Chapter 4

Routing Algorithm and Protocols

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 Routing Algorithm
 The main function of the network layer is routing packets from the source
machine to the destination machine.
 Routing is the process of forwarding of a packet in a network so that it reaches
its intended destination.
 A Routing Algorithm is a set of step-by-step operations used to direct internet
traffic efficiently. When a packet of data leaves its source, there are many
different paths it can take to its destination. The routing algorithm is used to
determine mathematically the best path to take.
 A Routing Algorithm is a method for determining the routing of packets in a
node. For each node of a network, the algorithm determines a routing table,
which in each destination, matches an output line.

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 Properties/Goals of Routing Algorithm
 Properties of routing algorithm: correctness, simplicity, robustness, stability,
fairness, and efficiency.
 Correctness: The routing should be done properly and correctly so that the
packet may reach their proper destination.
 Simplicity: The routing should be done in a simple manner so that the overhead
is as low as possible.
 Robustness
• Once a major network become operative, it may be expected to run
continuously for years without any failures.
• The algorithm designed for routing should be robust enough to handle
hardware and software failures and should be able to cope with changes in
the topology and traffic without requiring all jobs in all hosts to be aborted.
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 Properties/Goals of Routing Algorithm
 Stability
• The routing algorithms should be stable under all possible circumstances.
• A stable algorithm reaches equilibrium and stays there. It should converge
quickly too, since communication may be disrupted until the routing
algorithm has reached equilibrium.
 Fairness: Every node connected to the network should get a fair chance of
transmitting their packets.
 Optimality: The routing algorithms should be optimal in terms of throughput
and minimizing mean packet delays.
 There is a trade-offs between fairness and efficiency, we must decide what it
is we seek to optimize.
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 Properties/Goals of Routing Algorithm
 Suppose that there is enough traffic between A and A′, between B and B′, and between C and
C′ to saturate the horizontal links. To maximize the total flow, the X to X′ traffic should be
shut off altogether. Unfortunately, X and X′ may not see it that way.

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 Classification of Routing Algorithm
 Two major classes: non-adaptive and adaptive.
 Non-adaptive algorithms
• These algorithm do not base their routing decisions on any measurements
or estimates of the current topology and traffic.
• Instead, the choice of the route to use to get from I to J is computed in
advance, offline, and downloaded to the routers when the network is booted.
• This procedure is sometimes called static routing.
• It does not respond to failures, static routing is mostly useful for situations
in which the routing choice is clear.

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 Classification of Routing Algorithm
 Adaptive algorithms
• Adaptive algorithms change their routing decisions to reflect changes in
the topology, and sometimes changes in the traffic as well.
• These dynamic routing algorithms differ in where they get their
information (e.g., locally, from adjacent routers, or from all routers), when
they change the routes (e.g., when the topology changes, or every ΔT
seconds as the load changes).
• The optimization parameter are the distance, number of hops, or estimated
transit time.

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 Static Vs. Dynamic Routing Algorithm
 Static routing manually sets up the optimal paths between the source and the destination
computers. On the other hand, the dynamic routing uses dynamic protocols to update
the routing table and to find the optimal path between the source and the destination
computers.
 The routers that use the static routing algorithm do not have any controlling mechanism if
any faults in the routing paths. These routers do not sense the faulty computers
encountered while finding the path between two computers or routers in a network. The
dynamic routing algorithms are used in the dynamic routers and these routers can sense a
faulty router in the network.
 The static routing is suitable for very small networks and they cannot be used in large
networks. Dynamic routing is used for larger networks. The dynamic routers are based
on various routing algorithms like OSPF, IGRP and RIP .
 The static routing has the advantage that it requires minimal memory. Dynamic router,
however, have quite a few memory overheads, depending on the routing algorithms used.
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 Routing Table
 A routing table is a set of rules, often viewed in table format, that is used to determine
where data packets traveling over an Internet Protocol (IP) network will be directed.
 A basic routing table includes the following information:
• Mask: This field defines the mask applied for the entry.
• Network address: This field defines the network address to which the packet is
finally delivered.
• Next-hop address: This field defines the address of the next-hop router to which
the packet is delivered.
• Interface: The outgoing network interface the device should use when forwarding
the packet to the next hop or final destination.
• Reference count: This field gives the number of users of this route at the moment.
For example, if five people at the same time are connecting to the same host from
this router, the value of this column is 5.
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 Routing Table
• Flags: This field defines up to five flags.
• U (up). The U flag indicates the router is up and running.
• G (gateway). The G flag means that the destination is in another network.
• H (host-specific). The H flag indicates that the entry in the network address field is a
host-specific address.
• D (added by redirection). The D flag indicates that routing information for this
destination has been added to the host routing table by a redirection message from
ICMP.
• M (modified by redirection). The M flag indicates that the routing information for
this destination has been modified by a redirection message from ICMP.
• Use: This field shows the number of packets transmitted through this router for the
corresponding destination.
 A routing table can be either static or dynamic. A static table is one with manual entries.
A dynamic table, on the other hand, is one that is updated automatically when there is a
change somewhere in the internet. 10
Forwarding Techniques: Route Method Versus Next-hop Method

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Forwarding Techniques: Host-specific versus network-specific method

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 Routing Algorithm
 Non- adaptive Routing
• Flooding
• Shortest path algorithm
 Adaptive Routing Algorithm
• Distance Vector Routing
• Link State Routing

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 Non- adaptive Routing: Flooding
 A simple local technique is flooding, in which every incoming packet is sent out on
every outgoing line except the one it arrived on.
 Flooding generates vast numbers of duplicate packets, in fact, an infinite number
unless some measures are taken to damp the process.
 A hop counter contained in the header of each packet that is decremented at each
hop, with the packet being discarded when the counter reaches zero.
 Ideally, the hop counter should be initialized to the length of the path from source to
destination. If the sender does not know how long the path is, it can initialize the
counter to the worst case namely, the full diameter of the network.
 Flooding with a hop count can produce an exponential number of duplicate
packets as the hop count grows and routers duplicate packets they have seen before.
 Better technique for damming the flood is to have routers keep track of
which packets have been flooded, to avoid sending them out a second time.
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 Non- adaptive Routing: Flooding
 One way to achieve this goal is to have the source router put a sequence number
in each packet it receives from its hosts.
 Each router then needs a list per source router telling which sequence numbers
originating at that source have already been seen. If an incoming packet is on the
list, it is not flooded.
 Some important uses of Flooding.
• First, it ensures that a packet is delivered to every node in the network.
This may be wasteful if there is a single destination that needs the packet, but it
is effective for broadcasting information.
• Second, flooding is tremendously robust. Even if large numbers of routers
are blown to bits (e.g., in a military network located in a war zone), flooding
will find a path if one exists, to get a packet to its destination. Flooding also
requires little in the way of setup. The routers only need to know their
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neighbors.
 Shortest Path Algorithm
 Routing algorithms with a simple technique for computing optimal paths given
a complete picture of the network.
 The idea is to build a graph of the network, with each node of the graph
representing a router and each edge of the graph representing a communication
line, or link.
 To choose a route between a given pair of routers, the algorithm just finds the
shortest path between them on the graph.
 In the general case, the labels on the edges could be computed as a function of
the distance, bandwidth, average traffic, communication cost, measured delay,
and other factors.
 By changing the weighting function, the algorithm would then compute the
„„shortest‟‟ path measured according to any one of a number of criteria or to a
combination of criteria. 16
 Shortest Path Algorithm
 With this graph labeling, the shortest path is the fastest path rather than the path
with the fewest edges or kilometers.
 Algorithms for computing the shortest path between two nodes of a graph
Dijkstra (1959) and it finds the shortest paths between a source and all
destinations in the network.
 Initially, no paths are known, so all nodes are labeled with infinity. As the
algorithm proceeds and paths are found, the labels may change, reflecting
better paths.
 A label may be either tentative or permanent. Initially, all labels are tentative.
When it is discovered that a label represents the shortest possible path from
the source to that node, it is made permanent and never changed thereafter.

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19
 Distance Vector Routing
 The distance vector routing algorithm is sometimes called by other names, most
commonly the distributed Bellman-Ford routing algorithm, after the
researchers who developed it (Bellman, 1957; and Ford and Fulkerson, 1962).
 In distance vector routing, the least-cost route between any two nodes is the
route with minimum distance.
 In this protocol, each node maintains a vector (table) of minimum distances
to every node. The table at each node also guides the packets to the desired
node by showing the next stop in the route (next-hop routing).
 Initialization
• Each node can know only the distance between itself and its immediate
neighbors, those directly connected to it.
• we assume that each node can send a message to the immediate neighbors
and find the distance between itself and these neighbors. 20
Initialization of tables in distance vector routing

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 Distance Vector Routing
 Sharing
• Distance vector routing is the sharing of information between neighbors.
• Although node A does not know about node E, node C does. So if node C
shares its routing table with A, node A can also know how to reach node E.
• On the other hand, node C does not know how to reach node D, but node A
does. If node A shares its routing table with node C, node C also knows how
to reach node D.
• There is only one problem. How much of the table must be shared with each
neighbor?
• The best solution for each node is to send its entire table to the neighbor and
let the neighbor decide what part to use and what part to discard.
• A node can send only the first two columns of its table to any neighbor.
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 Distance Vector Routing
 Updating: When a node receives a two-column table from a neighbor, it needs
to update its routing table. Updating takes three steps:
1) The receiving node needs to add the cost between itself and the sending
node to each value in the second column.
2) The receiving node needs to add the name of the sending node to each row
as then third column if the receiving node uses information from any row.
The sending node is the next node in the route.
3) The receiving node needs to compare each row of its old table with the
corresponding row of the modified version of the received table.
i. If the next-node entry is different, the receiving node chooses the row
with the smaller cost.
ii. If the next-node entry is the same, the receiving node chooses the new
row. 23
Updating in distance vector routing

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 DVR:The Count-to-Infinity Problem
 The main issue with Distance Vector Routing (DVR) protocols is Routing
Loops, since Bellman-Ford Algorithm cannot prevent loops.
 This routing loop in DVR network causes Count to Infinity Problem.
 Routing loops usually occur when any interface goes down or two-routers send
updates at the same time.
 Imagine a network with a graph as shown below in figure

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 DVR:The Count-to-Infinity Problem
 As you see in this graph, there is only one link between A and the other parts of the
network. Now imagine that the link between A and B is cut.
 At this time, B corrects its table.
 After a specific amount of time, routers exchange their tables, and so B receives C's
routing table. Since C doesn't know what has happened to the link between A and B,
it says that it has a link to A with the weight of 2 (1 for C to B, and 1 for B to A -- it
doesn't know B has no link to A).
 B receives this table and thinks there is a separate link between C and A, so it corrects
its table and changes infinity to 3 (1 for B to C, and 2 for C to A, as C said).
 Once again, routers exchange their tables. When C receives B's routing table, it sees
that B has changed the weight of its link to A from 1 to 3, so C updates its table and
changes the weight of the link to A to 4 (1 for C to B, and 3 for B to A, as B said).
 This process loops until all nodes find out that the weight of link to A is infinity.
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 DVR:The Count-to-Infinity Problem
 One way to solve this problem is for routers to send information only to the
neighbors that are not exclusive links to the destination. For example, in this case,
C shouldn't send any information to B about A, because B is the only way to A.

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 Link State Routing
 In link state routing, each node in the domain has the entire topology of the
domain the list of nodes and links, how they are connected including the type,
cost (metric), and condition of the links (up or down)- the node can use
Dijkstra's algorithm to build a routing table.
 Each node uses the same topology to create a routing table, but the routing
table for each node is unique because the calculations are based on different
interpretations of the topology.
 The topology must be dynamic, representing the latest state of each node and
each link. If there are changes in any point in the network, the topology must be
updated for each node.

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 Link State Routing

 Each router must do the following things to make it work:

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 Link State Routing
 Learning about the Neighbors
• When a router is booted, its first task is to learn who its neighbors are.
• It accomplishes this goal by sending a special HELLO packet on each point-
to-point line.
• The router on the other end is expected to send back a reply giving its name.
 Setting Link Costs
• The most direct 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.

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 Link State Routing
 Building Link State Packets
• Link State Packets carries a minimum amount of data: the node identity, the
list of links, a sequence number, and age.
• The first two, node identity and the list of links, are needed to make the
topology.
• The third, sequence number, facilitates flooding and distinguishes new LSPs
from old ones.
• The fourth, age, prevents old LSPs from remaining in the domain for a long
time. LSPs are generated on two occasions:
• When there is a change in the topology of the domain.
• On a periodic basis.

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 Link State Routing
 Distributing the Link State Packets
 After a node has prepared an LSP, it must be disseminated to all other nodes,
not only to its neighbors. The process is called flooding and based on the
following:
1) The creating node sends a copy of the LSP out of each interface.
2) A node that receives an LSP compares it with the copy it may already
have. If the newly arrived LSP is older than the one it has (found by
checking the sequence number), it discards the LSP. If it is newer, the node
does the following:
a) It discards the old LSP and keeps the new one.
b) It sends a copy of it out of each interface except the one from which
the packet arrived. This guarantees that flooding stops somewhere in
the domain (where a node has only one interface).
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 Link State Routing
 Computing the New Routes
• Once a router has accumulated a full set of link state packets, it can construct
the entire network graph because every link is represented. Every link is, in
fact, represented twice, once for each direction.
• Dijkstra‟s algorithm can be run locally to construct the shortest paths to all
possible destinations.
• The results of this algorithm tell the router which link to use to reach each
destination. This information is installed in the routing tables, and normal
operation is resumed.

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 Routing Protocol
 Routing protocols have been created in response to the demand for dynamic
routing tables.
 A routing protocol is a combination of rules and procedures that lets routers
in the internet inform each other of changes.
 It allows routers to share whatever they know about the internet or their
neighborhood.

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 Routing Protocol
 An internet is divided into autonomous systems.
 An autonomous system (AS) is a group of networks and routers under the
authority of a single administration.
 Routing inside an autonomous system is referred to as intradomain routing.
 Routing between autonomous systems is referred to as interdomain routing.
 Each autonomous system can choose one or more intradomain routing protocols
to handle routing inside the autonomous system.
 Routing Information Protocol (RIP) is an implementation of the distance vector
protocol.
 Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) is an implementation of the link state protocol.
 Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) is an implementation of the path vector
protocol.
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36
 Routing Protocol
 Autonomous systems can divide into three categories: stub, multihomed, and
transit.
• Stub AS: A stub AS has only one connection to another AS. A good example
of a stub AS is a small corporation or a small local ISP.
• Multihomed AS: A multihomed AS has more than one connection to other
ASs, but it is still only a source or sink for data traffic. It does not allow data
coming from one AS and going to another AS to pass through. A good
example of a multihomed AS is a large corporation that is connected to more
than one regional or national AS that does not allow transient traffic.
• Transit AS: A transit AS is a multihomed AS that also allows transient
traffic. Good examples of transit ASs are national and international ISPs
(Internet backbones).
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 Routing Protocol: Routing Information Protocol (RIP)
 The Routing Information Protocol (RIP) is an intradomain routing protocol used inside
an autonomous system. It is a very simple protocol based on distance vector routing.
 RIP implements distance vector routing directly with some considerations:
1) In an autonomous system, we are dealing with routers and networks (links). The
routers have routing tables; networks do not.
2) The destination in a routing table is a network, which means the first column defines
a network address.
3) The metric used by RIP is very simple; the distance is defined as the number of
links (networks) to reach the destination. For this reason, the metric in RIP is called
a hop count.
4) Infinity is defined as 16, which means that any route in an autonomous system using
RIP cannot have more than 15 hops.
5) The next-node column defines the address of the router to which the packet is to be
sent to reach its destination. 38
Example of a domain using RIP

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 Routing Protocol: Routing Information Protocol (RIP)
 Let us look at the routing table for R1. The table has seven entries to show how
to reach each network in the autonomous system.
 Router R1 is directly connected to networks 130.10.0.0 and 130.11.0.0, which
means that there are no next-hop entries for these two networks.
 To send a packet to one of the three networks at the far left, router R1 needs to
deliver the packet to R2.
 The next-node entry for these three networks is the interface of router R2 with
IP address 130.10.0.1.
 To send a packet to the two networks at the far right, router R1 needs to send
the packet to the interface of router R4 with IP address 130.11.0.1.
 The other tables can be explained similarly.

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 Routing Protocol: Open Shortest Path First (OSPF)
 OSPF protocol is an intradomain routing protocol based on link state routing. Its
domain is also an autonomous system.
 An intradomain routing protocol is also called an interior gateway routing
protocol.
 OSPF divides an autonomous system into many different areas. An area is a
collection of networks, hosts, and routers all contained within an autonomous system.
All networks inside an area must be connected.
 Routers inside an area flood the area with routing information. At the border of an
area, special routers called area border routers summarize the information about the
area and send it to other areas.
 Among the areas inside an autonomous system is a special area called the backbone;
all the areas inside an autonomous system must be connected to the backbone. In
other words, the backbone serves as a primary area and the other areas as
secondary areas. 41
Areas in an autonomous system

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 Routing Protocol: Open Shortest Path First (OSPF)
 OSPF had a long list of requirements that had to be met:
• First, the algorithm had to be published in the open literature, hence the ‘‘O’’ in
OSPF.
• Second, the new protocol had to support a variety of distance metrics, including
physical distance, delay, and so on.
• Third, it had to be a dynamic algorithm, one that adapted to changes in the
topology automatically and quickly.
• Fourth, and new for OSPF, it had to support routing based on type of service.
• Fifth, OSPF had to do load balancing, splitting the load over multiple lines.
Most previous protocols sent all packets over a single best route, even if there
were two routes that were equally good.
• Sixth, support for hierarchical systems was needed.
• Finally, provision was needed for dealing with routers that were connected to
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the Internet via a tunnel.
 Routing Protocol: Open Shortest Path First (OSPF)
 In OSPF terminology, a connection is called a link. Four types of links have
been defined: point-to-point, transient, stub, and virtual.
• A point-to-point link connects two routers without any other host or router
in between.
• A transient link is a network with several routers attached to it. The data
can enter through any of the routers and leave through any router.
• A stub link is a network that is connected to only one router. The data
packets enter the network through this single router and leave the network
through this same router.
• When the link between two routers is broken, the administration may create
a virtual link between them, using a longer path that probably goes through
several routers.
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45
46
 Routing Protocol: Border Gateway Protocol (BGP)
 Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) is an interdomain routing protocol using path
vector routing.
 All an intradomain protocol has to do is move packets as efficiently as possible
from the source to the destination.

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 Routing Protocol: Border Gateway Protocol (BGP)
 The exchange of routing information between two routers using BGP takes place in a
session. A session is a connection that is established between two BGP routers only for the
sake of exchanging routing information.
 To create a reliable environment, BGP uses the services of TCP.
 BGP can have two types of sessions: external BGP (E-BGP) and internal BGP (I-BGP)
sessions.
 The E-BGP session is used to exchange information between two speaker nodes belonging
to two different autonomous systems.
 The I-BGP session, on the other hand, is used to exchange routing information between
two routers inside an autonomous system.
 An AS might be a small company, or an international backbone network. There is no way of
telling from the route. BGP does not even try because different ASes may use different
intradomain protocols whose costs cannot be compared. Even if they could be compared, an
AS may not want to reveal its internal metrics. This is one of the ways that interdomain
routing protocols differ from intradomain protocols. 48
 Enhanced Interior Gateway Protocol (EIGRP)
 EIGRP stands for Enhanced Interior Gateway Protocol which allows router to
share information to the neighboring routers which are within the same area.
 Instead of sending the entire information to the neighboring router, the
information which is needed are shared which reduces the workload and
amount of data needs to be transmitted.
 EIGRP (Enhanced Interior Gateway Protocol) designed by CISCO system
which can be used only in CISCO routers, but in 2013 it became open source,
so it can be used in other routers.

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 Interior Gateway Routing Protocol (IGRP)
 IGRP stands for Interior Gateway Routing protocol which uses distance vector
protocol (interior) to exchange data within a system .
 It supports multiple metrics for each node which includes delay, load and
bandwidth, in order to compare the 2 routes which are combined into single
metrics.
 The port number for IGRP is 9 which are used for communication and by
default every 90 seconds it updates the routing information .

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 Intermediate-System to Intermediate - System (IS- IS)
 IS-IS stands for Intermediate-system to Intermediate - system which uses link-
state routing algorithm for high speed data transmission.
 IS-IS (Intermediate-system to Intermediate system) uses Dijkstra‟s algorithm in
which independent database built by each IS-IS router for computing the best
path for transmission in a network.
 It is standardized by ISO .

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 Unicast And Multicast Routing Protocols
 Unicast
• In unicast communication, there is one source and one destination. The
relationship between the source and the destination is one-to-one.
• In unicasting, the router forwards the received packet through only one of
its interfaces.
• The router may discard the packet if it cannot find the destination
address in its routing table.
• In multiple unicasting, several packets start from the source. If there are
five destinations, for example, the source sends five packets, each with a
different unicast destination address. Note that there may be multiple copies
traveling between two routers.
• For example, when a person sends an e-mail message to a group of
people, this is multiple unicasting. 52
 Unicast And Multicast Routing Protocols
 Multicast
• In multicast communication, there is one source and a group of destinations.
The relationship is one-to-many.
• In this type of communication, the source address is a unicast address, but
the destination address is a group address, which defines one or more
destinations.
• A multicast packet starts from the source S1 and goes to all destinations
that belong to group G1.
• In multicasting, when a router receives a packet, it may forward it through
several of its interfaces.
 In broadcast communication, the relationship between the source and the
destination is one-to-all. There is only one source, but all the other hosts are the
destinations. 53
 ICMP (Internet Control Message Protocol)
 The operation of the Internet is monitored closely by the routers. When
something unexpected occurs during packet processing at a router, the event is
reported to the sender by the ICMP.
 ICMP is also used to test the Internet. About a dozen types of ICMP messages
are defined. Each ICMP message type is carried encapsulated in an IP packet.
 The Destination Unreachable message is used when the router cannot locate
the destination.
 The Time Exceeded message is sent when a packet is dropped because its
(Time to live) counter has reached zero.
 The Parameter Problem message indicates that an illegal value has been
detected in a header field.
 The Redirect message is used when a router notices that a packet seems to be
routed incorrectly. 54
55
 ARP And RARP
 ARP —The Address Resolution Protocol
 RARP —The Reverse Address Resolution Protocol

56
 ARP Operation
 To find the physical address of another host or router on its network
• Send an ARP request message
 ARP request message
• The physical address of the sender and The IP address of the sender
• The physical address of the receiver is 0s and The IP address of the
receiver
 Then, ARP request message is broadcast by the physical layer
• For example: in Ethernet, MAC header‟s destination address is all 1s
(broadcast address)
• Received by every station on the physical network
 The intended recipient send back an ARP reply message
• ARP reply message packet is unicast 57
58
 RARP
 It cannot include the IP address
• IP address are assigned by the network administrator
 Obtain its logical address by the physical address using the RARP protocol
 The RARP request packets are broadcast; the RARP reply packets are unicast.

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60
Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol
Operation of DHCP.
Acquiring IP
• DHCPDISCOVER Broadcast
• DHCP SERVER Receives and send DHCPOFFER to sender
• DHCPREQUEST broadcast (Multiple DHCP)
• DHCPACK By server to sender (If available)
• DHCPNACK By server to sender (If not available)

When disconnecting or remove from network

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 Thank You
???

References:
 Data Communications and Networking “ Behrouz A. Forouzan” Fourth Edition.
 Computer Networks “A. S. Tanenbaum” Fifth Edition
 Data and Computer Communications “William Stallings” Tenth Edition.

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