RIP in Operation

Thu Sep 16 14:48:09 UTC 2004

We were running RIP till some time back and very recently migrated to OSPF. 
The former was just too slow and stupid!

I remember we once had started recieving a lot of RIP request messages for 
some strange prefixes. I dont know what caused that, but we did see those 
messages. But then, i remember it wasnt normal at all. We shouldnt have been 
recieving them. Some one fixed the problem at the other end, and the matter 
just ended there.

Your mail just reminded of this.

Tulip

>
> Hi,
>
> I am sure that there would be very few people running RIP in their
> networks, but since the IETF RIP mailing list is dead, and also
> because its more of an operational question, the Nanog list felt most
> appropriate to me for the following post.
>
> Why would you, as an operator, recieve RIPv2 Request messages? The
> only reason that comes to my mind is when a remote RIPv2 router has
> just come up. That time its going to multicast this message on all its
> interfaces configured to run RIP. This is the *only* reason that comes
> to my mind.
>
> However, there is text in the RFC 2453 that states that RIP can use
> this message to request specific networks also. It also states that
> such a request can only be made by a diagonistic software and cannot
> be used for routing. My doubt is, how can a diagnostic software, use
> the services of RIP for doing that?
>
> I assume (please correct me if i am wrong) that the RIP requests are
> only then, used for requesting the entire routing tables, and nothing
> else. The 'diagnostics' story sounds too far fetched to me!
>
> Thanks,
> Abhishek V.
>
> P.S.
> I tried googling but nothing came up.
>
> --
> Class of 2004
> Institue Of Technology, BHU
> Varanasi - India 