Router

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search
This article is about the computer networking device. For the rotating cutting tool, see
Router (woodworking). For the variety of network devices found in household network
setups, see residential gateway. For the software used in electronic design automation,
see routing (electronic design automation).

Compu
ter
networ
k
For
pure
Interne
t
Protoc
ol (IP)
forwar
ding
functio
n, a
router
is
design
ed to
minimi
ze the
state
inform
ation
associa
ted
with
individ
ual
packets
. The
main
purpos
e of a
router
is to
connec
t
multipl
e
networ
ks and
forwar
d
packets
destine
d either
for its
own
networ
ks or
other
networ
ks. A
router
is
consid
ered a
Layer
3
device
becaus
e its
primar
y
forwar
ding
decisio
n is
based
on the
inform
ation in
the
Layer
3 IP
packet,
specifi
cally
the
destina
tion IP
address
. This
process
is
known
as
routing
. When
each
router
receive
sa
packet,
it
searche
s its
routing
table to
find
the
best
match
betwee
n the
destina
tion IP
address
of the
packet
and
one of
the
networ
k
address
es in
the
routing
table.
Once a
match
is
found,
the
packet
is
encaps
ulated
in the
Layer
2 data
link
frame
for that
outgoi
ng
interfa
ce. A
router
does
not
look
into the
actual
data
content
s that
the
packet
carries,
but
only at
the
layer 3
address
es to
make a
forwar
ding
decisio
n, plus
optiona
lly
other
inform
ation in
the
header
for hint
on, for
exampl
e, QoS.
Once a
packet
is
forwar
ded,
the
router
does
not
retain
any
historic
al
inform
ation
about
the
packet,
but the
forwar
ding
action
can be
collect
ed into
the
statisti
cal
data, if
so
config
ured.
Forwar
ding
decisio
ns can
involve
decisio
ns at
layers
other
than
layer 3.
A
functio
n that
forwar
ds
based
on
layer 2
inform
ation,
is
properl
y
called
a
bridge.
This
functio
n is
referre
d to as
layer 2
bridgin
g, as
the
address
es it
uses to
forwar
d the
traffic
are
layer 2
address
es (e.g.
MAC
address
es on
Ethern
et).
Beside
s
making
decisio
n as
which
interfa
ce a
packet
is
forwar
ded to,
which
is
handle
d
primari
ly via
the
routing
table, a
router
also
has to
manag
e
conges
tion,
when
packets
arrive
at a
rate
higher
than
the
router
can
process
. Three
policie
s
commo
nly
used in
the
Interne
t are
tail
drop,
rando
m early
detecti
on
(RED),
and
weight
ed
rando
m early
detecti
on
(WRE
D).
Tail
drop is
the
simple
st and
most
easily
imple
mented
; the
router
simply
drops
packets
once
the
length
of the
queue
exceed
s the
size of
the
buffers
in the
router.
RED
probab
ilistical
ly
drops
datagra
ms
early
when
the
queue
is
exceed
s a pre-
config
ured
size of
the
queue
until a
pre-
config
ured
max
when it
becom
es tail
drop.
WRED
require
sa
weight
on the
averag
e
queue
size to
act
upon
when
the
traffic
is
about
to
exceed
the
pre-
config
ured
size, so
that
short
bursts
will
not
trigger
rando
m
drops.
Anothe
r
functio
na
router
perfor
ms is
to
decide
which
packet
should
be
process
ed first
when
multipl
e
queues
exist.
This is
manag
ed
throug
h
quality
of
service
(QoS),
which
is
critical
when
Voice
over IP
is
deploy
ed, so
that
delays
betwee
n
packets
do not
exceed
150ms
to
maintai
n the
quality
of
voice
conver
sations.
Yet
another
functio
na
router
perfor
ms is
called
policy-
based
routing
where
special
rules
are
constru
cted to
overrid
e the
rules
derived
from
the
routing
table
when a
packet
forwar
ding
decisio
n is
made.
These
functio
ns may
be
perfor
med
throug
h the
same
interna
l paths
that the
packets
travel
inside
the
router.
Some
of the
functio
ns may
be
perfor
med
throug
h an
applica
tion-
specifi
c
integra
ted
circuit
(ASIC)
to
avoid
overhe
ad
caused
by
multipl
e CPU
cycles,
and
others
may
have to
be
perfor
med
throug
h the
CPU as
these
packets
need
special
attentio
n that
cannot
be
handle
d by an
ASIC.