A distance-vector routing protocol is a This article describes routing in computer networks, a method of finding paths from origins to destinations, along which information can be passed. See Routing (disambiguation) for other meanings. Routing is a core concept of the Internet and many other networks. Routing provides the means of discovering paths along which information... routing protocol used in This article describes routing in computer networks, a method of finding paths from origins to destinations, along which information can be passed. See Routing (disambiguation) for other meanings. Routing is a core concept of the Internet and many other networks. Routing provides the means of discovering paths along which information... routing of In computer networking and telecommunications, packet switching is a communications paradigm in which packets (messages or fragments of messages) are individually routed between nodes, with no previously established communication path. Packet switching was invented by Donald Davies and Paul Baran in the early 1960s. Some people claim that Leonard Kleinrock... packet-switched networks in A computer network is a system for communication among two or more computers. Categorizing By range personal area network (PAN) wireless PAN local area network (LAN) wireless LAN metropolitan area network (MAN) wide area network (WAN) By functional relationship client-server multitier architecture Peer-to-peer By network topology bus... computer communications, as in for example the This article is chiefly about the Routing Information Protocol for IPv4. The Routing Information Protocol (RIP) is one of the most commonly used Interior Gateway Routing Protocols on internal networks (and to a lesser extent, the Internet), which helps routers dynamically adapt to changes of network connections by communicating information... Routing Information Protocol for This article is about the Internet An internet is a more general term for any set of interconnected computer networks that are connected by internetworking Graphic representation of the WWW information network structure around Wikipedia, as represented by hyperlinks The Internet, or simply the Net, is the publicly available worldwide... Internet traffic.

Examples of distance-vector routing protocols include This article is chiefly about the Routing Information Protocol for IPv4. The Routing Information Protocol (RIP) is one of the most commonly used Interior Gateway Routing Protocols on internal networks (and to a lesser extent, the Internet), which helps routers dynamically adapt to changes of network connections by communicating information... RIPv1 or 2 and Interior Gateway Routing Protocol (IGRP) is a proprietary distance-vector routing protocol invented by Cisco, used by routers to exchange routing data within an autonomous system. IGRP was created in part to overcome the limitations of RIP (maximum hop count, and a single routing metric) when used within large networks... IGRP.

Workings

The distance-vector routing protocol assumes a network connected through several This article describes the computer networking device. A wood router is a kind of rotating cutting tool. A Linksys NAT Router, popular for home and small office networks A router is a computer networking device that forwards data packets toward their destinations through a process known as routing. Routing occurs... routers, each of which is connected to two or more A computer network is a system for communication among two or more computers. Categorizing By range personal area network (PAN) wireless PAN local area network (LAN) wireless LAN HomePNA Power line communication (HomePlug) metropolitan area network (MAN) wide area network (WAN) By functional relationship client-server multitier architecture Peer-to... computer networks. Each network may be connected to one or more routers.

The description below describes a very simple distance-vector routing protocol:

1. Initially, the router makes a list of which networks it can reach, and how many hops it will cost. In the outset this will be the two or more networks to which this router is connected. The number of hops for these networks will be 1. This table is called a This article describes routing in computer networks, a method of finding paths from origins to destinations, along which information can be passed. See Routing (disambiguation) for other meanings. Routing is a core concept of the Internet and many other networks. Routing provides the means of discovering paths along which information... routing table.
2. Periodically (typically every 30 seconds) the routing table is shared with other routers on each of the connected networks via some specified inter-router protocol. These routers will add 1 to every hop-count in the table, as it associates a hop cost of 1 for reaching the router that sent the table. This information is just shared inbetween physically connected routers ("neighbors"), so routers on other networks are not reached by the new routing tables yet.
3. A new routing table is constructed based on the directly configured network interfaces, as before, with the addition of the new information received from other routers. The hop-count is used as a cost measure for each path. The table also contains a column stating which router offered this hop count, so that the router knows who is next in line for reaching a certain network.
4. Bad routing paths are then purged from the new routing table. If two identical paths to the same network exists, only the one with the smallest hop-count is kept. When the new table has been cleaned up, it may be used to replace the existing routing table used for packet forwarding.
5. The new routing table is then communicated to all neighbors of this router. This way the routing information will spread and eventually all routers know the routing path to each network, which router it shall use to reach this network, and to which router it shall route next.

Advantages and disadvantages

Distance-vector routing protocols are simple and efficient in small networks, and require little, if any management. However, they do not Scale in the computing field is used as a verb. An algorithm, design, networking protocol, program, etc. is said to scale if it is suitably efficient and practical when applied to large situations. For example, the distributed nature of the Domain Name System allows it to work efficiently even when... scale well, and have poor Technological convergence is the modern presence of a vast array of different types of technology to perform very similar tasks. For example, in todays society one can communicate with a friend via mail, online chatting, cellphones, e-mail, and many other forms of modern technology. Though the forms of... convergence properties, which has led to the development of more complex but more scalable A Link-state routing protocol is one the two main classes of routing protocols used in packet-switched networks for computer communications. The link-state protocol is performed by every switching node in the network (i.e. nodes which are prepared to forward packets; in the Internet, these are called... link-state routing protocols for use in large networks.