Network Working Group G. Malkin
Request for Comments: 2081 Xylogics
Category: Informational January 1997
RIPng Protocol Applicability Statement
1. Protocol Documents
The RIPng protocol description is defined in RFC 2080.
2. Introduction
This report describes how RIPng may be useful within the new IPv6 Internet. In essence, the environments in which RIPng is the IGP of choice is comparable to the environments in which RIP-2 (RFC 1723) is used in the IPv4 Internet. It is important to remember that RIPng is a simple extrapolation of RIP-2; RIPng has nothing conceptually new. Thus, the operational aspects of distance-vector routing protocols, and RIP-2 in particular, within an autonomous system are well understood.
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RFC 2081 RIP-2 Applicability January 1997 3. ApplicabilityA goal in developing RIPng was to make the minimum necessary change to RIP-2 to produce RIPng. In essence, the IPv4 address was expanded into an IPv6 address, the IPv4 subnet mask was replaced with an IPv6 prefix length, the next-hop field was eliminated but the functionality has been preserved, and authentication was removed. The route tag field has been preserved. The maximum diameter of the network (the maximum metric value) is 15; 16 still means infinity (unreachable).
3.1 Prefix
The address field of a routing entry is 128 bits in length, expanded from the 32 bits available in RIP-2. This allows the RIP entry to carry an IPv6 prefix.
3.2 Prefix Length
The 32-bit RIP-2 subnet mask field is replaced by an 8-bit prefix length field. It allows the specification of the number of bits in the prefix which form the actual prefix.
3.3 Next Hop
The ability to specify the next hop, rather than simply allowing the recipient of the update to set the next hop to the sender of the update, allows for the elimination of unnecessary hops through routers which are running multiple routing protocols. Consider following example topology:
----- ----- ----- -----
|IR1| |IR2| |XR1| |XR2|
--+-- --+-- --+-- --+--
| | | |
--+-------+-------------+-------+--
|--------RIPng--------|
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RFC 2081 RIP-2 Applicability January 1997
The Internal Routers (IR1 and IR2) are only running RIPng. The External Routers (XR1 and XR2) are both running BGP, for example; however, only XR1 is running BGP and RIPng. Since XR2 is not running RIPng, the IRs will not know of its existance and will never use it as a next hop, even if it is a better next hop than XR1. Of course, XR1 knows this and can indicate, via the Next Hop mechanism, that XR2 is the better next hop for some routes.
3.4 Authentication
Authentication, which was added to RIP-2 because RIP-1 did not have it, has been dropped from RIPng. This is safe to do because IPv6, which carries the RIPng packets, has build in security which IPv4 did not have.
3.5 Packet Length
By allowing RIPng routing update packets to be as big as possible, the number of packets which must be sent for a complete update is greatly reduced. This in no way affects the operation of the distance-vector protocol; it is merely a performance enhancement.
3.6 Diameter and Complexity
The limit of 15 cost-1 hops is a function of the distance-vector protocol, which depends on counting to infinity to resolve some routing loops. If infinity is too high, the time it would take to resolve, not to mention the number of routing updates which would be sent, would be prohibitive. If the infinity is too small, the protocol becomes useless in a reasonably sized network. The choice of 16 for infinity was made in the earliest of RIP implementations and experience has shown it to be a good compromise value.
4. Conclusion
Because the basic protocol is unchanged, RIPng is as correct a routing protocol as RIP-2. RIPng serves the same niche for IPv6 as RIP-2 does for IPv4.
5. Security Considerations
RIPng security is discussed in section 3.4.
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RFC 2081 RIP-2 Applicability January 1997
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