HSRP IP Route Tracking

May 13th, 2013 in Guide Go to comments

In this article we will discuss about HSRP and do a lab on it.
Quick reminder about HSRP
+ Hot Standby Router Protocol (HSRP) is a Cisco proprietary protocol.
+ With HSRP, two or more devices support a virtual router with a fictitious MAC address and
unique IP address
+ Hosts use this IP address as their default gateway and the MAC address for the Layer 2 header
+ The virtual routers MAC address is 0000.0c07.ACxx , in which xx is the HSRP group.
Multiple groups (virtual routers) are allowed.
+ The Active router forwards traffic. The Standby router is backup and monitors periodic hellos
(multicast to 224.0.0.2,
UDP port 1985) to detect a failure of the active router.
+ The active router is chosen because it has the highest HSRP priority (default priority is 100). In
case of a tie, the router
with the highest configured IP address wins the election
+ A new router with a higher priority does not cause an election unless it is configured to
preempt.
HSRP States
+ Initial: HSRP is not running.
+ Learn: The router does not know the virtual IP address and is waiting to hear from the active
router.
+ Listen: The router knows the IP and MAC of the virtual router, but it is not the active or
standby router.
+ Speak: Router sends periodic HSRP hellos and participates in the election of the active router.
+ Standby: Router monitors hellos from active router and assumes responsibility if active router
fails.
+ Active:Router forwards packets on behalf of the virtual router.
Load balancing traffic across two uplinks to two HSRP routers with a single HSRP group is not
possible. The trick is to use two
HSRP groups:
+ One group assigns an active router to one switch.
+ The other group assigns another active router to the other switch.
(Reference: SWITCH official Certification Guide)

That is all for the boring HSRP theory, let do a lab to understand more about HSRP! We will use
the topology below for this lab: