Configure Route Selection for Routers

Contents
Introduction
Prerequisites
Requirements
Components Used
Conventions
Background Information
Processes Involved
Build the Routing Table
Backup Routes
Adjust the Administrative Distance
How Metrics Determine the Route Selection Process
Prefix Lengths
Make Forwarding Decisions
IP Classless
Summary
Related Information

Introduction
This document describes how routers work, are configured, and how to select a route for them.

Prerequisites
Requirements

There are no specific prerequisites for this document.

Components Used

This document is not restricted to specific software and hardware versions.

The information in this document was created from the devices in a specific lab environment. All of
the devices used in this document started with a cleared (default) configuration. If your network is
live, ensure that you understand the potential impact of any command.

Conventions

For more information on document conventions, see the Cisco Technical Tips Conventions.

Background Information
One aspect of Cisco routers is how the router chooses the best route among those presented by
protocols, manual configuration, and various other means. Route selection requires some
knowledge about the way Cisco routers work.

Processes Involved
There are three processes involved to build and maintain the routing table in a Cisco router:

●Various routing processes, which actually run a network (or routing) protocol, such as
Enhanced Interior Gateway Routing Protocol (EIGRP), Border Gateway Protocol (BGP),
Intermediate System-to-Intermediate System (IS-IS), and Open Shortest Path First (OSPF).
●The routing table itself, which accepts information from the routing processes and also replies
to requests for information from the forwarding process.
●The forwarding process, which requests information from the routing table to make a packet
forwarding decision.
You need to examine the interaction between the routing protocols and the routing table to
understand how the routing table is built.

Build the Routing Table

The main considerations when you build the routing table are:

● Administrative distance- This is the measure of trustworthiness of the source of the route. If
a router learns about a destination from more than one routing protocol, the administrative
distance is compared and the preference is given to the routes with lower administrative
distance.
● Metrics- This is a measure used by the routing protocol to calculate the best path to a given
destination, if it learns multiple paths to the same destination. Each routing protocol uses a
different metric.
● Prefix length
As each routing process receives updates and other information, it chooses the best path to any
given destination and attempts to install this path into the routing table. For instance, if EIGRP
learns of a path toward 10.1.1.0/24, and decides this particular path is the best EIGRP path to this
destination, it tries to install the path it has learned into the routing table.

The router decides whether or not to install the routes presented by the routing processes based
on the administrative distance of the route in question. If this path has the lowest administrative
distance to this destination (when compared to the other routes in the table), it is installed in the
routing table. If this route is not the route with the best administrative distance, then the route is
rejected.

For example, assume a router runs four routing processes: EIGRP, OSPF, RIP, and IGRP. Now,
all four of these processes have learned of various routes to the 192.168.24.0/24 network, and
each has chosen its best path to that network through its internal metrics and processes.

Each of these four processes attempts to install their route toward 192.168.24.0/24 into the routing
table. The routing processes are each assigned an administrative distance, which is used to
decide which route to install.
Default Administrative Distances
Connected 0
Static 1
eBGP 20
EIGRP (internal) 90
IGRP 100
OSPF 110
IS-IS 115
RIP 120
EIGRP (external) 170
iBGP 200
EIGRP summary route 5

Since the internal EIGRP route has the best administrative distance (the smaller the administrative
distance, the higher the preference), it is installed in the routing table.

Backup Routes

What do the other protocols, RIP, IGRP, and OSPF, do with the routes that were not installed?
What if the most preferred route, learned from EIGRP, fails? Cisco IOS® software uses two
approaches to solve this problem. The first is to have each routing process attempt to install its
best routes periodically. If the most preferred route fails, the next best route (determined by the
administrative distance) succeeds on the next attempt. The other solution is for the routing
protocol that failed to install its route in the table to hang on to the route and tell the routing table
process to report if the best path fails.

For protocols that do not have their own routing information tables, such as IGRP, the first method
is used. Every time IGRP receives an update about a route, it attempts to install the updated
information in the routing table. If there is already a route to this same destination in the routing
table, the installation attempt fails.

For protocols that have their own database of routing information, such as EIGRP, IS-IS, OSPF,
BGP, and RIP, a backup route is registered when the initial attempt to install the route fails. If the
route installed in the routing table fails for some reason, the routing table maintenance process
calls each routing protocol process that has registered a backup route, and asks them to reinstall
the route in the routing table. If there are multiple protocols with registered backup routes the
preferred route is chosen based on administrative distance.

Adjust the Administrative Distance

The default administrative distance is not always right for your network; you can adjust it so that
RIP routes are preferred over IGRP routes. But, first, look at the implications if you change the
administrative distance.

It is very dangerous to change the administrative distance on routing protocols. It can lead to
routing loops and other oddities in your network. Therefore, always change the administrative
distance with caution. Ensure that you plan the change and know the consequences before you
do this.

For entire protocols, it is easy to change the distance. Just use the distance command in the
routing process sub-configuration mode. You can also change the distance for routes learned from
one source only in some protocols, and you can change the distance on just some routes. For
more information, refer to Adjust Administrative Distance for Route Selection in Cisco IOS
Routers Configuration Example.

For static routes, to change the distance of each route enter a distance after the ip route
command:

ip route network subnet mask next hop distance

You cannot change the administrative distance for all the static routes at the same time.

How Metrics Determine the Route Selection Process

Routes are chosen and built in the routing table based on the administrative distance of the routing
protocol. The routes learned from the routing protocol with the lowest administrative distance are
installed in the routing table. If there are multiple paths to the same destination from a single
routing protocol, then the multiple paths would have the same administrative distance and the best
path is selected based on the metrics. Metrics are values associated with specific routes that rank
them from most preferred to least preferred. The parameters used to determine the metrics differ
for different routing protocols. The path with the lowest metric is selected as the optimal path and
installed in the routing table. If there are multiple paths to the same destination with equal metrics,
load balancing is done on these equal cost paths. For more information on load balancing see
How Does Load Balancing Work?

Prefix Lengths

Look at another scenario to see how the router handles another common situation: varying prefix
lengths. Assume, again, that a router runs has four routing processes, and each process has
received these routes:

● EIGRP (internal): 192.168.32.0/26

● RIP: 192.168.32.0/24
● OSPF: 192.168.32.0/19
Which of these routes can be installed in the routing table? Since EIGRP internal routes have the
best administrative distance, you can assume the first one can be installed. However, since each
of these routes has a different prefix length (subnet mask), they are considered different
destinations, and they can all be installed in the routing table.

The next section provides the information from the routing table to make forwarding decisions.

Make Forwarding Decisions

Look at the three routes that were installed in the routing table and see how they look on the
router.

router# show ip route

....
D 192.168.32.0/26 [90/25789217] via 10.1.1.1
R 192.168.32.0/24 [120/4] via 10.1.1.2
O 192.168.32.0/19 [110/229840] via 10.1.1.3
....
If a packet arrives on a router interface destined for 192.168.32.1, which route would the router
choose? It depends on the prefix length, or the number of bits set in the subnet mask. Longer
prefixes are always preferred over shorter ones when forwarding a packet.

In this case, a packet destined to 192.168.32.1 is directed toward 10.1.1.1, because 192.168.32.1
falls within the 192.168.32.0/26 network (192.168.32.0 to 192.168.32.63). It also falls within the
other two routes available, but the 192.168.32.0/26 has the longest prefix within the routing table
(26 bits verses 24 or 19 bits).

Likewise, if a packet destined for 192.168.32.100 arrives on one of the router interfaces, it is
forwarded to 10.1.1.2, because 192.168.32.100 does not fall within 192.168.32.0/26 (192.168.32.0
through 192.168.32.63), but it does fall within the 192.168.32.0/24 destination (192.168.32.0
through 192.168.32.255). Again, it also falls into the range covered by 192.168.32.0/19, but
192.168.32.0/24 has a longer prefix length.

IP Classless

Where the ip classless configuration command falls within the routing and forwarding processes
is often confusing. In reality, IP classless only affects the operation of the forwarding processes in
Cisco IOS; it does not affect the way the routing table is built. If IP classless is not configured (with
the no ip classless command), the router cannot forward packets to supernets. As an example,
again place three routes in the routing table and route packets through the router.

Note: If the supernet or default route is learned via IS-IS or OSPF, the no ip classless
configuration command is ignored. In this case, packet switching behavior works as though
ip classless were configured

router# show ip route

....
172.30.0.0/16 is variably subnetted, 2 subnets, 2 masks
D 172.30.32.0/20 [90/4879540] via 10.1.1.2
D 172.30.32.0/24 [90/25789217] via 10.1.1.1
S* 0.0.0.0/0 [1/0] via 10.1.1.3

The 172.30.32.0/24 network includes the addresses 172.30.32.0 through 172.30.32.255, and the
172.30.32.0/20 network includes the addresses 172.30.32.0 through 172.30.47.255, therefore, you
can then try switching three packets through this routing table and see what the results are.

●A packet destined to 172.30.32.1 is forwarded to 10.1.1.1, since this is the longest prefix
match.
●A packet destined to 172.30.33.1 is forwarded to 10.1.1.2, since this is the longest prefix
match.
●A packet destined to 192.168.10.1 is forwarded to 10.1.1.3; since this network does not exist
in the routing table, this packet is forwarded to the default route.
●A packet destined to 172.30.254.1 is dropped.
The answer out of these four is the last packet, which is dropped. It is dropped because its
destination, 172.30.254.1, is within a known major network, 172.30.0.0/16, but the router does not
know about this particular subnet within that major network.
This is the essence of classful routing: If one part of a major network is known, but the subnet
toward which the packet is destined within that major network is unknown, the packet is dropped.

The most confusing aspect of this rule is that the router only uses the default route if the
destination major network does not exist in the routing table at all.

This can cause problems in a network where a remote site, with one connection back to the rest of
the network, runs no routing protocols, as illustrated.

Runs No Routing Protocol

The remote site router is configured like this:

interface Serial 0
ip address 10.1.2.2 255.255.255.0
!
interface Ethernet 0
ip address 10.1.1.1 255.255.255.0
!
ip route 0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 10.1.2.1
!
no ip classless

With this configuration, the hosts at the remote site can reach destinations on the Internet (through
the 10.x.x.x cloud), but not destinations within the 10.x.x.x cloud, which is the corporate network.
Because the remote router knows about some part of the 10.0.0.0/8 network, the two directly
connected subnets, and no other subnet of 10.x.x.x, it assumes these other subnets do not exist
and drops any packets destined for them. Traffic destined to the Internet, however, does not ever
have a destination in the 10.x.x.x range of addresses, and is therefore correctly routed through the
default route.

If you configure ip classless on the remote router this problem resolves because it allows the
router to ignore the classful boundaries of the networks in its routing table and simply route to the
longest prefix match it can find.

Summary
In summary, to make a forwarding decision consists of three sets of processes: the routing
protocols, the routing table, and the actual process which makes a forwarding decision and
switches packets. These three sets of processes are illustrated, along with their relationship, in the
next image:
 Three Sets of Routing
Processes

The longest prefix match always wins among the routes installed in the routing table, while the
routing protocol with the lowest administrative distance always wins when the routes are installed
into the routing table.

Related Information
● How Does Load Balancing Work?
● What is Administrative Distance?
● IP Routing Page
● IP Routed Protocols Page
● Cisco Technical Support & Downloads