The Routing Information Protocol (RIP) is a dynamic routing protocol used in local and wide area networks. As such it is classified as an interior gateway protocol (IGP) using the distance-vector routing algorithm. It was first defined in RFC 1058 (1988). The protocol has since been extended several times, resulting in RIP Version 2 (RFC 2453). The original version is now known as RIP. Both versions are still in use today, however, they are considered technically obsoleted by more advanced techniques, such as Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) and the OSI protocol IS-IS. Since the advent of IPv6, the next generation of the Internet Protocol, RIP has been adapted, known as RIPng (RFC 2080, 1997), for use with IPv6.
Configure Windows 2003 Server to function as a RIP router we need to follow below steps:
To configure your Windows Server to function as a RIP router, go to Start | Administrative Tools | Routing and Remote Access, like this:
If you haven’t done so already, you’ll need to configure Routing and Remote access, by right-clicking on the server, like this:
I chose Custom Configuration for the configuration type, then LAN Routing.
When you are finished, choose to Start the Remote Access Service.
Now that RRAS is installed and started, expand your server in the RRAS console. You should see the IP Routing section. Click on General. You should see your interfaces on the right hand side.
Right-click on General and click New Routing Protocol.
Now choose RIP Version 2 for Internet Protocol and click OK.
There will now be a RIP section under IP Routing. Click on that section.
Right-Click on the RIP section and click New Interface.
Click on your first interface, let’s say “Local Area Connection”, and click OK.
Leave all the defaults as they are and click, OK.
Repeat this for the second interface.
When you are done, it should look like this:
The configuration of the Windows 2003 Server’s RIP routing protocol is complete.
The next step in this configuration is configuring the Cisco router that will tackle this.
Configure a Cisco Router to exchange routes with a Windows 2003 Server
I have configured my Cisco router with interfaces in the two networks shown above. Here is the relevant configuration:
interface Ethernet0/0
ip address 10.253.15.38 255.255.0.0
! interface Loopback0
ip address 2.2.2.2 255.0.0.0
To configure the Cisco router to advertise these RIP routes and exchange then with the Windows Server, I enable RIP version 2 and add these networks to the RIP routing process:
Router#conf t Enter configuration commands, one per line. End with CNTL/Z.
Router(config)# router rip
Router(config-router)# ver 2
Router(config-router)# network 10.253.0.0
Router(config-router)# network 2.0.0.0
Router(config-router)#exit
Router(config)#exit
Router#
What we did was this:
1. Enter RIP configuration mode on the router
2. Configure RIP to use version 2 so that subnet masks will be sent with routing updates, allowing us to use classless IP routing, with out network conflicts in the routing protocol
3. Add the two networks to RIP using the network ID for each network - this tells RIP to both ADVERTISE this network to RIP neighbors and to LOOK FOR RIP neighbors on these networks.
RIP Route exchange between Windows 2003 Server and the Cisco IOS
Now, for the moment of truth, did it really work? To find out, on the router, just issue the show ip route command. What you should see is a route coded as a R route, for RIP. If your Cisco router has a route received as a RIP route (marked R), then you know that your router received that route from a neighbor. The only neighbor we have configured is the Windows 2003 Server RIP router. It should look something like this:
As you can see, our Cisco router received RIP route 192.168.182.0 from 10.253.15.163 - our Windows 2003 Server.
To prove that we have communication, I pinged the Local Area Connection 2 interface on the far side of the Windows 2003 Server, from where the router is - 192.168.182.128. This proved that there was complete communication through the Windows 2003 Server, in one side and out the other side.
Now, let’s look at the stats over on the Windows 2003 server.
Notice how the Windows server has been receiving RIP updated on one of the interfaces - those updates are coming from the Cisco router. To see the RIP route for the 2.0.0.0 network over on the Windows 2003 Server, at the command line, we do route print, like this:
Notice the 2.0.0.0 route being received from the 10.253.15.38 gateway.
And, we can ping 2.2.2.2 from the Windows Server, like this:
