diff --git a/doc/bird.sgml b/doc/bird.sgml index 73bbf849..32c28ea7 100644 --- a/doc/bird.sgml +++ b/doc/bird.sgml @@ -978,76 +978,76 @@ protocol pipe { # The Pipe } -Rip +RIP Introduction -

Rip protocol (sometimes called Rest In Pieces) is a simple protocol, where each router broadcasts -distances to all networks it can reach. When router hears distance to other network, it increments +

The RIP protocol (also sometimes called Rest In Pieces) is a simple protocol, where each router broadcasts (to all its neighbors) +distances to all networks it can reach. When a router hears distance to another network, it increments it and broadcasts it back. Broadcasts are done in regular intervals. Therefore, if some network goes -unreachable, routers keep telling each other that distance is old distance plus 1 (actually, plus -interface metric, which is usually one). After some time, distance reaches infinity (that's 15 in -rip) and all routers know that network is unreachable. Rip tries to minimize situations where +unreachable, routers keep telling each other that its distance is the original distance plus 1 (actually, plus +interface metric, which is usually one). After some time, the distance reaches infinity (that's 15 in +RIP) and all routers know that network is unreachable. RIP tries to minimize situations where counting to infinity is necessary, because it is slow. Due to infinity being 16, you can't use -rip on networks where maximal distance is bigger than 15 hosts. You can read more about rip at . Both IPv4 -and IPv6 versions of rip are supported by BIRD, historical RIPv1 is +RIP on networks where maximal distance is higher than 15 hosts. You can read more about rip at . Both IPv4 +and IPv6 versions of RIP are supported by BIRD, historical RIPv1 is currently not fully supported. -

Rip is very simple protocol, and it is not too good. Slow -convergence, big network load and inability to handle bigger networks +

RIP is a very simple protocol, and it has a lot of shortcomings. Slow +convergence, big network load and inability to handle larger networks makes it pretty much obsolete in IPv4 world. (It is still usable on -very small networks, through.) It is widely used in IPv6 world, -because they are no good implementations of OSPFv3. +very small networks.) It is widely used in IPv6 networks, +because there are no good implementations of OSPFv3. Configuration -

In addition to options generic to other protocols, rip supports following options: +

In addition to options common for all to other protocols, RIP supports the following ones: - passwords { } + passwords { } section. - honor always|neighbor|never specifies, when should be requests for dumping routing table - honored. (Always, when sent from host on directly connected - network, or never.) Routing table updates are honored only from + honor always|neighbor|never specifies when should requests for dumping routing table + be honored. (Always, when sent from a host on a directly connected + network or never.) Routing table updates are honored only from neighbors, that is not configurable.

There are two options that can be specified per-interface. First is metric, with default one. Second is mode multicast|broadcast|quiet|nolisten|version1, it selects mode for rip to work in. If nothing is specified, rip runs in multicast mode. version1 is -currently equivalent to broadcast, and it makes rip talk at broadcast address even -through multicast mode is possible. quiet option means that rip will not transmit -periodic messages onto this interface and nolisten means that rip will talk to this -interface but not listen on it. +currently equivalent to broadcast, and it makes RIP talk to a broadcast address even +through multicast mode is possible. quiet option means that RIP will not transmit +any periodic messages to this interface and nolisten means that RIP will send to this +interface but not listen to it. -

Following options generally override specified behavior from RFC. If you use any of these -options, BIRD will no longer be RFC-compatible, which means it will not be able to talk to anything -other than equally misconfigured BIRD. I warned you. +

The following options generally override behavior specified in RFC. If you use any of these +options, BIRD will no longer be RFC-compliant, which means it will not be able to talk to anything +other than equally configured BIRD. I have warned you. port number selects IP port to operate on, default 520. (This is useful when testing BIRD, if you - set this to address >1024, you will not need to run bird with UID==0). + set this to an address >1024, you will not need to run bird with UID==0). infinity number - select value of infinity, default 16. Bigger values will make protocol convergence + selects the value of infinity, default is 16. Bigger values will make protocol convergence even slower. period number - specifies number of seconds between periodic updates. Default is 30 seconds. Lower + specifies the number of seconds between periodic updates. Default is 30 seconds. A lower number will mean faster convergence but bigger network load. Do not use values lower than 10. timeout time number - specifies how old route has to be to be considered unreachable. Default is 4*period. + specifies how old route has to be to be considered unreachable. Default is 4*garbage time number - specifies how old route has to be to be discarded. Default is 10*period. + specifies how old route has to be to be discarded. Default is 10* Attributes