8.3 Checking RIP Operation

You can check the operation of the RIP process with some basic commands. The first thing that can be checked is the presence of RIP routes in the routing table.

 lab@Chicago> show route  inet.0: 8 destinations, 8 routes (8 active, 0 holddown, 0 hidden) + = Active Route, - = Last Active, * = Both 10.0.0.0/24        *[Direct/0] 16:41:11                     > via fe-0/0/2.0 10.0.0.1/32        *[Local/0] 1d 01:20:56                      Local  30.30.30.0/24      *[RIP/100] 00:55:41, metric 2  > to 51.0.0.2 via fe-0/0/1.0                       to 10.0.0.2 via fe-0/0/2.0 51.0.0.0/24        *[Direct/0] 17:06:31                     > via fe-0/0/1.0 51.0.0.1/32        *[Local/0] 1d 01:20:56                      Local 192.168.254.0/24   *[Direct/0] 1d 01:20:56                     > via fe-0/0/0.0 192.168.254.1/32   *[Local/0] 1d 01:20:56 Local  224.0.0.9/32       *[RIP/100] 00:52:19, metric 1  

RIP neighbor status can be an important piece of information to use in troubleshooting. The following command output shows the state of the neighbor, the address of the neighboring router's interface, and the version of RIP allowed to be received. In addition, it also shows if any metric-in values have been assigned.

 lab@Chicago> show rip neighbor                           Source          Destination     Send   Receive   In Neighbor          State  Address         Address         Mode   Mode     Met --------          -----  -------         -----------     ----   ----     --- fe-0/0/1.0          Up   51.0.0.1        224.0.0.9       mcast  v2 only    1 fe-0/0/2.0          Up   10.0.0.1        224.0.0.9       mcast  v2 only    1 

You can also gain insight into the proper functioning of RIP by viewing the statistics. Below is an example of the statistics that can be of assistance in troubleshooting RIP. An output like the one below is created for each RIP-enabled interface. Things to look for in the statistics are as follows :

• Are there incrementally increasing received updates, and are they of the correct RIP version?

• Is authentication in use?

• Are there authentication failures?

 lab@Chicago> show rip statistics  RIP info:  port 520; update interval 30s; holddown 180s; timeout 120s. rts learned  rts held down  rqsts dropped  resps dropped 1              0              0              0 fe-0/0/1.0:  1 routes learned; 2 routes advertised Counter                         Total   Last 5 min  Last minute -------                   -----------  -----------  ----------- Updates Sent                      125           11            2 Triggered Updates Sent              1            0            0 Responses Sent                      0            0            0 Bad Messages                        0            0            0 RIPv1 Updates Received              0            0            0 RIPv1 Bad Route Entries             0            0            0 RIPv1 Updates Ignored               0            0            0 RIPv2 Updates Received            124           11            2 RIPv2 Bad Route Entries             0            0            0 RIPv2 Updates Ignored               0            0            0 Authentication Failures             0            0            0 RIP Requests Received               0            0            0 RIP Requests Ignored                0            0            0 .......... lab@Chicago> 

RIP is an older distance vector routing protocol that is still in use in many networks. Both versions of RIP are supported by all Juniper Networks routers. RIPv2 is the more recommended version as it can use CIDR and VLSM to create more scalable, flexible networks.