Materials Today: Proceedings xxx (xxxx) xxx

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Materials Today: Proceedings

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/matpr

A comprehensive analysis and experimental evaluation of routing

information protocol: An elucidation
Vidhu Baggan a, Ashok Kumar Sahoo b,⇑, Pradeepta Kumar Sarangi a, Srishti Priya Chaturvedi a
a
Chitkara University Institute of Engineering and Technology, Chitkara University, Punjab, India
b
Graphic Era Hill University, Dehradun, India

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The routing protocols are considered to be the backbone of the network communication. Each protocol
Received 27 September 2020 has its outlined algorithmic program that decides the routing choices for the designated router. The
Accepted 22 October 2020 Routing Information Protocol comes under category of Distance Vector Routing Protocol and is related
Available online xxxx
to several dimensions, that define the scope of improvement also, in RIP. In this paper, a detailed analysis
of RIP has been done, appended with the implementation in Packet Tracer. This analysis is augmented
Keywords: with the insight into the Interior Border Gateway Protocol and concluded with their comparative
Routing protocol
analysis.
Routing loop
Routing information protocol
Ó 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Timers Selection and peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the National Conference on
Distance vector routing protocol Functional Materials: Emerging Technologies and Applications in Materials Science.

1. Introduction With the manual addition of network routes, the processing

The communication in computer networks has been designed,
through the exchange of data packets by routers and is termed
as the routing process. The standard routing protocols are available
for executing the routing process. These algorithms have been cat-
egorized in terms of their characteristics [1-5].
A routing protocol is a lot of manual equations and communica-
tions used to gain knowledge about remote networks and hence
can easily adapt to any topological changes whenever there is
any variation in the topology of the network. Routing protocols
operate by paving a route for at least two networks, firstly by
choosing the right paths between source and destination nodes,
and secondly by transmitting data successfully to a particular des-
tination network [6-8]. The categories of Routing Protocols are
shown in Fig. 1.
A. Static routing
A type of routing process, which requires manual addition of
routes in the routing table [7,8]. It has been embellished with
advantages, and disadvantages defined below:
Advantages:
i. Resource Efficient:
⇑ Corresponding author.
E-mail address: ashoksahoo2000@yahoo.com (A.K. Sahoo).
required by the router is less.
ii. Speed:
With the less processing, the packet delivery will be fast
enough.
iii. Security:
No automatic updates provides more secure environment.
iv. Disadvantages:
Due to the intervention of network administrators at every step
in Static Routing, it takes much effort and time for an outsized
network.
In order to satisfy the demands of a big and busty network,
dynamic routing protocols evolved. The interior gateway routing
protocol are considered to operate in an autonomous system [7,8].
B. Default Routing-
It is a common practice to use default routing by the organiza-
tions, where all the inside traffic are sent to ISP’s Router through
the organization’s router (OR).
As the OR is not directly connected to all the destination net-
works, it transmits the whole network traffic to the ISP, which by

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matpr.2020.10.676
2214-7853/Ó 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Selection and peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the National Conference on Functional Materials: Emerging Technologies and Applications in
Materials Science.

Please cite this article as: V. Baggan, Ashok Kumar Sahoo, Pradeepta Kumar Sarangi et al., A comprehensive analysis and experimental evaluation of routing
information protocol: An elucidation, Materials Today: Proceedings, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matpr.2020.10.676
V. Baggan, Ashok Kumar Sahoo, Pradeepta Kumar Sarangi et al. Materials Today: Proceedings xxx (xxxx) xxx

ment of most suitable paths can then form every node’s routing
table [8] Examples: Intermediate Systems-Intermediate System
(IS-IS) Open Shortest Path (OSPF) [7–17].

1.3. Hybrid routing protocol

Fig. 1. Categories of routing protocols [8].
itself search for the best routes for the destination networks. It is
used principally with stub routers [7,8].
C. Dynamic Routing
The automatic update of network paths is the characteristic fea-
ture of dynamic routing [1-5].
In addition to this, following are the baselines that describe the
dynamic routing, as follows:
i. The directly connected routers have to be programmed with
the same dynamic routing protocol to swap the network
routes [7-17].
ii. With any network updates, the routers adjust themselves for
reaching a converged state [7-17].
The crux of the two of them that is link-state and distance vec-
tor routing protocol is used [7–17]. Example: Enhanced Interior
Gateway Routing Protocol (EIGRP).
The services provided by routing protocols solely depend upon
the metrics defined by their respective algorithms. These metrics
are of wide range consisting of distance, bandwidth, load, delay
throughput; cost and hop count to spot the best path from the
paths available for reaching the destination network [7–18]. This
paper focuses chiefly on RIP.
2. Background
The RIP has emerged out as the most preeminent as often as
possible utilized IGP (Interior Gateway Protocol) that causes a rou-
ter to easily adjust to changes of system associations by conveying
data. RIP was at first created in 1969 as a piece of ARAPNET [27].
The algorithm, that RIP is configured with Bellman-Ford-
Algorithm [7,8].
Steps in Bellman-Ford-Algorithm

i. Every router within the AS, counts the hops between itself
Advantages:
and all other routers and logs this information in a tabular
form.
i. Easy to debug
ii. The routing table formed in the first step, is exchanged by
routers, with in an AS.
As the metrics for every dynamic routing protocol is defined,
iii. After getting feedback from nearby routers, the routers
the error in path selection can be easily tracked [7-17].
refurbish the routing table.
ii. Efficient Path Selection
Load Balancing
In the event that there exists numerous ways to arrive at a
It is more effective at choosing the most effective route to a des-
specific destination network from a source router, RIP must load
tination [7-17].
balance in these different ways (default value is limited to 4). For
Dynamic Routing is further classified into two types:
equivalent measurement courses, RIP utilizes a round-robin
arrangement of load adjusting which can cause pinhole congestion
i. Exterior routing protocol:
[9].
For example, to reach a particular destination there might exists
The external routing protocol is used for coordination in Inter-
two or more different paths, one going via T1 and other one via T2.
Autonomous Systems. And Boundary Gateway Protocol (BGP) is
When the hop count metric is equal for both paths, RIP will fill the
the uniform exterior routing protocol [9,10,18].
balance by sending the same amount of traffic down T1 and T2,
allowing the slower path to become overloaded [16,17].
ii. Interior Gateway Routing Protocol:

A routing protocol named as Interior Gateway routing protocol 3. Routing table format
is used for communication in Intra-Autonomous systems (AS)
[9,10,18]. As previously stated, being a DV routing protocol, RIP routing
information is expressed in terms of hop count to arrive at the des-
1.1. Distance vector routing protocol tination. The maximum hop count of RIP is 15, as shown in Fig. 2
[26].
In order to send the traffic towards its destination, the protocol
this selects the shortest path among the various options of network
routes available [26]. Example: RIP.

1.2. Link state routing protocol

The key idea is that every router develops a record of the avail-
ability to the network that is depicted inside the table/s that shows
which networks are associated with which router. Each router at
that point freely ascertains the best network path from it to each
conceivable destination network inside the network. Every assort- Fig. 2. Routing table format.

2
V. Baggan, Ashok Kumar Sahoo, Pradeepta Kumar Sarangi et al.
The destination, the next hop on the way to that destination, the
timer associated with the route and a metric are included in the
routing table.
The metric depicts the distance to reach the final destination in
the form of number of hops. The RIP maintains information about
the best route only. Hence, whenever there is information provid-
ing a better route, it would replace the old route information by the
new one. For example, if a router senses a connection or path fault,
it reassesses its routes and sends routing messages for updates.
Every router getting a routing update message that includes the
shift updates its tables [9–15].
4. RIP timers
Similar to other routing protocols, RIP has also been equipped
with various timers [26].
i. Update Timer:- The update timer ensures that each router,
after every 30 s of span broadcasts or announces its routing
table to all its neighbors. The default time is 30 s [26].
ii. Invalid Timer:- It is number of seconds since the last valid
update was issued by the router; the default is 180 s after
the timer expires [26].
iii. Hold down Timer:- It is defined as every count of seconds the
router is waiting for the route which is in hold down state to
approve any fresh updates, the standard is 180 s [26].
iv. Flush Timer:- The number of seconds after the last legitimate
update was issued before the router throws the route away
is 240 s by default [26].
4.1. Available versions of RIP
There are two versions of RIP available till date; they are Ver-
sion 1 and Version 2 respectively, wherein RIPv2 is the up grada-
tion of RIPv1.
4.2. RIP Version1 (RIPv1):
RIPv1 allows only class-full routing, which does not provide the
subnet mask with its routing table changes and thus does not sup-
port Subnet Masks Variable Length (VLSMs) [8,24].
Fig. 3. Network topology in Cisco Packet Tracer.
3
Materials Today: Proceedings xxx (xxxx) xxx
4.3. RIPv1 basic configuration
To configure RIP on Router 1, as shown in Fig. 3, the following
commands are required, after configuring IP addresses on the
respective interfaces of every router. The command for configuring
RIP on router1 is depicted in Fig. 4 and Fig. 5.
The first instruction turns the RIP protocol on. The additional
commands say RIP router which networks to advertise to other
RIP routers. The networks that are linked directly to the Router1
are mentioned in this. In the same manner, Router2 (R2) and Rou-
ter 3 (R3) will be configured. The routing table on Router 1, as
shown in
Router 1(R1) routing table is depicted as follows:
5. Scope of improvement in RIP (v1&v2)
Authentication:
RIPv1 lacks authentication. This backdoor can be maliciously
exploited by hackers and will result in the data packets being sent
to a fake destination as decided by the hacker [8,25].
RIPv2 is classless, so the router will send the subnet mask along
with the routing update and hence it supports Variable Length
Subnet Mask (VLSM) and also has a feature of basic authentication
scheme.
Other features of RIPv2 are:
i. Updates to routing are sent via multicast using address
224.0.0.9.
ii. Encrypted authentication between the RIPv2 routers can be
enabled.
iii. Compatible to route tagging [12].
Other features of RIPv1 are:
i. RIP v1 routers can only transmit packets in Version 1.
1. ii RIPv1 routers are providing upgrades on both versions 1 and
2.
ii. RIPv2 routers can submit and only accept updates to version
2.Unless RIPv2 is not manually specified, Cisco will by
default do RIP configuring using RIPv1 [11–13].
RIP v2 Configuration-
In order to upgrade to Version 2, following commands need to
be used which is depicted in Fig. 6:
V. Baggan, Ashok Kumar Sahoo, Pradeepta Kumar Sarangi et al. Materials Today: Proceedings xxx (xxxx) xxx

Fig. 4. RIP configuration on Router1.

Fig. 7. Configuring RIPv2 with auto summary on Router1.

Fig. 5. Routing table of router B.

Therefore, the configuration of Router 1(R1) in accordance to

Fig. 3, when upgraded to RIPv2 along with no auto summary com-
mand would be depicted in Fig. 7 and Fig. 8.
The no-auto-summary instruction stops Router 1 from sum- Fig. 8. (a) and (b). Count to Infinity Network Topology.
ming up the network 10.0.0.0.

The distance vector algorithm is slow while achieving conver-

6. Classification of unsatisfied domains in RIP (v1 and v2) gence and takes much amount of time for each routers to acquire
the similar type of information [9–15].
In this section, the various unsatisfied domains of RIP (V1 and
V2) and their impacts on real networks has been discussed. These iii. Routing Loop / Count to Infinity-
domains had lead to the design and development of Link State and
Hybrid routing protocol. Due to the periodic and slow update, a situation arise where one
In this paper, these domains are classified, depending on the router transmits bad information to the other participating router,
convergence time and efficiency associated with RIP routing which further passes worst information to the next router and so
protocol. on. This leads to a scenario, where the routing protocol is said to
be in unstable state. This problem is known as Count to Infinity
i. Convergence time or Routing Loop [23].
Solutions to count to Infinity
The convergence time is described as the time taken by the rou- Some of the solutions are hold-down timers, poison reverse
ters for the process of exchanging routing table updates, so as to updates, split horizon, and triggered updates [23].
attain a synchronized state. The slow convergence present in RIP Triggered Updates-
has been vouched by its basic nature of being distance vector It implies that a router must immediately broadcast when the
and the Timers defined in it [7,8]. link gets disconnected or a network failure occurs, instead of wait-
ing for the next turn of update timer [23].
ii. The default values [26]: Hold-Down Timers-
a) 30 sec is the default Update timer Its goal is to wait long enough to ensure that all the routers
b) 180 sec is the Hold down timer receive the link failure news and do not accepts a message that
c) Invalid Timer is supposed to be 180 sec is obsolete [23].
d) Lastly, the Flush Timer is 240 sec Split Horizon-
e) Slow Convergence For breaking the routing loop, router records the interface over
which it got a specific update and doesn’t proliferates data about
that route back to a similar interface [23].
Poison reverse Updates-
In this, once a network link gets disconnected, the router adver-
tising this particular link broadcasts about this link with the asso-
ciated cost of 16. This cost in itself portrays about the link
disconnectivity. To turn Poison Reverse more efficient, it must be
applied in conjunction with Triggered Updates [23].
Fig. 6. : RIPv2 configuration.

4
V. Baggan, Ashok Kumar Sahoo, Pradeepta Kumar Sarangi et al.
Fig. 9. Delay graph.
Fig. 10. Jitter graph.
Fig. 11. Throughput.
7. Experimental analysis
The network topology for simulation is shown in Fig. 3.Within
this article, Cisco Packet Tracer simulator is used, which is an effi-
cient simulator to design and learn computer networks. It can be
operated in simulation as well in real environment mode [19–
22]. For the purpose of the analysis of RIP protocol, routers of series
2811, switches with series 2960 and PC’s has been used. The pur-
pose of deploying 2811 router and 2960 switch is their capability,
of extension in modules, which makes the topology much flexible.
7.1. Simulation results
Fig. 9, represents the time taken (in seconds) by each packet
(P1. . .P11) while moving from source to destination. The first
packet, takes much time as compared to the next packets. The rea-
son for this is, the time taken for the connection establishment pro-
cess, before moving the packets. The Delay occurred, depends upon
many factors which include the bandwidth available, processing
capability of the routers, network traffic and network addressing.
5
Materials Today: Proceedings xxx (xxxx) xxx
From the Fig. 10, the values of Jitter can be outlined. The Jitter is
defined as the deviation in delay, during the transmission of pack-
ets from the source to the destination. If the time consumed by the
second packet is less when compared with the previous packet,
then the Jitter can be considered as negative. Usually, the mod
value of Jitter is being considered, to overlook at the negative sign
in the value of the Jitter.
In the above Fig. 11, the throughput of the network is depicted.
The number of packets transmitted per unit time is the throughput.
The RIP portrays the throughput in consistent manner as it is rep-
resenting a small network of three routers. The result may vary if
the size of the network increases. The expectation of this variation
in the throughput is due the maximum hop limit in RIP is 15 only.
Hence in small network, the throughput will not vary much.
8. Conclusion
In RIP, the required features for network management is less
and it is more slow to join, since route updates are engendered
at regular intervals and not in a triggered moment, subsequently
it is useful for small networks rather than huge networks. Be that
as it may, RIP favorable position contains in its effortlessness and
client experience of utilizing this calculation.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Vidhu Baggan: Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analy-
sis. Ashok Kumar Sahoo: Investigation, Methodology, Project
administration. Pradeepta Kumar Sarangi: Resources, Software.
Srishti Priya Chaturvedi: Supervision, Validation, Visualization,
Writing - original draft, Writing - review & editing.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing finan-
cial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared
to influence the work reported in this paper.
References:
[1] Gyi Ma, Naing San, P. San, Performance of best route selection using RIP and
OSPF routing protocols, Int. J. Trend Sci. Res. Dev. 3 (2019).
[2] K.K. Wai, Analysis of RIP, EIGRP, and OSPF routing protocol in a network, Int. J.
Trend Sci. Res. Dev. 3 (2019).
[3] M. Bolanowski, T. Byczek, (2018). Measure and compare the convergence time
of network routing protocol. IMT web of conferences.
[4] C.G. Dumitrache, G. Predusca, L.D. Circiumarescu, N. Angelescu, D.C. Puchianu,
October, Comparative study of RIP, OSPF and EIGRP protocols using Cisco
Packet Tracer, in: In 5th International Symposium on Electrical and Electronics
Engineering, 2017, pp. 1–6.
[5] G.K. Dey, M.M. Ahmed, K.T. Ahmmed, November. Performance analysis and
redistribution among RIPv2, EIGRP & OSPF Routing Protocol, in: In
International Conference on Computer and Information Engineering, 2015,
pp. 21–24.
[6] R. Macedo, R. Melo, A. Santos, M. Nogueira, Experimental performance
comparison of single-path and multipath routing in VANETs, In 2014 Global
Information Infrastructure and Networking Symposium, 2014.
[7] R. Narula, P. Aggarwal, Performance evaluation of Rip and Ospf in IPv6 using
Opnet 14. 5 simulator, Int. J. Tech. Res. Appl. (2014).
[8] I. Fitßigău, G. Toderean, Network performance evaluation for RIP, OSPF and
EIGRP routing protocols, in: In Proceedings of the International Conference on
Electronics, Computers and Artificial Intelligence-ECAI, 2013, pp. 1–4.
[9] Y.N. Krishnan, G. Shobha, March. Performance analysis of OSPF and EIGRP
routing protocols for greener internetworking, in: In 2013 International
Conference on Green High Performance Computing, 2013, pp. 1–4.
[10] C. Wijaya, Performance analysis of dynamic routing protocol EIGRP and OSPF
in IPv4 and IPv6 Network, In Proceedings of 1st International Conference on
Informatics and Computational Intelligence, 2011.
[11] A. Gani, M.K. Hassan, A.A. Zaidan, B.B. Zaidan, Intelligent routing information
protocol using full triggered update mechanism, Int. J. Phys. Sci. 6 (11) (2011)
2750–2761.
V. Baggan, Ashok Kumar Sahoo, Pradeepta Kumar Sarangi et al.
[12] C. Wijaya, December. Performance analysis of dynamic routing protocol EIGRP
and OSPF in IPv4 and IPv6 network, in: In First International Conference on
Informatics and Computational Intelligence, 2011, pp. 355–360.
[13] V.G. Kumar, V.Y. Reddy, M. Nagendra, Current research work on routing
protocols for MANET: A literature survey, Int. J. Comput. Sci. Eng. 2 (03) (2010)
706–713.
[14] A. Cianfrani, V. Eramo, M. Listanti, M. Marazza, E. Vittorini, March. An energy
saving routing algorithm for a green OSPF protocol, in: In IEEE Conference on
Computer Communications Workshops, 2010, pp. 1–5.
[15] A. Hay, P. Giannoulis, K. Hay, W. Verbanec. (2009). Advanced Routing
Configuration. In Nokia Firewall, VPN, and IPSO Configuration Guide.
[16] G. Choudhury, A. Shaikh, K.S. Trivedi, Analyzing the hold time schemes to limit
the routing table calculations in OSPF protocol, Int. Conf. Adv. Inform. Netw.
Appl. (2009).
[17] J.P. Adhikari, Performance Analysis of protocols RIP & EIGRP, Int. J. Innov.
Technol. Explor. Eng. (2012) 2278–3075.
[18] C. Hedrick. (1988). Routing Information Protocol. RFC1058.
[19] S.R. Javid, Role of packet tracer in learning computer networks, Int. J. Adv. Res.
Comput. Commun. Eng. 3 (5) (2014) 6508–6511.
[20] J. Janitor, F. Jakab, K. Kniewald, Visual learning tools for teaching/learning
computer networks: Cisco networking academy and packet tracer, Sixth Int.
Conf. Netw. Serv. (2010) 351–355.
[21] X.U.E. Qin, Simulation experimental teaching of computer network based on
packet tracer, Res. Explor. Lab. 2 (2010) 57–59.
[22] Y. Zhang, R. Liang, H. Ma, Teaching innovation in computer network course for
undergraduate students with packet tracer, IERI Procedia 2 (2012) 504–510.
Materials Today: Proceedings xxx (xxxx) xxx
[23] A. Schmid, C. Steigner, Avoiding counting to infinity in distance vector routing,
Telecommun. Syst. 19 (3–4) (2002) 497–514.
[24] Megha Jayakumar, N. Ramya Shanthi Rekha, and B. Bharathi., A comparative
study on RIP and OSPF protocols, in: In International Conference on
Innovations in Information, Embedded and Communication Systems, 2015,
pp. 1–5.
[25] G. Malkin, (1994). RIP version 2-carrying additional information.
[26] M. Rahul, (2014). A comparative evaluation of classless routing protocols
(EIGRP) and classful routing protocols (RIP). Asian J. Technol. Manage. Res., vol.
4, no. 1, pp: 2249–0892.
[27] S. Yang, Z.Z. Yong, August. RIP Internet Protocol Failure Analysis and Research,
in: In International Conference on Industrial Control and Electronics
Engineering, 2012, pp. 1221–1224.
Further Reading
[1] V. Baggan, S.N. Panda, Enhancing border gateway routing protocol with
software defined network, Int. J. Innov. Technol. Explor. Eng. 8 (8) (2019) 976–
984.
[2] . (Accessed on 20 Sep 2020)
[3] C. Steigner, H. Dickel, T. Keupen, A new way to cope with routing loops,
Seventh Int. Conf. Netw. (2008) 626–632.
[4] V. Vetriselvan, P.R. Patil, M. Mahendran, Survey on the RIP, OSPF, EIGRP routing
protocols, Int. J. Comput. Sci. Inform. Technol. 5 (2) (2014) 1058–1065.
[5] G. Malkin, R. Minnear, (1997). RIPng for IPv6. RFC 2080.