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Route in Peace: Routing Protocols<br />

Previous Table of Contents Next<br />

There are four common types of routing protocols you should know about—more for configuration<br />

checking (making sure that routers are configured for the same routing protocols) than anything else.<br />

TCP/IP has two common ones, as does IPX/SPX. The oldest routing protocol, for both TCP/IP and<br />

IPX/SPX, is called Routing Information Protocol (RIP).<br />

RIP<br />

It’s important to realize that different network protocols (TCP/IP versus IPX/SPX) have different routing<br />

protocols. Although RIP for TCP/IP works similarly to RIP for IPX/SPX, they are, in fact, different.<br />

Both the TCP/IP RIP and the IPX/SPX RIP are broadcast protocols—that is, each RIP router announces<br />

its routing table to everybody on the network every so often. Also, both RIPs calculate route cost based<br />

on number of hops rather than how fast a particular route might be (for cases where multiple routers have<br />

a path to the same network). RIP can cause lots of network traffic in complex networks because it talks<br />

too much. (TCP/IP RIP will broadcast to the network every 30 seconds.)<br />

IPX/SPX has a companion protocol to RIP called SAP, or Service Advertisement Protocol. This protocol<br />

is similar to RIP in that it broadcasts information to the network to anybody who might be listening. It’s<br />

different in that it advertises servers, not routers.<br />

The reason for SAP is similar to the reason for RIP—it allows all routers to share information via<br />

broadcast. As such, it’s pretty chatty.<br />

OSPF and NLSP<br />

If your network is complex and congested, you might want to stop using IPX RIP and go with NLSP.<br />

(NLSP replaces IPX’s SAP and RIP.) Similarly, if you have a complex and congested TCP/IP network,<br />

you’d probably want to replace the RIP with OSPF. OSPF (Open Shortest Path First) for TCP/IP and<br />

NLSP (NetWare Link State Protocol) for IPX/SPX are the more advanced routing protocols. They take<br />

into account how fast a link might be and assign a cost accordingly. Each NLSP or OSPF router<br />

identifies itself to other routers on the same network and learns the routes that those other routers know.

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