Today there are three different versions: RIPv1, RIPv2, and RIPng.
RIPv1: Version 1 RIP routing protocol is “classy”, i.e., does not support subnetting, VLSM or CIDR, has no authentication mechanisms and does not perform updates triggered by events. All these limitations led to the passage of time and changing needs fall into disuse.
RIPv2: Version 2 of RIP routing protocol is “classless”, supports subnetting, VLSM, CIDR, short routes, has mechanisms plain text authentication or MD5 encryption, performs updates triggered by events.
RIPng: version ng of RIP routing protocol is RIP for IPv6 deployments. If you are interested can read the specifications here.
RIP is a routing protocol with an administrative distance of 120 (remember that the smaller the administrative distance is considered the most reliable protocol) and uses a distance vector algorithm used as a metric the number of hops. Lacking any other mechanism to avoid loops has a metric of 15 hops, taking the leap and mark 16 as infinite as unreachable in the routing table. Another feature of RIP is that it enables load balancing into six equal-cost routes, 4 by default.
RIP updates every 30 seconds using the UDP protocol and port 520, sending the entire routing table to neighbors. RIPv2 performs updates triggered by events. The routes have a TTL (time to live) of 180 seconds or 6 exchanges that if the path does not appear active, it is deleted from the routing table.
Read on to see how to configure RIP.
Configure RIP Configuration (Basic)
RIP is very easy to set up.
Router> enable
Router # config terminal
Router (config) # router rip
Router (config-router) # network 10.0.0.0
(Published directly connected network)
Router (config-router) # network 172.16.0.0
(Published directly connected network)
Router (config-Router) # version 2
(Version 2 enabled RIP)