LAB 11

Summary
Items Description
Course Title Computer Communication and Networks
Lab Title Routing
Duration 3 Hours
Operating System Windows 10/11
/Tool/Language Cisco Packet Tracer Software
Objective Enhanced Interior Gateway Routing Protocol (EIGRP)

EIGRP (Enhanced Interior Gateway Routing Protocol) is an advanced distance vector routing protocol.
This protocol is an evolution of an earlier Cisco protocol called IGRP, which is now considered obsolete.
EIGRP supports classless routing and VLSM, route summarization, incremental updates, load balancing
and many other useful features. It is a Cisco proprietary protocol, so all routers in a network that is running
EIGRP must be Cisco routers.

Routers running EIGRP must become neighbors before exchanging routing information. To dynamically
discover neighbors, EIGRP routers use the multicast address of 224.0.0.10. Each EIGRP router stores
routing and topology information in three tables:

● Neighbor table – stores information about EIGRP neighbors

● Topology table – stores routing information learned from neighboring routers

● Routing table – stores the best routes

Administrative distance of EIGRP is 90, which is less than both the administrative distance of RIP and the
administrative distance of OSPF, so EIGRP routes will be preferred over these routes. EIGRP uses Reliable
Transport Protocol (RTP) for sending messages.

EIGRP calculates its metric by using bandwidth, delay, reliability and load. By default, only bandwidth and
delay are used when calculating metric, while reliability and load are set to zero.

EIGPR uses the concept of autonomous systems. An autonomous system is a set of EIGRP enabled routers
that should become EIGRP neighbors. Each router inside an autonomous system must have the same
autonomous system number configured, otherwise routers will not become neighbors.

EIGRP Neighbors

EIGRP must establish neighbor relationships with other EIGRP neighboring routers before exchanging
routing information. To establish a neighbor relationships, routers send hello packets every couple of
seconds. Hello packets are sent to the multicast address of 224.0.0.10.
NOTE
On LAN interfaces hellos are sent every 5 seconds. On WAN interfaces every 60 seconds.

The following fields in a hello packet must be the identical in order for routers to become neighbors:

● ASN (autonomous system number)

● subnet number

● K values (components of metric)

Routers send hello packets every couple of seconds to ensure that the neighbor relationship is still active.
By default, routers considers the neighbor to be down after a hold-down timer has expired. Hold-down
timer is, by default, three times the hello interval. On LAN network the hold-down timer is 15 seconds.

Feasible and reported distance

Two terms that you will often encounter when working with EIGRP are feasible and reported distance.
Let’s clarify these terms:

● Feasible distance (FD) – the metric of the best route to reach a network. That route will be listed
in the routing table.

● Reported distance (RD) – the metric advertised by a neighboring router for a specific route. It
other words, it is the metric of the route used by the neighboring router to reach the network.

To better understand the concept, consider the following example.

EIGRP has been configured on R1 and R2. R2 is directly connected to the subnet 10.0.1.0/24 and advertises
that subnet into EIGRP. Let’s say that R2’s metric to reach that subnet is 28160. When the subnet is
advertised to R1, R2 informs R1 that its metric to reach 10.0.1.0/24 is 28160. From the R1’s perspective
that metric is considered to be the reported distance for that route. R1 receives the update and adds the
metric to the neighbor to the reported distance. That metric is called the feasible distance and is stored
in R1’s routing table (30720 in our case).

The feasible and reported distance are displayed in R1’s EIGRP topology table:
Successor and feasible successor

Another two terms that appear often in the EIGRP world are successor and feasible successor. A
successor is the route with the best metric to reach a destination. That route is stored in the routing table.
A feasible successor is a backup path to reach that same destination that can be used immediately if the
successor route fails. These backup routes are stored in the topology table.

For a route to be chosen as a feasible successor, one condition must be met:

● the neighbor’s advertised distance (AD) for the route must be less than the successor’s feasible
distance (FD).

The following example explains the concept of a successor and a feasible successor.

R1 has two paths to reach the subnet 10.0.0.0/24. The path through R2 has the best metric (20) and it is
stored in the R1’s routing table. The other route, through R3, is a feasible successor route, because the
feasibility condition has been met (R3’s advertised distance of 15 is less than R1’s feasible distance of 20).
R1 stores that route in the topology table. This route can be immediately used if the primary route fails.
EIGRP topology table

EIGRP topology table contains all learned routes to a destination. The table holds all routes received from
a neighbor, successors and feasible successors for every route, and interfaces on which updates were
received. The table also holds all locally connected subnets included in an EIGRP process.

Best routes (the successors) from the topology table are stored in the routing table. Feasible successors
are only stored in the topology table and can be used immediately if the primary route fails.

Consider the following network topology.

EIGRP is running on all three routers. Routers R2 and R3 both connect to the subnet 10.0.1.0/24 and
advertise that subnet to R1. R1 receives both updates and calculates the best route. The best path goes
through R2, so R1 stores that route in the routing table. Router R1 also calculates the metric of the route
through R3. Let’s say that advertised distance of that route is less then feasible distance of the best route.
The feasibility condition is met and router R1 stores that route in the topology table as a feasible successor
route. The route can be used immediately if the primary route fails.

Configuring EIGRP 1

EIGRP configuration closely resembles RIP configuration. Only two steps are required:

● enabling EIGRP by using the router eigrp ASN_NUMBER command

● telling EIGRP which networks to advertise by using one or more network statements

The first command, router eigrp ASN_NUMBER, enables EIGRP on a router. ASN_NUMBER represents an
autonomous system number and has to be the same on all routers running EIGRP, otherwise routers won’t
become neighbors. The second command, network SUBNET, enables EIGRP on selected interfaces and
specifies which networks will be advertised. By default, the networkcommand takes a classful network
number as the parameter.
To illustrate a configuration of EIGRP, we will use the following network:

The network depicted above consists of only two routers. Each router has a directly connected subnet
that needs to be advertised through EIGRP. The following figure show the EIGRP configuration on R1 and
R2:

You can verify that routers have become neighbors by using the show ip eigrp neighbors command on
either router:

The command above lists all EIGRP neighbors. The address field lists the neighboring router RID (router
ID). The interface field shows on which local interface the neighbor relationship has been formed.

You can verify that routes are indeed being exchanged by using the show ip route command on both
routers:

R1:
R2:

NOTE
The D character at the beginning of a line in a routing table indicates that the route has been learned via
EIGRP.

Configuring EIGRP 2

By default, the network command uses a classful network as the parameter. All interfaces inside that
classful network will participate in the EIGRP process. To enable EIGRP only on specific interfaces, a
wildcard mask can be used. The syntax of the command is:

(router-eigrp) network WILDCARD_MASK

Consider the following example.

Router R1 has two directly connected subnets, 10.0.0.0/24 and 10.0.1.0/24. We want to enable EIGRP
only on the subnet connected to the interface Fa0/0. If we enter the network 10.0.0.0 command under
the EIGRP configuration mode, both subnets will be included in EIGRP process because we’ve used a
classful network number in the network command. To configure EIGRP only on interface Fa0/0,
the network 10.0.0.0 0.0.0.255command can be used. This will enable EIGRP only on interfaces starting
with 10.0.0.X.
By using the command show ip protocols, you can verify that only the network 10.0.0.0/24 is included
in EIGRP:

Task 1:

R1:

#router eigrp 1

#network 10.0.0.0

#network 20.0.0.0

#no auto-summary
R2:

#Router eigrp 1

#network 10.0.0.0

#network 40.0.0.0

#network 100.0.0.0

#no auto-summary

R3:

#Router eigrp 1

#network 10.0.0.0

#network 30.0.0.0

#network 200.0.0.0

#no auto-summary

R4:

#router eigrp 1

#network 30.0.0.0

#network 40.0.0.0

#no auto-summary

TASK 2:

Apply and simulate EIGRP on below topology.