Introduction to Routing and Packet Forwarding

Routing Protocols and Concepts Chapter 1

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Routers are at the Network Center

A router connects multiple networks. It has multiple interfaces that each belong to a different IP network.

Routers generally have 2 connections:

WAN connection (Connection to ISP) LAN connection

Routers connect different media Routers direct packets to their proper destinations
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Routers are Computers

Routers have many of the same hardware and software components that are found in other computers including:

CPU RAM ROM Operating System

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Components of a Router

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Components of a Router
ROM is a form of permanent storage. Cisco devices use ROM to store:

The bootstrap instructions Basic diagnostic software (ROM Monitor) Scaled-down version of IOS (Boot ROM)

Flash memory - Contains the operating system (Cisco IOS)

Non-volatile RAM (NVRAM) - Stores startup configuration

Interfaces - multiple physical interfaces that are used to connect network. Examples of interface types:

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Ethernet / Fast Ethernet interfaces Serial interfaces Management interfaces (Console, AUX)
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Components of a Router
RAM is used to store these components:

Operating System: The Cisco IOS (Internetwork Operating System) is copied into RAM during bootup. Running Configuration File: This is the configuration file that stores the configuration commands that the router IOS is currently using.

IP Routing Table: This file stores information about directly connected and remote networks. It is used to determine the best path to forward the packet.
ARP Cache: This cache contains the IPv4 address to MAC address mappings, similar to the ARP cache on a PC. The ARP cache is used on routers that have LAN interfaces such as Ethernet interfaces. Packet Buffer: Packets are temporarily stored in a buffer when received on an interface or before they exit an interface.

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Boot-up Process
The POST process is used to test the router hardware. The main task of the bootstrap program is to locate the Cisco IOS and load it into RAM.

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Router Info
The show version command displays information about hardware and software components of the router.

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Routers and The Network Layer

The main purpose of a router is to connect multiple networks and forward packets destined either for its own networks or other networks. When each router receives a packet, it searches its routing table to find the best match between the destination IP address of the packet and one of the network addresses in the routing table.

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Routing Table Structure

Routing Table is stored in RAM and contains information about:

Directly connected networks - this occurs when a device is connected to another router interface Remotely connected networks - this is a network that is not directly connected to a particular router Detailed information about the networks include source of information, network address & subnet mask, and IP address of next-hop router

Show ip route command is used to view a routing table

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Directly-connected Networks
Before any static or dynamic routing is configured on a router, the router only knows about its own directly connected networks.

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Static Routing
When the IOS learns about a remote network and the interface that it will use to reach that network, it adds that route to the routing table as long as the exit interface is enabled.

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Static Routing
Static routes should be used in the following cases:

A network consists of only a few routers. Using a dynamic routing protocol in such a case does not present any substantial benefit.
A network is connected to the Internet only through a single ISP. There is no need to use a dynamic routing protocol across this link because the ISP represents the only exit point to the Internet. A large network is configured in a hub-and-spoke topology. Using dynamic routing would be unnecessary because each branch has only one path to a given destination-through the central location.

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Dynamic Routing
Dynamic routing protocols are used by routers to share information about the reachability and status of remote networks. Dynamic routing protocols perform several activities, including:

Network discovery Updating and maintaining routing tables

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Dynamic Routing
Automatic Network Discovery Network discovery is the ability of a routing protocol to share information about the networks that it knows about with other routers that are also using the same routing protocol.

Maintaining Routing Tables After the initial network discovery, dynamic routing protocols update and maintain the networks in their routing tables.
IP Routing Protocols

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RIP (Routing Information Protocol) IGRP (Interior Gateway Routing Protocol) EIGRP (Enhanced Interior Gateway Routing Protocol) OSPF (Open Shortest Path First) IS-IS (Intermediate System-to-Intermediate System) BGP (Border Gateway Protocol)
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Routing Table Principles

Every router makes its decision alone, based on the information it has in its own routing table. The fact that one router has certain information in its routing table does not mean that other routers have the same information. Routing information about a path from one network to another does not provide routing information about the reverse, or return path.

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Best Path and Metric

A Metric is a numerical value used by routing protocols help determine the best path to a destination

The smaller the metric value the better the path

2 types of metrics used by routing protocols are:

Hop count - this is the number of routers a packet must travel through to get to its destination Bandwidth - this is the speed of a link also known as the data capacity of a link

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Equal Cost Load Balancing

Equal cost metric is a condition where a router has multiple paths to the same destination that all have the same metric

To solve this dilemma, a router will use Equal Cost Load Balancing.
This means the router sends packets over the multiple exit interfaces listed in the routing table.

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Path Determination
Path determination is a process used by a router to pick the best path to a destination

One of 3 path determinations results from searching for the best path

Directly connected network Remote network No route determined

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Data Flow
As a packet travels from one networking device to another:

The Source and Destination IP addresses ?NEVER? change

The Source & Destination MAC addresses CHANGE as packet is forwarded from one router to the next. TTL field decrement by one until a value of zero is reached at which point router discards packet (prevents packets from endlessly traversing the network)

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