
Types of Access Lists
There are two categories of access lists: numbered and named. You can configure the following
types of numbered ACLs:
• Standard – Permits or denies packets based on source IP address. Valid standard ACL IDs are
1 – 99 or a string.
• Extended – Permits or denies packets based on source and destination IP address and also based on
IP protocol information. Valid extended ACL IDs are a number from 100 – 199 or a string.

✓ Named access lists provide a bit more flexibility. Descriptive names can be used to identify
your access-lists. Additionally, individual lines can be removed from a named access-list.
However, like numbered lists, all new entries are still added to the bottom of the access list.
There are two common types of named access lists:
✓ IP standard named access lists
✓ IP extended named access lists
IP access-lists use wildcard masks to determine two things:
1. Which part of an address must match exactly?

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2. Which part of an address can match any number?

Consider the following address and wildcard mask:
Address: 172.16.0.0
Wild Card Mask: 0.0.255.255
The above would match any address that begins “172.16.” The last two octets could be anything.
How do I know this?
Two Golden Rules of Access Lists:
1. If a bit is set to 0 in a wild-card mask, the corresponding bit in the address must be matched
exactly.
2. If a bit is set to 1 in a wild-card mask, the corresponding bit in the address can match any
number. In other words, we “don’t care” what number it matches.
To see this more clearly, we’ll convert both the address and the wild card mask into binary:
Address: 10101100.00010000.00000000.00000000
Wild Card Mask: 00000000.00000000.11111111.11111111
Any 0 bits in the wildcard mask, indicates that the corresponding bits in the address must be matched
exactly. Thus, looking at the above example, we must exactly match the following in the first two
octets:
10101100.00010000 = 172.16
Any 1 bits in the wildcard mask indicates that the corresponding bits can be anything. Thus, the last
two octets can be any number, and it will still match this access-list entry.
If wanted to match a specific address with a wildcard mask (we’ll use an example of 172.16.1.1),
how would we do it?
Address: 172.16.1.1
Wild Card Mask: 0.0.0.0
Written out in binary, that looks like:
Address: 10101100.00010000.00000001.00000001
Wild Card Mask: 00000000.00000000.00000000.00000000
Remember what a wildcard mask is doing. A 0 indicates it must match exactly, a 1 indicates it can
match anything. The above wildcard mask has all bits set to 0, which means we must match all four
octets exactly.
There are actually two ways we can match a host:
• Using a wildcard mask with all bits set to 0 – 172.16.1.1 0.0.0.0
• Using the keyword “host” – host 172.16.1.1
How would we match all addresses with a wildcard mask?
Address: 0.0.0.0
Wild Card Mask: 255.255.255.255
Written out in binary, that looks like:
Address: 00000000.00000000.00000000.00000000
Wild Card Mask: 11111111.11111111.11111111.11111111
Notice that the above wildcard mask has all bits set to 1. Thus, each bit can match anything –
resulting in the above address and wildcard mask matching all possible addresses.
There are actually two ways we can match all addresses:
• Using a wildcard mask with all bits set to 1 – 0.0.0.0 255.255.255.255
• Using the keyword “any” – any
Standard IP Access List
Syntax: access-list [1-99] [permit | deny] [source address] [wildcard mask] [log]

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Standard IP access-lists are based upon the source host or network IP address, and should be placed
closest to the destination network.
Consider the following example:

In order to block network 172.18.0.0 from accessing the 172.16.0.0 network, we would create the
following access-list on Router A:
Router(config)# access-list 10 deny 172.18.0.0 0.0.255.255
Router(config)# access-list 10 permit any
Notice the wildcard mask of 0.0.255.255 on the first line. This will match (deny) all hosts on the
172.18.x.x network.
The second line uses a keyword of any, which will match (permit) any other address. Remember that
you must have at least one permit statement in your access list.
To apply this access list, we would configure the following on Router A:
Router(config)# int fa4/0
Router(config-if)# ip access-group 10 in
To view all IP access lists configured on the router:
Router# show ip access-list
To view what interface an access-list is configured on:
Router# show ip interface
Router# show running-config

Extended IP Access List

Syntax: access-list [100-199] [permit | deny] [protocol] [source address] [wildcard mask]
[destination address] [wildcard mask] [operator [port]] [log]

Extended IP access-lists block based upon the source IP address, destination IP address, and TCP or
UDP port number. Extended access-lists should be placed closest to the source network.

Consider the following example: (use the above network topology)

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Assume there is a web server on the 172.17.x.x network with an IP address of 172.17.0.10.
In order to block network 172.18.0.0 from accessing anything on the 172.17.0.0 network, EXCEPT
for the HTTP port on the web server, we would create the following access-list on Router B:

Router(config)# access-list 101 permit tcp 172.18.0.0 0.0.255.255 host 172.17.0.10 eq 80

Router(config)# access-list 101 deny ip 172.18.0.0 0.0.255.255 172.17.0.0 0.0.0.3
Router(config)# access-list 101 permit ip any any
The first line allows the 172.18.x.x network access only to port 80 on the web server. The second line
blocks 172.18.x.x from accessing anything else on the 172.17.x.x network. The third line allows
172.18.x.x access to anything else.
We could have identified the web server in one of two ways:
Router(config)# access-list 101 permit tcp 172.18.0.0 0.0.255.255 host 172.17.0.10 eq 80
Router(config)# access-list 101 permit tcp 172.18.0.0 0.0.255.255 172.17.0.10 0.0.0.0 eq 80
To apply this access list, we would configure the following on Router B:
Router(config)# int fa1/0
Router(config-if)# ip access-group 101 in

4.6 Network Address Translation (NAT)

Network Address Translation (NAT) is designed for IP address conservation. It enables private IP
networks that use unregistered IP addresses to connect to the Internet. NAT operates on a router,
usually connecting two networks together, and translates the private (not globally unique) addresses
in the internal network into legal (globally known) addresses, before packets are forwarded to
another network.

As part of this capability, NAT can be configured to advertise only one address for the entire network
to the outside world. This provides additional security by effectively hiding the entire internal
network behind that address. NAT offers the dual functions of security and address conservation and
is typically implemented in remote-access environments.

Network Address Translation (NAT) is the process of assigning a public address to a computer (or
group of computers) inside a private network. The main use of NAT is to limit the number of public
IP addresses an organization or company must use, for both economy and security purposes.

Basically, NAT allows a single device, such as a router, to act as an agent between the Internet (or
public network) and a local network (or private network), which means that only a single unique IP
address is required to represent an entire group of computers to anything outside their network.

The most common form of network translation involves a large private network using addresses in a
private range (10.0.0.0 to 10.255.255.255, 172.16.0.0 to 172.31.255.255, or 192.168.0 0 to
192.168.255.255). The private addressing scheme works well for computers that only have to access
resources inside the network, like workstations needing access to file servers and printers. Routers
inside the private network can route traffic between private addresses with no trouble. However, to
access resources outside the network, like the Internet, these computers have to have a public address
in order for responses to their requests to return to them. This is where NAT comes into play.

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Internet requests that require Network Address Translation (NAT) are quite complex but happen so
rapidly that the end user rarely knows it has occurred. A workstation inside a network makes a
request to a computer on the Internet. Routers within the network recognize that the request is not for
a resource inside the network, so they send the request to the firewall. The firewall sees the request
from the computer with the internal IP. It then makes the same request to the Internet using its own
public address, and returns the response from the Internet resource to the computer inside the private
network. From the perspective of the resource on the Internet, it is sending information to the address
of the firewall. From the perspective of the workstation, it appears that communication is directly
with the site on the Internet. When NAT is used in this way, all users inside the private network
access the Internet have the same public IP address when they use the Internet. That means only one
public addresses is needed for hundreds or even thousands of users.

Most modern firewalls are stateful - that is, they are able to set up the connection between the
internal workstation and the Internet resource. They can keep track of the details of the connection,
like ports, packet order, and the IP addresses involved. This is called keeping track of the state of the
connection. In this way, they are able to keep track of the session composed of communication
between the workstation and the firewall, and the firewall with the Internet. When the session ends,
the firewall discards all of the information about the connection.

There are other uses for Network Address Translation (NAT) beyond simply allowing workstations
with internal IP addresses to access the Internet. In large networks, some servers may act as Web
servers and require access from the Internet. These servers are assigned public IP addresses on the
firewall, allowing the public to access the servers only through that IP address. However, as an
additional layer of security, the firewall acts as the intermediary between the outside world and the
protected internal network. Additional rules can be added, including which ports can be accessed at
that IP address. Using NAT in this way allows network engineers to more efficiently route internal
network traffic to the same resources, and allow access to more ports, while restricting access at the
firewall. It also allows detailed logging of communications between the network and the outside
world.

Additionally, NAT can be used to allow selective access to the outside of the network, too.
Workstations or other computers requiring special access outside the network can be assigned
specific external IPs using NAT, allowing them to communicate with computers and applications
that require a unique public IP address. Again, the firewall acts as the intermediary, and can control
the session in both directions, restricting port access and protocols.

NAT is a very important aspect of firewall security. It conserves the number of public addresses used
within an organization, and it allows for stricter control of access to resources on both sides of the
firewall.

Note: NAT is not restricted to private-to-public address translation, though that is the most common
application. NAT can also perform public-to-public address translation, as well as private-to-private
address translation.

NAT is only a temporarily solution to the address shortage problem. IPv4will eventually be replaced
with IPv6, which supports a vast address space. Both Cisco IOS devices and PIX/ASA firewalls
support NAT.
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Situation where you should use NAT

• Your ISP did not provide you sufficient public IP address
• Your company is going to merge in a company which use same address space
• Where you want to hide your internal IP address space from outside
• You want to assign the same IP address to multiple machines

Types of NAT
NAT comes in three flavors:

• Static NAT: Provides one-to-one mapping between local and global addresses, consequently,
every computer on the network must be allocated a single dedicated routable IP address.
• Dynamic NAT: A pool of routable IP addresses is configured on the router and dynamically
the router assigns addresses from this pool to every machine that requires sending traffic to
the “outside world”. This type of NAT needs good planning from the beginning so that the
pool of IP addresses is enough to cover the traffic needs of the peak hour traffic to the
Internet.
• NAT overload (PAT): Port address translation is another variation of NAT and the most
popular one. It is also called NAT Overloading because it is designed to map many private IP
addresses to just a single registered IP address (overloaded address) by applying different port
addresses in the TCP or UDP header.

Static NAT

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In static NAT manual translation is performed by an address translation device, translating one IP
address to a different one. If you have 100 devices, you need to create 100 static entries in the
address translation table. Typically, static translation is done for inside resources that outside people
want to access.

To configure static inside source address translation for the example shown in the Figure above, the
following need to be performed on the router:

• Specify the inside interface:

o Router(config)#interface fast ethernet0/0 (private side interface)
o Router(config-if)# ip nat inside
• Specify the outside interface:
o Router(config)#interface fast ethernet0/1 (Public side interface)
o Router(config-if)# ip nat outside
• Enter static translation entry :
o Router(config)# ip nat inside source static 192.168.0.1 206.245.160.1

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Dynamic NAT

Dynamic NAT is mostly used when inside users needs to access outside resources. The global
address assigned to the internal user isn't important, since outside devices don't directly connect to
your internal users they just return traffic to them that the inside user requested.

Dynamic NAT is used when inside user wants to access external resource. When an inside user sends
traffic through the address translation device, say a router, it examines the source IP address and
compares it to the internal local address pool. If it finds a match, then it determines which inside
global address pool it should use for the translation. It then dynamically picks an address in the
global address pool that is not currently assigned to an inside device. The router adds this entry in its
address translation table, the packet is translated, and the packet is then sent to the outside world. If
no matching entry is found in the local address pool, the address is not translated and is forwarded to
the outside world in its original state.

When returning traffic comes back into your network, the address translation device examines the
destination IP addresses and checks them against the address translation table. Upon finding a
matching entry, it converts the global inside address to the local inside address in the destination IP
address field of the packet header and forwards the packet to the inside network.
To configure dynamic inside source address translation for the example shown in the figure above,
the following need to be performed:

• Specify the inside interface:

o Router(config)#interface fast ethernet0/0
o Router(config-if)# ip nat inside
• Specify the outside interface:
o Router(config)#interface serial0/0
o Router(config-if)# ip nat outside
• Define an Access List to permit the inside local addresses to be translated:
o Router(config)#access-list 1 permit 10.0.0.0 0.0.0.255

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• Define a pool of global addresses :

o Router(config)# ip nat pool DNAT1 179.2.2.65 179.2.2.90 netmask 255.255.255.224
• Enter dynamic translation entry :
o Router(config)# ip nat inside source list 1 pool DNAT1

In the previous static NAT configuration on Cisco Routers, we saw how you can translate one IP
address into another single IP address. This part will cover how to translate many IP addresses into
many IP addresses, otherwise referred to as many-to-many translation.

Dynamic NAT allows us to translate many IP addresses into a pool of many IP addresses. The big
thing to realize here is that the pool does not need to contain enough IP addresses to translate all the
internal addresses at the same time, as would be the case if we used Static NAT. Dynamic NAT
allows internal hosts to be translated into an IP address in the pool when it requires a connection.
Once the internal host has finished its session the NAT entry is removed from the NAT table
allowing another internal host to use the external IP address for its session.

Assume we have 50 hosts in our inside network but only have 5 public IP addresses available to use.
With Dynamic NAT we can allow all 50 internal addresses to share the 5 public addresses as and
when they need them. This of course does impose a limit of only 5 simultaneous connections to the
outside world and that is where PAT would come in and solve that problem.

One of the benefits of using Dynamic NAT vs Static NAT, is that Dynamic NAT requires the session
to originate from the inside network. No outside connections can be established to the inside
network. This is obviously a more secure solution as connections from the outside won’t work; only
traffic originating from the inside will be translated. Static NAT is different in the fact that the entry
is added to the NAT table on a permanent basis and will allow connections in either direction.

NAT overloading (PAT)

NAT Overload, also known as PAT (Port Address Translation) is essentially NAT with the added
feature of TCP/UDP ports translation.

NAT overload is the most common operation in most businesses around the world, as it enables the
whole network to access the Internet using one single real IP address.

'Overloading' means that the single public IP assigned to your router can be used by multiple internal
hosts concurrently. This is done by translating source UDP/TCP ports in the packets and keeping
track of them within the translation table kept in the router (R1 in our case below). This is a typical
NAT configuration for almost all of today's networks.

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The first step in any NAT configuration is to define the inside and outside interfaces. It is imperative
that we define these interfaces for NAT overload to function.

Set the fast ethernet 0/0 interface as the inside interface:

R1# configure terminal
R1(config)# interface fastethernet0/0
R1(config-if)# ip nat inside
Next step is to set the serial interface S2/0 as the outside interface:

R1(config-if)# interface serial2/0

R1(config-if)# ip nat outside
R1(config-if)# exit

We now need to create an Access Control List (ACL) that will include local (private) hosts or
network(s). This ACL will later on be applied to the NAT service command, effectively controlling
the hosts that will be able to access the Internet. You can use standard or extended access lists
depending on your requirements:

R1(config)# access-list 100 remark == [Control NAT Service]==

R1(config)# access-list 100 permit ip 192.168.0.0 0.0.0.255 any

The above command instructs the router to allow the 192.168.0.0/24 network to reach any
destination.

All that's left now is to enable NAT overload and bind it to the outside interface previously selected:

R1(config)# ip nat inside source list 100 interface serial 2/0 overload

From this point onward, the router will happily create all the necessary translations to allow the
192.168.0.0/24 network access to the Internet.

NAT overloading is PAT, which involves using a pool with a range of one or more addresses or
using an interface IP address in combination with the port. When you overload, you create a fully

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extended translation. This is a translation table entry containing IP address and source/destination
port information, which is commonly called PAT or overloading.

PAT (or overloading) is a feature of Cisco IOS NAT that is used to translate internal (inside local)
private addresses to one or more outside (inside global, usually registered/public) IP addresses.
Unique source port numbers on each translation are used to distinguish between the conversations.

With PAT, all devices that go through the address translation device have the same global IP address
assigned to them, so the source TCP or UDP port numbers are used to differentiate the different
connections. If two devices have the same source port number, the translation device changes one of
them to ensure uniqueness. Major difference between NAT and PAT is in NAT Only IP addresses
are translated (not port numbers).

Disadvantages of Address Translation

Three main disadvantages with address translation are:
• Each connection has an added delay.
• Troubleshooting is more difficult.
• Not all applications work with address translation.

Address Translation Terms and Types

Term Explanation
Inside Addresses located on the inside of your network
Outside Addresses located outside of your network
Local The IP address physically assigned to a device
Global The public IP address physically or logically assigned to a device
Inside local IP address The IPv4 address that is assigned to a host on the inside network
A legitimate IPv4 address assigned by the ISP that represents one or
Inside global IP address
more inside local IPv4 addresses to the outside world
Outside global IP address An outside device with a registered public IP address
Outside local IP address An outside device with an assigned private IP address
A manual address translation is performed between two addresses and
Static NAT
possibly port numbers.
An address translation device automatically performs address
Dynamic NAT
translation between two addresses and possibly port numbers.

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Many inside IP addresses are translated to a single IP address, where

Port Address Translation
each inside address is given a different TCP or UDP port number for
(PAT)
uniqueness.

Reading Assignment

1. Identify packet types of EIGRP, OSPF and DHCP.

2. What are DR and BDR in OSPF? How a router becomes a DR or BDR?
3. Try to use troubleshooting commands-RIP, EIGRP, OSPF, ACL and NAT.

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