Contents of this article
In this article I describe the Reliable Transport Protocol RTP used by EIGRP. EIGRP do not use UDP or TCP protocols to send the update packets on a network. Routing protocols helps router to build and maintain the routing table in routers. Routing protocols are one important part of default routing in router. Routing protocols inform the router about the networks connected at each interface. Routing protocols doesn’t carry or push the data packets in any way. Any change in the network required to be update in the routing tables of all routers. This task is carried out by the routing protocols. Routing protocols help the routers to select the best path to exit the data packets.
Example of routing protocols are RIP, RIPv2, IGRP,OSPF etc. Routing protocols further divided into distance vector, link state and hybrid protocols. These all routing protocols update the routing table of all routers in the network. You can see the routing protocols by “show ip route” command in privilege command mode of router. Routing protocols are not responsible for data packet flow in any way. Routing protocols spread the information of network hierarchy to all routers.
Enhanced Interior Gateway Routing Protocol EIGRP
EIGRP is a network protocol which allow computers to share the information between different networks. EIGRP protocol allow a router to keep a copy of next hope router’s routing table. Each router keeps a copy of routing table of neighbour router. EIGRP is a dynamic routing protocol developed by Cisco Systems. Initially the EIGRP protocol was only supports the Cisco devices but later in 2013 it became an open standard for many other devices also.
Reliable Transport Protocol RTP for EIGRP
EIGRP working on RTP only. As the name of this protocol contain the reliable world, the protocol works on the same way. Reliable Transport Protocol RTP is designed by the Cisco which is responsible for deliver the updates quickly. Reliable Transport Protocol RTP tracked the deliver updates accurately so the routing table of neighbour routers remain updated. EIGRP protocol depends on Reliable Transport Protocol RTP. There is another protocol generally known as RTP Real-time transport protocol. So don’t confuse in between these both protocols.
Working of Reliable Transport Protocol RTP
Working of Reliable Transport Protocol RTP is very simple. When a router send updates by multicast traffic on IP 224.0.0.10, a list maintained for the neighbours who replied for this multicast update. If any router failed to reply this multicast update then the router unicast same data of EIGRP. The unicast attempts up to 16 times to get the reply from neighbour. After 16 attempts the router declare the neighbour router dead.
This process is also known as reliable multicast. The routers knows about the information they sent by the sequence number. EIGRP keep an eye on the network topology change, update or any other amendment in the network. The information of any of these is immediately advertise to the adjacent neighbour by using the Reliable Transport Protocol RTP.
Types of packets used by EIGRP by Reliable Transport Protocol RTP
EIGRP uses some fix kind of packets to keep update the routing table in routers. EIGRP used mostly five types of packet for its operation. These packets are Hello, Update, Query, Reply and Ack.
Hello packet intimates the neighbour router about the alive mechanism. When a router do not respond to the hello packet it means its services are down. Update packets used to update the routing table when a new network device connected in the network or the network topology changed due to any reason.
Query packets used to make request for some specific information from the neighbour router. In respond to any query the reply packets are send with the required information. ACK packets are the acknowledgement packet after getting the reply packets. These packets transmitted and received by the Reliable Transport Protocol .
It is all about the basic of Reliable Transport Protocol RTP . I hope you learn some basics of EIGRP and RTP. For any suggestion or query on this topic you may drop a comment below or contact us. Your suggestions are always welcome by us.
