Enhanced Interior

Gateway Routing
Protocol
Kmar Thaalbi
Kmar.Thaalbi@tek-up.de

EIGRP

EIGRP is a distance vector, classless routing protocol that was

released in 1992 with IOS 9.21.

EIGRP is an enhancement of Cisco IGRP (Interior Gateway Routing

Protocol).

Both are Cisco proprietary protocols and only operate on Cisco

routers.

The main purpose in Cisco's development of EIGRP was to create a

classless version of IGRP.

EIGRP includes several features that include:

Reliable Transport Protocol (RTP)
Bounded Updates
Diffusing Update Algorithm (DUAL)
Establishing Adjacencies
Neighbor and Topology Tables

EIGRP

Although EIGRP may act like a link-state routing protocol, it is still a distance vector
routing protocol. EIGRP does not use link-state (LS) logic, instead using some
advanced distance vector (DV) logic
PS: The term hybrid routing protocol is sometimes used to define EIGRP.

A typical distance vector protocol saves the following information when computing
the best path to a destination: the distance (total metric or distance) and the vector
(the next hop).

The Algorithm
EIGRP uses the Diffusing Update Algorithm (DUAL).
EIGRP does not send periodic updates and route entries do not age out.
Only changes in the routing information, such as a new link or a link becoming unavailable cause a
routing update to occur.
EIGRP routing updates are still vectors of distances transmitted to directly connected neighbors.

EIGRP Timers

EIGRP sends hello packets every 5 seconds on high bandwidth links and
every 60 seconds on low bandwidth multipoint links.

The hold time is typically three times the hello interval, by default, 15
seconds and 180 seconds

adjust it per interface with theip hello-interval eigrp command

You can adjust the hold time with the ip hold-time eigrp command.

DUAL Algo.

ensure that a given route is recalculated globally whenever it

might cause a routing loop

DUAL uses three separate tables for the route calculation.

Neighbor table: contains information on all other directly connected routers.
This is achieved through "Hello" packets.
Topology table: contains the metric (cost information) of all routes to any
destination within the autonomous system
Routing table: contains the best route(s) to a destination

DUAL Algo.

DUAL evaluates the data received from other routers in the topology table and
calculates two routes:

the primary route: successor

The secondary route or feasible successor

FD (Feasible Distance): The calculated metric of a route to a destination within

the autonomous system.

RD (Reported Distance): The metric to a destination as advertised by a

neighboring router. RD is used to calculate the FD, and to determine if the
route meets the "feasibility condition

Feasibility condition: for a route to become a feasible successor, its RD must be

smaller than the FD of the successor

EIGRP Path Determination

Path Determination

EIGRP's DUAL maintains a topology table separate from the routing

table, which includes both the best path to a destination network and
any backup paths that DUAL has determined to be loop-free.
If a route becomes unavailable, DUAL will search its topology table
for a valid backup path.
If one exists, that route is immediately entered into the routing table.
If one does not exist, DUAL performs a network discovery process to
see if there happens to be a backup path that did not meet the
requirement of the feasibility condition.

EIGRP

EIGRP packet header contains

Opcode field

Update
Query
Reply
Hello

Autonomous System number

The AS number is used to track multiple instances of EIGRP.

EIGRP Parameters contains

Weights
EIGRP uses for its composite metric.
By default, only bandwidth and delay are weighted. Both are set to
1.
The other K values are set to zero.

Hold time
The amount of time the EIGRP neighbor receiving this message
should wait before considering the advertising router to be down.

EIGRP Metric Calculation

EIGRP Composite Metric & the K Values

EIGRP uses the following values in its composite metric

-Bandwidth, delay, reliability, and load (reliability and load are not used)

The composite metric used by EIGRP

formula used has values K1 K5

K1 & K3
K2, K4, K5

=1
=0

EIGRP Metric Calculation

Use the sh ip protocols command to verify the K values

Changing these
values to other than
the default is not
recommended
unless the network
administrator has a
very good reason to
do so.

EIGRP
TLV: IP internal

contains (EIGRP routes within an autonomous system)

Metric field (Delay and Bandwidth)

Delay is calculated as the sum of delays from source to destination in units of 10 microseconds.
Bandwidth is the lowest configured bandwidth of any interface along the route.

Subnet mask field

The subnet mask is specified as the prefix length or the number of network bits in the subnet mask.

Destination field
the address of the destination network.
Although only 24 bits are shown in this figure.
If a network address is longer than 24 bits, then the Destination field is extended for another 32 bits

EIGRP
Query

Reliable

multicast

Update

Reliable

Multicast &
unicast

Reply

Reliable

unicast

Hello

Acknowledge

Unreliable

Unreliable

(not require
acknowledgment )

(a hello packet that

has no data )

multicast

unicast

EIGRP
EIGRP Bounded Updates

EIGRP only sends update when there is a change in route status

Partial update
A partial update includes only the route information that has changed
the whole routing table is NOT sent

Bounded update
When a route changes, only those devices that are impacted will be notified
of the change

EIGRPs use of partial bounded updates minimizes use of bandwidth

EIGRP

Administrative Distance (AD)

Defined as the trustworthiness of the source route

EIGRP default administrative

distances
Summary routes = 5
Internal routes = 90
Imported routes = 170

Verifying EIGRP Operation

Router# show ip eigrp neighbors : Displays the neighbors
discovered by EIGRP
Router# show ip eigrp topology : Displays the EIGRP topology table
Router# show ip route eigrp : Displays current EIGRP entries in the
routing table
Router# show ip protocols : Displays the parameters and current
state of the active routing protocol process
Router# show ip eigrp traffic : Displays the number of EIGRP
packets sent and received

EIGRP advantages

very low usage of network resources during normal operation:

only hello packets are transmitted on a stable network

when a change occurs, only routing table changes are

propagated, not the entire routing table:
this reduces the load the routing protocol itself places on the
network

rapid convergence times for changes in the network topology.