Contents

Configuring basic IP routing· 1

About IP routing· 1

Routing table· 1

Route categories· 1

Dynamic routing protocols· 1

Route preference· 2

Load sharing· 2

Route backup· 3

Route recursion· 3

Route redistribution· 3

Extension attribute redistribution· 3

Display and maintenance commands for basic IP routing· 3

Configuring basic IP routing

This chapter focuses on unicast routing protocols. For more information about multicast routing protocols, see multicast overview, IGMP snooping configuration, and MLD snooping configuration in Network Connectivity Configuration Guide.

About IP routing

IP routing directs IP packet forwarding on routers. Based on the destination IP address in the packet, a router looks up a route for the packet in a routing table and forwards the packet to the next hop. Routes are path information used to direct IP packets.

Routing table

A RIB contains the global routing information and related information, including route recursion, route extension, and route redistribution information. The router selects optimal routes from the routing table and puts them into the FIB table. It uses the FIB table to forward packets.

Route categories

Table 1 categorizes routes by different criteria.

Table 1 Route categories

Dynamic routing protocols

Static routes work well in small, stable networks. They are easy to configure and require fewer system resources. However, in networks where topology changes occur frequently, a typical practice is to configure a dynamic routing protocol. Compared with static routing, a dynamic routing protocol is complicated to configure, requires more router resources, and consumes more network resources.

Dynamic routing protocols dynamically collect and report reachability information to adapt to topology changes. They are suitable for large networks.

Dynamic routing protocols can be classified by different criteria, as shown in Table 2.

Table 2 Categories of dynamic routing protocols

An AS refers to a group of routers that use the same routing policy and work under the same administration.

Route preference

Routing protocols, including static and direct routing, each by default have a preference. If they find multiple routes to the same destination, the router selects the route with the highest preference as the optimal route.

The preference of a direct route is always 0 and cannot be changed. You can configure a preference for each static route and each dynamic routing protocol. The following table lists the route types and default preferences. The smaller the value, the higher the preference.

Table 3 Route types and default route preferences

Load sharing

A routing protocol might find multiple optimal equal-cost routes to the same destination. You can use these routes to implement equal-cost multi-path (ECMP) load sharing.

Static routing, IPv6 static routing, RIP, RIPng, OSPF, OSPFv3, BGP, IPv6 BGP, IS-IS, and IPv6 IS-IS support ECMP load sharing.

Route backup

Route backup can improve network availability. Among multiple routes to the same destination, the route with the highest priority is the primary route and others are secondary routes.

The router forwards matching packets through the primary route. When the primary route fails, the route with the highest preference among the secondary routes is selected to forward packets. When the primary route recovers, the router uses it to forward packets.

Route recursion

To use a BGP, static, or RIP route that has an indirectly connected next hop, a router must perform route recursion to find the output interface to reach the next hop.

Link-state routing protocols, such as OSPF and IS-IS, do not need route recursion, because they obtain directly connected next hops through route calculation.

The RIB records and saves route recursion information, including brief information about related routes, recursive paths, and recursion depth.

Route redistribution

Route redistribution enables routing protocols to learn routing information from each other. A dynamic routing protocol can redistribute routes from other routing protocols, including direct and static routing. For more information, see the respective chapters on those routing protocols in this configuration guide.

The RIB records redistribution relationships of routing protocols.

Extension attribute redistribution

Extension attribute redistribution enables routing protocols to learn route extension attributes from each other, including BGP extended community attributes, OSPF area IDs, route types, and router IDs.

The RIB records extended attributes of each routing protocol and redistribution relationships of different routing protocol extended attributes.

Display and maintenance commands for basic IP routing

Execute display commands in any view and reset commands in user view.