Routing Algorithms

UNIT 2 ROUTING ALGORITHMS

Structure Page Nos.

2.0 Introduction 23
2.1 Objectives 23
2.2 Flooding 23
2.3 Shortest Path Routing Algorithm 25
2.4 Distance Vector Routing 26
2.4.1 Comparison
2.4.2 The Count-to-Infinity Problem
2.5 Link State Routing 30
2.6 Hierarchical Routing 33
2.7 Broadcast Routing 35
2.8 Multicast Routing 36
2.9 Summary 39
2.10 Solutions/Answer 40
2.11 Further Readings 41

2.0 INTRODUCTION

As you have studied earlier, the main function of the network layer is to find the best
route from a source to a destination. In routing, the route with the minimum cost is
considered to be the best route. For this purpose, a router plays an important role. On
the basis of cost of a each link, a router tries to find the optimal route with the help of
a good routing algorithm. There are a large number of routing algorithms. These
algorithms are a part of the network layer and are responsible for deciding on which
output line an incoming packet should be transmitted. Some of these routing
algorithms are discussed in this unit.

2.1 OBJECTIVES

After going through this unit, you should be able to:

• understand how the shortest path routing algorithm works;

• draw a spanning tree;
• understand the functioning of distance vector routing and link state routing, and
• understand and implement multicast routing.

2.2 FLOODING

Consider an example of any network topology (VC subnet) in which, there are some
link failures or in which, a few routers are not operational. These failures will cause
changes in the network typology which have to be communicated to all the nodes in
the network. This is called broadcasting. These could be many such examples of
broadcasting in which the message has to be passed on to the entire network.

A widely used broadcasting method, known as flooding, operates in the following

manner. The source node sends its information in the form of a packet to those nodes
in a subnet to which it is directly connected by a link. These nodes relay it further to
their neighbours who are also directly connected, and so on, until the packet reaches

23
Network Layer all nodes in the network. For example, in the Figure 1(a), R1 will send its packets to
R2 and R3. R2 will send the packet to R5 and R4. Two additional rules are also
applied in order to limit the number of packets to be transmitted. First, a node will not
relay the packet back to the node from which the packet was obtained. For example,
R2 will not send the packet back to R1 if, it has received it from R1. Second, a node
will transmit the packet to its neighbours at most once; this can be ensured by
including on the packet the ID number of the origin node and a sequence number,
which is incremented with each new packet issued by the origin node. By storing the
highest sequence number received for each node, and by not relaying packets with
sequence numbers that are less than or equal to the one stored, a node can avoid
transmitting the same packet more than once, on each of its incident links. On
observing these rules, you will notice that, links need not preserve the order of packet
transmissions; the sequence numbers can be used to recognise the correct order. The
following figure gives an example of flooding and illustrates how, the total number of
packet transmission per packet broadcast lies between L and 2L, where L is the
number of bi-directional links of the network. In this Figure 1(a) Packet broadcasting
from router R1 to all other nodes by using flooding [as in Figure 1(a)] or a spanning
tree [as in Figure 1(b)]. Arrows indicate packet transmissions at the time shown. Each
packet transmission time is assumed to be one unit. Flooding requires at least as many
packet transmissions as the spanning tree method and usually many more. In this
example, the time required for the broadcast packet to reach all nodes is the same for
the two methods. In general, however, depending on the choice of the spanning tree,
the time required for flooding may be less than for the spanning tree method. The
spanning tree is used to avoid the looping of packets in the subnet.

Packet
R2 R5
R2 R5
2 2
0 1 0 2
1 2 B 1
A R1 R7
R4 2 1
1 R1 R4
R7
2
2 0
0 R3 R6
R3 1 R6 1
Router

Figure 1(a): Flooding Figure 1(b): Spanning Tree

Figure 1: Broadcasting (Source: Ref. [2])

Student should refer to [2] for further reading on this topic.

 Check Your Progress 1

1) Following statements are True or False

(i) Dijkstra algorithm divides the node into two sets i.e., tentative and
permanent. T F

(ii) Flooding generates lots of redundant packets. T F

(iii) Flooding discovers only the optimal routes T F

24
2) What is a spanning tree? Routing Algorithms

…………………………………………………………………………………...
…………………………………………………………………………………..
……………………………………………………………………………….….

2.3 SHORTEST PATH ROUTHING ALGORITHM

Shortest path routing algorithm is a simple and easy to understand technique. The
basic idea of this technique is to build a graph of the subnet, with each node of the
graph representing a router and each arc of the graph representing a communication
line i.e., link. For finding a route between a given pair of routers, the algorithm just
finds the shortest path between them on the graph. The length of a path can be
measured in a number of ways as on the basis of the number of hops, or on the basis
of geographic distance etc.

There are a number of algorithms for computing the shortest path between two nodes
of a graph. One of the most used algorithm is the Dijkstra algorithm. This is
explained below:

In this algorithm, each node has a label which represents its distance from the source
node along the best known path. On the basis of these labels, the algorithm divides
the node into two sets i.e., tentative and permanent. As in the beginning no paths are
known, so all labels are tentative. The Algorithm works in the following manner:

1) First mark source node as current node (T-node)

2) Find all the neighours of the T-node and make them tentative.
3) Now examine all these neigbour.
4) Then among all these node, label one node as permanent (i.e., node with the
lowest weight would be labeled as permanent) and mark it as the T-node.
5) If, the desination node is reached or tentative list is empty then stop, else go to
step 2.

An example of Dijkstra routing algorithm is explained in Figure 2: In this example,

we want to find the best route between A and E. Here, we will show permanent nodes
with filled circles and T-nodes with the --> symbol.

1) As shown in the Figure below, the source node (A) has been chosen as T-node,
and so its label is permanent.

2) In this step, as you see B, C are the tentative nodes directly linked to
T-node (A). Among these nodes, since B has less weight, it has been chosen as
T-node and its label has changed to permanent.

25
Network Layer

3) In this step, as you see D, E are the tentative nodes directly linked to T-node(B).
Among these nodes, since D has less weight, it has been chosen as T-node and
its label has changed to permanent.

4) In this step, as you see C, E are the tentative nodes directly linked to T-node(D).
Among these nodes, since E has less weight, it has been chosen as T-node and
its label has changed to permanent.

5) E is the destination node. Now, since the destination node (E) has been, reached
so, we stop here, and the shortest path is A –B –D –E.

Figure 2: Dijkstra’s algorithm to compute the shortest path routing

2.4 DISTANCE VECTOR ROUTNIG

Nowadays, computer networks generally use dynamic routing algorithms rather than
the static ones described above because, static algorithms do not take the current
network load into account. Distance vector routing and link state routing are two
main dynamic algorithms. In this section, we will go through the distance vector
routing algorithm. It is also known as Belman-Ford routing algorithm.

26
Bellman-Ford Algorithm Routing Algorithms

The Bellman-Ford algorithm can be stated as follows: Find the shortest paths from a
given source node subject keeping in mind the constraint that, the paths contain at
most one link; then, find the shortest paths, keeping in mind a contraint of paths of at
most two links, and so on. This algorithm also proceeds in stages. The description of
the algorighm is given below.

s = source node

w(i, j) = link cost from node i to node j; w(i, j) = ∞ if the two nodes are not directly
connected; w(i, j) ≥ 0 if the two nodes are directly connected.

h = maximum number of links in a path at the current stage of the algorithm

Lh(n) = cost of the least-cost path from node s to node n under the constraint of no
more than h links

1. [Initialisation]

L0(n) = ∞, for all n ≠ s

Lh(s) = 0, for all h

2. [Update]

For each successive h ≥ 0:

For each n ≠ s, compute

min
Lh + 1(n) = [Lh (j) = w(j, n)]
j

Connect n with the predecessor node j that achieves the minimum, and eliminate any
connection of n with a different predecessor node formed during an earlier iteration.
The path from s to n terminates with the link from j to n.

For the iteration of step 2 with h = K, and for each destination node n, the algorithm
compares potential paths from s to n of length K + 1 with the path that existed at the
end of the previous iteration. If the previous, shorter path has less cost, then that path
is retained. Otherwise a new path with length K + 1 is defined from s to n; this path
consists of a path of length K from s to some node j, plus a direct hop from node j to
node n. In this case, the path from s to j that is used is the K-hop path for j defined in
the previous iteration.

Table 1 shows the result of applying this algorithm to a public switched network,
using s = 1. At each step, the least-cost paths with a maximum number of links equal
to h are found. After the final iteration, the least-cost path to each node and the cost of
that path has been developed. The same procedure can be used with node 2 as the
source node, and so on. Students should apply Dijkstra’s algorithm to this subnet and
observe that the result will eventually be the same.

27
Network Layer (a)
Link between
two routers
8

3
5 5 Router
R2 R3

R6
8
2
1
3 2
2
3 1 4

1
R1 1
R5
R4
7 1

Figure 3: Public switched network

(b) Bellman-Ford Algorithm (s = 1)

Table 1: Link Cost (Ref. Source [3])

H Lh(2) Path Lh(3) Path Lh(4) Path Lh(5) Path Lh(6) Path
0 ∞ — ∞ — ∞ — ∞ — ∞ —
1 2 1-2 5 1-3 1 1-4 ∞ — ∞ —
2 2 1-2 4 1-4-3 1 1-4 2 1-4-5 10 1-3-6
3 2 1-2 3 1-4-5-3 1 1-4 2 1-4-5 4 1-4-5-6
4 2 1-2 3 1-4-5-3 1 1-4 2 1-4-5 4 1-4-5-6

2.4.1 Comparison

Now, let us compare the two algorithms in terms of what information is required by
each node to find out the optional path in the Bellman-Ford algorithm. In step 2, the
calculation for node n involves knowledge of the link cost to all neighboruing nodes
to node n [i.e., w( j., w( j, n)] plus the total path cost to each of those neighbouring
nodes from a particular source node s (i.e., Lh(j)]. Each node can maintain a set of
costs and associated paths for every other node in the network and, exchange this
information with its direct neighbours from time to time. Each node can therefore, use
the expression in step 2 of the Bellman-Ford algorithm, based only on information
from its neighbours and knowledge of its link costs, to update it costs and paths. On
the other hand, consider Dijkstra’s algorithm. Step 3, it appears, required that each
node have complete topological information about the network. That is, each node
must know the link costs of all links in the network. Thus, for this algorithm,
information must be exchanged with all other nodes.

In general, an evaluation of the relative merits of the two algorithms should consider
the processing time of the algorithms and the amount of information that must be
collected from other nodes in the network or internet. The evaluation will depend on
the implementation appraoch and the specific implementation.

28
A final point: Both algorithm are known to converge under static conditions of Routing Algorithms
topology, and link costs and will converge to the same solution. If the link costs
change over time the algorithm will attempt to catch up with these changes. However,
if the link cost depends on traffic, which in turn depends on the routes chosen, then a
feedback condition exists, that could result in instablities.
2.4.2 The Count-to-Infinity Problem
One of the serious drawbacks of the Bellman-Food algorithm is that it quickly
responds to a path will a shorter delay but, responds slowly to a path with a longer
delay. This is also known as count to infinity problem. Consider a subnet in which a
router, whose best route to destination X is large. If, on the next exchange neighbour,
A suddenly reports a short delay to X, the router just switches over to using line A to
send traffic to X. In one vector exchange, the good news is processed.
To see how fast good news propagates, consider the five-node (linear) subnet of the
following figure. (Figure 4), where the delay metric is the number of hops. In the
Figure 4 (a) there are five routers Ra, Rb, Rc, Rd and Re linked to each other linearly.
Suppose, a router Ra is down initially and all the other routers know this. In other
words, they have all recorded the delay to Ra as infinity.

Linear subnet
Ra Rb Rc Rd Re

— — — — Initial distance
1 — — — After 1 exchange of message
1 2 — — After 2 exchanges of message
1 2 3 — After 3 exchanges of message
1 2 3 4 After 4 exchanges of message

Rb’s table Rc’s table Rd’s table Re’s table

(a)

Ra Rb Rc Rd Re Linear subnet
having 5 routers

1 2 3 4 Initial distance
3 2 3 4 After 1 exchange of message
3 4 3 4 After 2 exchanges of message
5 4 5 4 After 3 exchanges of message
5 6 5 6 After 4 exchanges of message
7 6 7 6 After 5 exchanges of message
7 8 7 8 After 6 exchanges of message

— — — —

Rb’s table
Rd’s table
Rc’s table Re’s table
(b)
a

Figure 4: Count to infinity problem

29
Network Layer We will describe this problem in the following stages: (i) when router Ra is up, and
(ii) when router Ra is down. Now let us take the first stage. When Ra is up, the other
routers in the subnet learn about it via the information (vector) exchanges. At the time
of the first exchange, Rb learns that its left neighbour has zero delay to Ra. Rb now
makes an entry in its routing table that Ra is just one hop away to the left. All the
other routers still think that Ra is down. At this point, the routing table entries for Ra
are as shown in the second row of Figure 4(b). On the next exchange, Rc learns that
Rb has a path of length 1 to A, so it updates its routing table to indicate a path of
length 2, but Rd and Re do not hear the good news until later. Clearly, the good news
is spreading at the rate of one hop per exchange. In a subnet whose longest path is of
length N hops, within N exchanges everyone will know about the newly-revived lines
and routers.

Now, let us consider the second stage Figure 4(b), in which all the lines and routers
are intially up. Routers Rb,Rc,Rd and Re are at a distance of 1,2,3 and 4 from A.
Suddenly, A goes down, or alternatively, the line between A and B is cut, which is
effectively the same thing from B’s point of view.

At the first packet exchange, Rb does not hear anything from Ra. Fortunately, Rc says:
Do not worry; I have a path to A of length 2. Little does B know that C’s path runs
through Rb itself. For all Rb knows, Rc might have ten lines all with separate paths to
Ra of length 2. As a result, Rb thinks it can reach Ra via Rc, with a path length of 3.
Rd and Re do not update their entries on the first exchange.

On the second exchange, C notices that each of its neighbours are claiming a path to
Ra of length 3. It picks one of them at random and makes its new distance to Ra 4, as
shown in the third row of Figure 4(b). Subsequent exchanges produce the history
shown in the rest of Figure 4(b).

Form Figure 4, it should be clear why bad news travels slowly: no router ever has a
value higher than the minimum of all its neighbours. Gradually, all routers work their
way up to infinity, but the number of exchanges required depends on the numerical
value used for infinity. For this reason, it is wise to set infinity to the longest path plus
1. If the metric time is delay, there is no well-defined upper bound, so a high value is
needed to prevent a path with a long delay from being treated as down. Not entirely
surprisingly, this problem is known as the count-to-infinity problem. The core of the
problem is that when X tells Y that it has a path somewhere, Y has no way of knowing
whether it itself is on the path.

2.5 LINK STATE ROUTING

As explained above distance vector routing algorithm has a number of problems like
count to infinity problem. For these reasons, it was replaced by a new algorithm,
known as the link state routing.

Link state routing protocols are like a road map. A link state router cannot be fooled
as easily into making bad routing decisions, because it has a complete picture of the
network. The reason is that, unlike approximation approach of distance vector, link
state routers have first hand information from all their peer routers. Each router
originates information about itself, its directly connected links, and the state of those
links. This information is passed around from router to router, each router making a
copy of it, but never changing it. Link-state involves each router building up the
complete topology of the entire network (or at least of the partition on which the
router is situated), thus, each router contains the same information. With this method,
routers only send information to of all the other routers when there is a change in the

30
topology of the network. The ultimate objective is that every router should have Routing Algorithms
identical information about the network, and each router should be able to calculate its
own best path independently. Independently calculate its own best paths.
In contrast to the distance-vector routing protocol, which works by sharing its
knowledge of the entire network with its neighbours, link-state routing works by
having the routers inform every router in the network about its nearest neighbours.
The entire routing table is not distributed any router but, the part of the table
containing its neighbours is:
Link-state is also known as shortest path first.
Link State Packet
When a router floods the network with information about its neighbourhood, it is said
to be advertising. The basis of this advertising is a short packet called a link state
packet (LSP). An LSP usually contains four fields: the ID of the advertiser, the ID of
the destination network, the cost, and the ID of the neighbour router. The structure of
a LSP is shown in Table 2.
Table 2: Link state packet (LSP)

Advertiser DD Network DD Cost Neighbour DD

……………… ……………… ……………… ………………
……………… ……………… ……………… ………………

How Link State Routing Operates

The idea behind link state routing is simple and can be stated in five parts as
suggested by Tanenbaum [Ref.1]. Each router must do the following:

1) Neighbour discovery

The Router has to discover its neighbours and learn their network addresses. As a
router is booted, its first task is to learn who its neighbours are.

The Router does this by sending a special HELLO packet on each point-to-point line.
The router on the other end is expected to send a reply disclosing its identity. These
names must be globally unique. If two or more routers are connected by a LAN, the
situation becomes slightly more complicated. One way of modeling the LAN is to
consider it as a node itself. Please see reference [1] for further explanation through a
diagram.

2) Measure delay
Another job that a router needs to perform is to measure the delay or cost to each of its
neighbours. The most common way to determine this delay is to send over the line a
special ECHO packet that the other side is required to send back immediately. By
measuring the round-trip time and dividing it by two, the sending router can get a
reasonable estimate of the delay. For even better results, the test can be conducted
several times and the average used.
This method implicitly assumes that delays are symmetric, which may not always be
the case.
3) Building link state packets
After collecting the information needed for the exchange, the next step for each router
is to build a link state packet containing all the data. This packet starts with the

31
Network Layer identity of the sender, followed by a sequence number and age, and a list of
neighbours. For each neighbour, the delay to that neighbour is given.

As an example, let’s consider the subnet given in Figure 5 with delays shown as
labels on the lines. For this network, the corresponding link state packets for all six
routers are shown in the Table 3.

2 C
B
4

A 7 6 1
D E

3 4

Figure 5: A subnet for link state routing

Table 3: The link state packets (LSPs) for the subnet in figure

A B C D E F
Seq. Seq. Seq. Seq. Seq. Seq.
Age Age Age Age Age Age
B 4 C 2 B 2 A 7 D 1 A 3
D 7 A 4 F 6 E 1 C 4
F 3 F 4 D 6

Building the link state packets is easy. The hard part is determining when to build
them. One possibility, is to build them periodically, that is, at regular intervals.
Another possibility is to build them when some significant event occurs, such as a line
or neighbour going down or coming back up again or changing its properties
appreciably.

4) Distribute the packets

Let us describe the basic algorithm in distributing the link state packet. The
fundamental concept here is flooding to distribute the packets. But to keep the number
of packets flowing in the subnet under control, each packet contains a sequence
number that is incremented for each new packet delivered. When a new link state
packet arrives, it is checked against the list of packets already scene by a router. It is
discarded in case the packet is old; otherwise it is forwarded on all lines except the
one it arrived on. A router discards an obsolete packet (i.e., with a lower sequence) in
case it has seen the packet with a highest sequence number.

The age of a data packet is used to prevent corruption of the sequence number from
causing valid data to be ignored. The age field is decremented once per second by the
routers which forward the packet. When it hits zero it is discarded.
How often should data be exchanged?

32
5) Compute shortest path tree Routing Algorithms

After accumulating all link state packets, a router can construct the entire subnet graph
because every link is represented. In fact, every link is represented twice, once for
each direction. The two values can be averaged or used separately.

Now, an algorithm like Dijkstra’s algorithm can be run locally to construct the
shortest path to all possible destinations. The results of this algorithm can be installed
in the routing tables, and normal operation resumed.

Problems in Link State Routing

• In link state protocol, the memory required to store the data is proportional to k *
n, for n routers each with k neighbors and the time required to compute can also
be large.

• In it bad data e.g., data from routers in error will corrupt the computation.

 Check Your Progress 2

1) Which of the following statements are True or False.

(i) Distance vector routing is a static routing algorithm. T F

(ii) Dijkstra’s algorithms can be run locally in link state routing to construct
the shortest path. T F

2) Answer the following questions briefly.

(a) What are the problems with distance vector routing algorithm? .
…………………………………………………………………………………
…………………………………………………………………………………
…………………………………………………………………………………

(b) What is LSP?

…………………………………………………………………………………
…………………………………………………………………………………
…………………………………………………………………………………

2.6 HIERARCHICAL ROUTING

As you see, in both link state and distance vector algorithms, every router has to save
some information about other routers. When the network size grows, the number of
routers in the network increases. Consequently, the size of routing tables increases, as
well, and routers cannot handle network traffic as efficiently. We use hierarchical
routing to overcome this problem. Let’s examine this subject with an example:

We use distance vector algorithms to find best routers between nodes. In the situation
depicted below in Figure 6, every node of the network has to save a routing table
with 17 records.

Here is a typical graph and routing table (Table 4) for A:

33
Network Layer Table 4: A’s Routing Table

Destination Line Weight

A --- ---
B B 1
C C 1
D B 2
E B 3
F B 3
G B 4
H B 5
I C 5
J C 6
K C 5
L C 4
M C 4
N C 3
O C 4
P C 2
Q C 3

Figure 6: Network graph

In hierarchical routing, routers are classified in groups known as regions (Figure 7).
Each router has only the information about the routers in its own region and has no
information about routers in other regions. So routers just save one record in their
table for every other region. In this example, we have classified our network into five
regions as shown below.
Table 5: A’s Routing table for Hierarchical routing

Destination Line Weight

A --- ---
B B 1
C C 1
Region 2 B 2
Region 3 C 2
Region 4 C 3
Region 5 C 4

34
 Routing Algorithms

Figure 7: Hierarchical routing

If A wants to send packets to any router in region 2 (D, E, F or G), it sends them to B,
and so on. As you can see, in this type of routing, the tables sizes are reduced so,
network efficiency improves. The above example shows two-level hierarchical
routing. We can also use three or four level hierarchical routing as well.

In three-level hierarchical routing, the network is classified into a number of clusters.

Each cluster is made up of a number of regions, and each region contains a number of
routers. Hierarchical routing is widely used in Internet routing and makes use of
several routing protocols.

2.7 BROADCAST ROUTING

Up to now we were discussing about sending message from a source to a destination.

Sometimes a host needs to send messages all other hosts. This type of transmission
i.e., to send a message to all destinations simultaneously is known as broadcasting.
There are a no. of methods for broadcasting. These are:

• Send a distinct packet to each destination

This is a very simple method, in which a source sends a distinct packet to each
destination. Major disadvantages of this method are:
a) It wastes bandwidth.
b) In this method source needs to have a complete list of all destinations.
Because of this reason this method is the least desirable of the other methods.
• Flooding
This is also a very simple method of broadcasting. In this method every incoming
packet is sent out on every outgoing line except the line from which it arrived. This
algorithm is very simple to implement. But the major disadvantage of this algorithm is
that it generates lots of redundant packets, thus consumes too much bandwidth.
• Multidestination routing
In this method each packet contains either a list of destinations or a bit map indicating
the desired destinations. When a packet arrives at a router, router determines the set of
output lines that would be required by checking all the destinations. Router only
chooses those output lines which are the best route to at least one of the destinations.
After this router creates a new copy of the packet for each output line to be used and

35
Network Layer in each packet it includes only those destinations that are to use the line. Therefore,
the destination set is partitioned among the output lines. In this, after a sufficient
number of hops, each packet will carry only one destination and can be treated as a
normal packet.

• Using a spanning tree

A spanning tree is a subset of graph that includes all the nodes (of graph) but contains
no loops. This method uses the spanning tree, therefore, each router knows which of
its lines belong to the spanning tree. When a packet arrives at a router, it copies onto
all the spanning tree lines except the one it arrived on.

Advantage of this method is that it makes excellent use of bandwidth and generates
only the minimum number of packets required to do the job.

In this method each router must have knowledge of some spanning tree. Sometimes
this information is available (e.g., with link state routing) but sometimes it is not (e.g.,
with distance vector routing), this is the major disadvantage of this method.

• Reverse path forwarding

Our last broadcast algorithm is an attempt to approximate the behaviour of the
previous one, even when the routers do not know anything at all about spanning trees.
The idea, called reverse path forwarding, is remarkably simple once it has been
pointed out.

In this method, when a broadcast packet arrives at a router, the router checks whether
the packet arrived on the line that is normally used for sending packets to the source
of the broadcast or not.

If the packet arrived on the line that is normally used for sending packets to the source
of the broadcast then

Router forwards copies of it onto all lines except the one it arrived on.

Else (i.e., packet arrived on a line other than the preferred one for reaching the source)

Router discards the packet as a likely duplicate.

2.8 MULTICAST ROUTING

In many cases, you need to send same data to multiple clients at the same time. In this
case, if, we use unicasting then the server will connect to each of its clients again and
again, but each time it will send an identical data stream to each client. This is a waste
of both server and network capacity. If, we use broadcasting in this case, it would be
inefficient because sometimes receivers are not interested in the message but they
receive it nonetheless, or sometimes they are interested but are not supposed to see the
message.

In such cases i.e., for sending a message to a group of users (clients), we use another
technique known as multicasting. The routing algorithm used for multicasting, is
called multicast routing.

Group management is the heart of multicasting. For group management, we require

some methods to create and destroy a group and to allow processes to join and leave a
group. When a router joins a group, it informs its host of this fact. For routing, routers

36
mainly want to know which of their hosts belong to which group. For this, either the Routing Algorithms
host must inform their router about changes in the group membership, or routers must
query their hosts periodically. On receiving this information, routers tell their
neighbours, so the informations propagated through the subnet.

Now, we will learn the working of multicasting through an example. In our example
(as shown in Figure 8), we have taken a network containing two groups i.e., group 1
and 2. Here, some routers are attached to hosts that belong to only one of these groups
and some routers are attached to hosts that belong to both of these groups.

2 1,2

1
2

1,2

Figure 8: Network containing two groups i.e., 1 and 2

To do multicast routing, first, each router computes a spanning tree covering all other
routers. For example, Figure 9 shows spanning tree for the leftmost router.

2 1,2

1
2

1,2

Figure 9: Spanning tree for the leftmost router

Now, when a process sends a multicast packet to a group, the first router examines its
spanning tree and prunes it. Pruning is the task of removing all lines that do not lead
to hosts that are members of the group. For example, Fig. 10 shows the pruned
spanning tree for group 1 and Fig. 11 shows the pruned spanning tree for group 2.
There are a number of ways of pruning the spanning tree. One of the simplest ones
that can be used, if link state routing is used and each router is aware of the complete
topology, including the hosts that belong to those groups. Then, the spanning tree can
be pruned, starting at the end of each path, working toward the root, and removing all
routers that do not belong to the group under consideration. With distance vector
routing, a different pruning strategy can be followed. The basic algorithm is reverse
path forwarding. However, whenever a router with no hosts interested in a particular
group and no connections to other routers, receives a multicast message for that group,

37
Network Layer it responds with a PRUNE message, thus, telling the sender not to send it any more
multicasts for that group. When a router with no group members among its own hosts
has received such a message on its lines, it, too, can respond with a PRUNE message.
In this way, the subnet is recursively pruned.

Figure 10: A pruned spanning multicast tree for group 1

2 2

Figure 11: A pruned spanning multicast tree for group 2

After pruning, multicast packets are forwarded only along the appropriate spanning
tree. This algorithm needs to store separate pruned spanning tree for each member of
each group. Therefore, this would not be good for large networks.

 Check Your Progress 3

1) Which of the following statements are True or False.

(a) In hierarchical routing, each router has no information about routers in

other regions. T F
(b) A spanning tree is a subset of a graph that includes some of the nodes of
that graph. T F
(c) Sending a message to a group of users in a network is known as
broadcasting. T F

38
2) Answer the following questions in brief. Routing Algorithms

a) Explain reverse path forwarding in brief.

….....……….…………………………………………………………………
……….…………………………………………………………………….…
……………………………………………………………………..…………
b) What is Pruning?
…………………………………………………………………………………
…………………………………………………………………………………
…………………………………………………………………………………

2.9 SUMMARY

In this unit, we first studied different routing algorithms. First, we looked at finding
the route between a given pair of routers. The algorithm finds the shortest path
between them on the graph. A number of algorithms for computing the shortest path
between two nodes of a graph are known. Here, we have studied the Dijkstra
algorithm.

Next, we studied flooding. In flooding, every incoming packet is sent out on every
outgoing line except the line from which it arrived. This algorithm is very simple to
implement, but it generates lots of redundant packets. It discovers all routes, including
the optimal one, therefore this is robust and gives high performance.

Next, we studied the Belman-Ford routing algorithm. In this algorithm each host
maintains a routing table. This routing table has an entry for every other router in the
subnet. These tables are updated by exchanging information with the neighbours.

Next, we studied the link state routing algorithm. In this algorithm, each router
originates information about itself, its directly connected links, and the state of those
links. This information is passed around from router to router, each router making a
copy of it, but never changing it. The ultimate objective is that every router has
identical information about the network, and each router will independently calculate
its own best paths.

Next, we discussed hierarchical routing algorithm. In hierarchical routing, routers are

classified in groups known as regions. Each router has only the information about the
routers in its own region and has no information about routers in other regions.

Next, we studied broadcasting i.e., to send a message to all destinations in a network

simultaneously. There are a number of methods for broadcasting such as, flooding,
muitidestination routing, reverse path forwarding etc. In this unit we discussed all
these methods in brief.

Finally, we discussed multicasting i.e., to send a message to a group of users in a

network. In multicasting, each router first computes a spanning tree covering all other
router. Now, when a process sends a multicast packet to a group, the first router
examines its spanning tree and prunes it. Then, packets are forwarded only along the
appropriate spanning tree.

39
Network Layer
2.10 SOLUTIONS/ANSWERS
Check Your Progress 1

1) (i) True
(ii) True
(iii) False

2) (a) A variation of flooding that is selective flooding. In this algorithm the

routers do not send every incoming packet out on every line, only on those
lines that are moving approximately in the right direction.

Check Your Progress 2

1) (i) False
(ii) True

2) (a) Problems with distance vector routing algorithm are: it uses only
approximation, neighbours, slowly increase their path length to a dead node,
and the condition of being dead (infinite distance) is reached by counting to
infinity, one at a time.

(b) In link state routing, a router floods the network with information about
3 of its neighbours, by using a short packet, known as link state packet
(LSP). An LSP usually contains four fields: the ID of the advertiser, the ID
of the destination network, the cost, and the ID of the neighbour router.

Advertiser Network Cost Neighbour

……………… ……………… ……………… ………………
……………… ……………… ……………… ………………

Link State Packet (LSP)

Check Your Progress 3

1) (a) True
(b) False
(c) False

2) (a) Reverse path forwarding is a method of broadcasting. In this method,

when a broadcast packet arrives at a router, the router checks whether the
packet has arrived on the line that is normally used for sending packets to
the source of the broadcast or not. If the packet has arrived on the line that is
normally used for sending packets to the source of the broadcast then, the
Router forwards copies of it onto all lines except the one it has arrived on.
Else (i.e., packet arrived on a line other than the preferred one for reaching
the source). The router discards the packet as a likely duplicate.

(b) In multicasting, pruning is the task of removing all lines from the spanning
tree of a router that do not lead to hosts that are members of a
particular group.

40
 Routing Algorithms
2.11 FURTHER READINGS

1) Computer Network, S. Tanenbaum, 4th edition, Prentice Hall of India,

New Delhi 2002.

2) Data Network, Drnitri Berteskas and Robert Galleger, Second edition,

Prentice Hall of India, 1997, New Delhi.

3) Data and Computer Communication, William Stalling, Pearson Education,

2nd Edition, Delhi.

41