RIP/RIPng Overview

RIP is short for Routing Information Protocol, which is a simple Interior Gateway Protocol. RIP exchanges routing information through UDP packets using the port number 520.

RIP is a protocol based on the Distance-Vector algorithm, which uses the Hop Count as the metric to measure the distance to the destination network. The metric is equal to the number of devices between the local network and the destination network, the number of hops from a device to a network directly connected to it is 0. To limit the convergence time, RIP specifies that the metric value is an integer between 0 and 15, anything greater than 15 is considered infinite, i.e., the destination network or host is unreachable. This limitation makes it impossible for RIP to be used in large networks.

RIP protocol is applied in IPv4 networks, while in IPv6 networks, the corresponding RIPng routing protocol is used. RIPng refers to RIP next generation protocol, mainly used to provide routing functionality in IPv6 networks, which is an important component of routing technology in IPv6 networks.