RIP uses hop count as a metric to calculate the best routing path to a destination network.
RIP uses the Bellman-Ford algorithm to compute the metric used for routing path decision.
RIPv1 is a classful routing protocol, does not carry subnet information, and is incapable of supporting Variable Length Subnet Masking (VLSM).
RIPv2 is a classless routing protocol and supports VLSM and authentication.
The common problems encountered in RIP environments are misconfiguration, classful routing, classless routing, timers, looping, and version incompatibility issues.
RIP is activated using the command router rip.
The syntax for assigning the network is network network number.
Routing convergence means ensuring that the routing information about the entire network is registered with all the participating routers.
To verify the routing protocol configuration on a router, use the command show ip protocols.
The command to view the routing table of a router is show ip route.
The command to check router configuration with a passive interface is show running-config.
To create equal cost path routes for a router, use the command maximum-path <path #>.
The process of consolidating all subnet routes of a major network while crossing the boundaries of another major network is called autosummarization.
To verify a RIPv2 protocol configuration for different routers, use the command show ip protocols.
To debug a router RIP message, use the command debug ip rip.
RIPv2 cannot reach discontiguous networks by default.
Timers dictate and influence the RIP routing calculations and their operating behavior.
Four types of timers associated with RIP are update, invalid, flush, and hold-down.
Invalid timer is also referred to as an expiration timer.
Flush timers maintain routing tables for unreachable routers for a certain period of time. They are also called garbage timers.
Hold-down timer refers to the period for which the router waits to receive information about an invalid route, ignoring any updates about the route.
To counter looping effects, RIP uses certain features, which include hop count, split horizon, route poisoning, triggered updates, and hold-down timers.