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Course: Computer and Communication Networks

Topic: Unicast Routing

Faculty Name
Dr. Amanpreet Kaur
Assistant Professor
Department of Electronics and Communication
Engineering,
Thapar Institute of Engineering and Technology, Patiala.
www.thapar.edu

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 Outline of the lecture
• Unicast Routing
• Intradomain protocol
 Distance-vector routing algorithm
 RIP (Routing Information Protocol)
 Link-state routing algorithm
 OSPF (Open Shortest Path First)

• Interdomain protocol
 Path Vector Routing
 Border Gateway Protocol

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 Unicast Routing
• It is the process of forwarding unicasted traffic
from a source to a destination on an internetwork.
• Unicasted traffic is destined for a unique
address.
• It is the simplest form of routing because the
destination is already known.
• Router just has to look up the routing table and
forward the packet to next hop
• Routing packets is from source to the destination
router.
• To find best route internet can be modeled as
graph

Reference: 1. Ferouzan, Behrouz A., Data Communications and Networking

 Unicast Routing Protocol

Reference: 1. Ferouzan, Behrouz A., Data Communications and Networking

 Intradomain and interdomain protocol
• Intra domain is any protocol in which Routing algorithm works only within domains
on the other hand Inter domain is any protocol in which Routing algorithm works
within and between domains.
• Protocols used in intradomain routing are known as Interior-gateway protocols.
Protocols used in interdomain routing are known as Exterior-gateway protocols.
• In intradomain routing takes place within an autonomous network and in
interdomain routing takes place between the autonomous networks.
• Interdomain protocols are: RIP (resource information protocol) and OSPF(open
shortest path first) and intradomain BGP(Border Gateway Protocol) used to connect
two or more AS(autonomous system).
Reference: 1. Ferouzan, Behrouz A., Data Communications and Networking
 Autonomous System
• An autonomous system (AS) is a collection of connected Internet
Protocol (IP) routing prefixes under the control of one or more
network operators on behalf of a single administrative entity.

Reference: 1. Ferouzan, Behrouz A., Data Communications and Networking

 Intradomain Routing Algorithms
 Distance-vector routing algorithm
RIP (Routing Information Protocol)

 Link-state routing algorithm

OSPF (Open Shortest Path First)

Reference: 1. Ferouzan, Behrouz A., Data Communications and Networking

 Distance-vector routing algorithm
• Distance Vector is simple routing protocol which takes routing
decision on the number of hops between source and destination.
• A route with less number of hops is considered as the best route. Every
router advertises its set best routes to other routers.
• Ultimately, all routers build up their network topology based on the
advertisements of their peer routers.

Reference: 1. Ferouzan, Behrouz A., Data Communications and Networking

 Distance Vector Routing Tables

At the beginning
 Each node can know only the distance between itself and its immediate neighbors
 We assume each node can send a message to the immediate neighbors and find the distance

Reference: 1. Ferouzan, Behrouz A., Data Communications and Networking

 Initialization of Tables in Distance Vector Routing

Reference: 1. Ferouzan, Behrouz A., Data Communications and Networking

 .

• Algorithm: Updating
Shared knowledge about the Receipt: a two-column table from a neighbor
Add the cost between itself and the sending node to
entire autonomous system each value in the second column
Shared only neighbors Repeat the following steps for each advertised
destination
Shared at regular interval  If (destination not in the routing table)
 Add the advertised information to the table
 Else
 If (next-hop field is the same)
 Replace retry in the table with the
new advertised one
 Else
 If (advertised hop count smaller than
one in the table)
•  Replace entry in
Reference: 1. Ferouzan, Behrouz A., Data Communications and Networking the routing table
Updating in Distance Vector Routing

Reach A via C

Reference: 1. Ferouzan, Behrouz A., Data Communications and Networking

 When to
Share
 The table is sent both periodically and when there is a change in
the table
 Periodic update
 A node sends its routing table in a periodic update
 Normally every 30 seconds
 Triggered update
 A node receives a table from a neighbor resulting in changes in its
own table
 A node detects some failure in the neighboring links which results
in a distance change to infinity

Reference: 1. Ferouzan, Behrouz A., Data Communications and Networking

 Routing Information Protocol
• 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.
• In an autonomous system, we are dealing with routers and networks (links). The routers have routing
tables; networks do not.
• The destination in a routing table is a network, which means the first column defines a network address.
• 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.
• Infinity is defined as 16, which means that any route in an autonomous system using RIP cannot have
more than 15 hops.
• The next-node column defines the address of the router to which the packet is to be sent to reach its
destination.

Reference: 1. Ferouzan, Behrouz A., Data Communications and Networking

 Example of a domain using RIP

Reference: 1. Ferouzan, Behrouz A., Data Communications and Networking

RIP Message Format
 Link State Routing
• Link State protocol is slightly complicated protocol than Distance Vector. It takes into account the states
of links of all the routers in a network. This technique helps routes build a common graph of the
entire network. All routers then calculate their best path for routing purposes. Like Open Shortest Path
First (OSPF) and Intermediate System to Intermediate System (ISIS).
In link state routing, if each node in the domain has the entire topology of the domain, the node
can use Dijkstra’s algorithm to build a routing table.

Reference: 1. Ferouzan, Behrouz A., Data Communications and Networking

 Link State Knowledge

 Each node has a partial knowledge of the network

 There is an overlap in the knowledge
Reference: 1. Ferouzan, Behrouz A., Data Communications and Networking
 Building Routing Tables

In link state routing, four sets of actions are required to ensure that
each node has the routing table showing the least-cost node to every
other node.
1. Creation of the states of the links by each node, called the link state
packet (LSP).
2. Dissemination of LSPs to every other router, called flooding, in an
efficient and reliable way.
3. Formation of a shortest path tree for each node.
4. Calculation of a routing table based on the shortest path tree.

Reference: 1. Ferouzan, Behrouz A., Data Communications and Networking

 • Creation of Link State Packet (LSP):
When there is a change in the topology of the domain
On a periodic basis.

• Flooding of LSPs:
The creating node sends a copy of the LSP out of each interface.
It discards the old LSP and keeps the new one.
It sends a copy of it out of each interface except the one from which
the packet arrived.

Reference: 1. Ferouzan, Behrouz A., Data Communications and Networking

 • Formation of Shortest Path Tree: Dijkstra Algorithm

Permanent list: A(O) Tentative

Permanent list: empty
list: B(5), C(2), D(3)
Tentative list: A(O)

Permanent list: A(O), C(2) Permanent list: A(O), C(2), D(3)

Tentative list: B(5), D(3), Tentative list: B(5), E(6)
E(6)

Permanent list: A(O), B(5), C(2),

Permanent list: A(O), B(5), D(3), E(6) Tentative list: empty
C(2), D(3) Tentative list: E(6)

• Calculation of Routing Table from Shortest Path Tree

Reference: 1. Ferouzan, Behrouz A., Data Communications and Networking
 Open Shortest Path First (OSPF)
The Open Shortest Path First or OSPF protocol is an intradomain routing protocol based
on link state routing. Its domain is also an autonomous system.

Reference: 1. Ferouzan, Behrouz A., Data Communications and Networking

 Types of Links

Reference: 1. Ferouzan, Behrouz A., Data Communications and Networking

Reference: 1. Ferouzan, Behrouz A., Data Communications and Networking
 Path Vector Routing
• Path vector routing proved to be useful for interdomain routing. The
principle of path vector routing is similar to that of distance vector
routing. In path vector routing, we assume that there is one node in each
autonomous system that acts on behalf of the entire autonomous system.
• Path vector routing is similar to distance vector routing. There is at least
one node, called the speaker node, in each AS that creates a routing
table and advertises it to speaker nodes in the neighboring ASs..

Reference: 1. Ferouzan, Behrouz A., Data Communications and Networking

 Initial routing tables in path vector routing

Reference: 1. Ferouzan, Behrouz A., Data Communications and Networking

 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.

Reference: 1. Ferouzan, Behrouz A., Data Communications and Networking

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