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HSRP, VRRP, GLBP

HSRP, VRRP, and GLBP are protocols that allow multiple routers to share a virtual IP and MAC address to provide redundancy for network gateways. HSRP was an early Cisco protocol, while VRRP is standardized. GLBP adds load balancing by assigning different virtual MAC addresses to routers and directing different hosts to each router.

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174 views11 pages

HSRP, VRRP, GLBP

HSRP, VRRP, and GLBP are protocols that allow multiple routers to share a virtual IP and MAC address to provide redundancy for network gateways. HSRP was an early Cisco protocol, while VRRP is standardized. GLBP adds load balancing by assigning different virtual MAC addresses to routers and directing different hosts to each router.

Uploaded by

Amina Bashir
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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HSRP, VRRP, GLBP

• IP hosts can use several methods of deciding


which default router or default gateway to
use—DHCP, BOOTP, ICMP Router Discovery
Protocol (IRDP), manual configuration, or
even by running a routing protocol (although
having hosts run a routing protocol is not
common today). The most typical methods—
using DHCP or manual configuration—result in
the host knowing a single IP address of its
default gateway.
• Hot Standby Router Protocol (HSRP),
Virtual Router Redundancy Protocol
(VRRP), and Gateway Load Balancing
Protocol (GLBP) represent a
chronological list of some of the best
tools for overcoming the issues related
to a host knowing a single IP address
as its path to get outside the subnet.
HOT STANDBY ROUTER PROTOCOL
(HSRP)

HSRP allows multiple routers to share a virtual IP and


MAC address so that the end-user hosts do not realize
when a failure occurs. Some of the key HSRP features
are as follows:
■ Virtual IP address and virtual MAC active on the
Master router
■ Standby routers listen for Hellos from the Active router,
defaulting to a 3-second hello interval and 10-second
dead interval
■ Highest priority (IOS default 100, range 1–255)
determines the Active router, with preemption disabled
by default.
■ Supports tracking, whereby a router’s priority is
decreased when a tracked object (interface or route)
fails
■ Up to 255 HSRP groups per interface, enabling an
administrative form of load balancing.
■ Virtual IP address must be in the same subnet as the
routers’ interfaces on the same LAN
■ Virtual IP address must be different from any of
routers’ individual interface IP addresses
■ Supports clear-text and MD5 authentication
(through a key chain)
• MD5 Authentication: With MD5
authentication, the password does not pass
over the network. MD5 is a message-digest
algorithm specified in RFC 1321. MD5 is
considered the most secure
OSPF authentication mode. When you
configure authentication, you must
configure an entire area with the same type
of authentication.
VIRTUAL ROUTER REDUNDANCY
PROTOCOL (VRRP)
HSRP is Cisco proprietary, has been out a long time,
and is widely popular. VRRP (RFC 3768) provides a
standardized protocol to perform almost the exact
same function. The Cisco VRRP implementation has
the same goals in mind as HSRP but with these
differences:
■ VRRP uses a multicast virtual MAC address
(0000.5E00.01xx, where xx is the hex VRRP group
number).
■ VRRP uses the IOS object tracking feature, rather
than its own internal tracking mechanism, to track
interface states for failover purposes.
■ VRRP defaults to use pre-emption,
but HSRP defaults to not use pre-
emption. Both can be configured to
either use pre-emption or not.
■ The VRRP term Master means the
same thing as the HSRP term Active.
■ In VRRP, the VRRP group IP
address is the interface IP address
of one of the VRRP routers.
GATEWAY LOAD BALANCING
PROTOCOL (GLBP)

• GLBP is a newer Cisco-proprietary tool


that adds load-balancing features in
addition to gateway redundancy
features. Hosts still point to a default
gateway IP address, but GLBP causes
different hosts to send their traffic to
one of up to four routers in a GLBP
group.
• To do so, the GLBP Active Virtual Gateway (AVG)
assigns each router in the group a unique virtual
MAC address, following the format 0007.B400.xxyy,
where xx is the GLBP group number, and yy is a
different number for each router (01, 02, 03, or 04).
When a client ARPs for the (virtual) IP address of its
default gateway, the GLBP AVG replies with one of
the four possible virtual MACs. By replying to ARP
requests with different virtual MACs, the hosts in that
subnet will in effect balance the traffic across the
routers, rather than send all traffic to the one active
router.
• Reference: CCIE Routing and Switching certification
guide by Wendell odom & Rus Healy

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