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Catalyst 3550 Multilayer Switch Software Configuration Guide
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Chapter22 Configuring IP Unicast Routing
Configuring EIGRP
Configuring EIGRP
Enhanced IGRP (EIGRP) is a Cisco proprietary enhanced version of the IGR P. Enhanced IGRP uses the
same distance vector algorithm and distance information as IGRP; ho wever, the convergence properties
and the operating efficiency of Enhanced IGRP are significantly improved.
The convergence technology employs an algorithm referred to as the Diffusing Update Algor ithm
(DUAL), which guarantees loop-free operation at every instant throughout a route computation and
allows all devices involved in a topology change to synchronize at the same time. Routers that are not
affected by topology changes are not involved in recomp utati on s.
IP EIGRP provides increased network width. With RIP, the largest possible width of your network is
15 ho ps. When IG RP is enable d, the largest pos sible wid th is 224 hops. Because the E IGRP metr ic is
large enough to support thousands of hops, the only barrier to expanding the network is the
transport-layer hop counter. EIGRP increments the transport control field only when an IP packet has
traversed 15 routers and the next hop to the destination was learned through EIGR P. When a RIP route
is used as the next hop to the destination, the transport control field is incremented as usual.
EIGRP offers these features:
•Fast convergence.
•Incremental updates when the state of a destination cha ng es , i nst ea d of s en ding t he en tir e cont e nts
of the routing table, minimizing the bandwidth required f or EI GRP p ack et s.
•Less CPU usage than IGRP because full update packets need not be processed each time they are
received.
•Protocol-independent neighbor discovery mechanism to learn about neighboring routers.
•Variable-length subnet masks (VLSMs).
•Arbitrary route summarization.
•EIGRP scales to large networks.
Enhanced IGRP has these four basic components:
•Neighbor discovery and recovery is the process that routers use to dynamically learn of other routers
on their directly attached networks. Routers must also d isco ve r wh en t hei r nei ghbor s b eco me
unreachable or inoperative. Neighbor discovery and re co very is ac hiev ed wi th l ow ove rh ead by
periodically sending small hello packets. As long as hello packets are received, the Cisco IOS
software can determine that a neighbor is alive and functioning. When this status is deter mined , th e
neighboring routers can exchange routing information.
•The reliable transport protocol is responsible for guaranteed, ordered delivery of EIGRP packets to
all neighbors. It supports intermixed transmission of multicast and unicast packets. Some EIGRP
packets must be sent reliably, and others need not be. For efficiency, reliability is provided only
when necessary. For example, on a multiaccess network that has multicast capabilities (such as
Ethernet), it is not necessary to send hellos reliably to all neighbors indivi dually. Therefore, EIGRP
sends a single multicast hello with an indication in the packet informing the receivers that the packet
need not be acknowledged. Other types of packets (such as updates) require ac knowledgment, which
is shown in the packet. The reliable transport has a provision to send multicast packets quickly when
there are unacknowledged packets pending. Doing so helps ensure that convergence time remains
low in the presence of varying speed links.
•The DUAL finite state machine embodies the decision process for all route computations. It tracks
all routes advertised by all neighbors. DUAL uses the distance information (known as a metric) to
select efficient, loop-free paths. DUAL selects routes to be inserted into a routing table based on
feasible successors. A successor is a neighboring router used for packet forwarding that has a
least-cost path to a destination that is guaranteed not to be part of a routing loop. When there are no