RIP or the Routing Information Protocol

RIP or the Routing Information Protocol is a dynamic routing protocol. RIP stands for Routing
Information Protocol which is an Interior Gateway Protocol. RIP is mainly used in local and
wide area networks .Rip based on distance vector algorithm called the Bellman-Ford algorithm.
RIP calculates the best route based on hop count .Here the maximum number of hops allowed
are 15. if the hop count is exceeding 15 it will be unreachable. The main purpose of RIP is to
prevent routing loops by implementing a limit on number of hops between a source and its
destination. RIP is available in three versions, RIPv1, RIPv2, RIPng(RIP next generation). RIPv1
uses only class full routing whereas RIPv2 uses classless routing.
RIP protocol select the shortest path to go from Source to Destination. All routers using RIP
protocol broadcast their Network address to each other after every 30 Seconds.
RIP implements mechanisms such as split horizon, hold-down timers, hop-count limits, and
poison reverse to prevent routing loops and maintain network stability, as explained in the list
that follows:
Split horizon: If a route is learned on an interface, the information about that route is not
sent back out the interface where it was learned. In this way, split horizon prevents routing
loops within the network.
Hold-down timers: These timers ignore routing update information for a specified period of
time. Hold-down timers can be reset when the timer expires, a routing update is received that
has a better metric, or a routing update is received indicating that the original route to the
network is valid. Hold-down timers are useful in preventing routing information from
flooding the network when network links are unstable.
Hop-count limit: This limits the number of hops allowed in a path from source to
destination. The maximum is 15, and 16 is deemed unreachable. The hop-count limit
prevents routing loops from continuing indefinitely.
Poison reverse: A route is "poisoned" when a router marks a route as unreachable by setting
the hop count to 16 and then passes this route out to a neighboring router, causing the
neighboring router to remove the route from its routing table. This speeds network
convergence by preventing invalid routes from being propagated throughout the network.
These features allow RIP to adjust to network-topology changes and prevent routing loops from
being propagated and continuing indefinitely.

Advantages of Rip Protocol: Easy Configuration and Minimum overload over the Processor.
Disadvantages of RIP: Broadcasting, Slow Coverage, Routing Loop and Hop Count Limit.
RIPV.2 -Supports Authentication.