As demonstrated in the previous lab, routers need to be told about distant networks in order to communicate with devices 1+ hops away. Doing this task manually is tedious and highly prone to human error, especially as networks start increasing in size. As a result, the Routing Information Protocol (RIP) was developed to allow routing devices to advertise their routing tables with their surrounding neighbors autonomously. Not only did this save configuration time, but it allowed routers to essentially re-calibrate themselves even as devices were added or removed over time. RIP routing is no longer generally used. However, it serves as an excellent starter distance-vector routing protocol because learners can see every step of the process. New learners jumping over RIP into OSPF or EIGRP usually have a huge learning curve with a lot of struggle to understand how these protocols work.  Dr. Heath Van Horn has tried skipping over RIP since it doesn’t have any commercial application, but increased student failures demonstrated that RIP is a necessary stepping stone to learning other protocols.

Estimated time for completion: 15 minutes

Learning Objectives

• Implement the RIPv2 network routing protocol
• Practice using DHCP from a remote server
• Determine a network topology from a captured network packet

Prerequisites

• Static Networking Part 2

Deliverables

3 Screenshots are required to consider this lab complete:

• Screenshot of GNS3 workspace (LANS labeled with correct IPs and Subnets)
• Screenshot of DHCP configuration settings
• Screenshot of Wireshark packet showing RIPv2 network advertisement for all networks

Resources

• MikroTik RouterOS Documentation – RIP
• MikroTik Router OS Documentation – RouterOSv7

Contributors and Testers

• Dante Rocca, Cybersecurity Student, ERAU-Prescott
• Kyle Wheaton, Cybersecurity Student, ERAU-Prescott

Phase I – Building the Network Topology

The following steps are to create a baseline for completing this lab. It makes assumptions about learner knowledge from completing previous labs.

By the end of this lab your network will look like the following:

1. Open GNS3
   1. Open the previous Chapter 26 lab
   2. Save it as a new project: LAB_13
2. Modify the network environment:
   1. Remove the manually assigned static routes from Router1

      > ip route remove 0,1,2,3

      

   2. Repeat for the other two routers
3. Label and organize your network as necessary

1. Initialize a Wireshark capture between Router1 and Router2
2. Create a new RIPv2 instance on Router1

   > routing rip instance add name=RIP-ROUTER-01 redistribute=connected,rip

   > routing rip interface-template add interfaces=all instance=RIP-ROUTER-01

3. Create a new RIPv2 instance on Router2

   > routing rip instance add name=RIP-ROUTER-02 redistribute=connected,rip

   > routing rip interface-template add interfaces=all instance=RIP-ROUTER-02

4. Focus on the Wireshark capture window
   1. You should start to see RIPv2  Request and Response messages being exchanged to the IP 224.0.0.9 over port 520
      

      

   2. Opening any one of these packets will reveal the routing table being distributed
      

      

   3. The recipient routers will use this information to update their own routing tables

      > ip route print

      

5. Configure RIPv2 on Router3
6. Test the network’s new ability to dynamically update its routes
   1. Try requesting a new IP address on PC1 and PC3

      NOTE: Did you remember to configure Router1 for DHCP-Relay?

   2. View the route taken from PC1 to PC3

      > trace 10.0.2.X -P 1

      

   3. Cut the path that the ICMP packet took to test if RIP can dynamically update network paths
      

      

      > trace 10.0.2.X -P 1

      

Hopefully this exercise proved how significantly easier routing protocols are compared to manually assigning routes in networks.

Career Connection

Although RIPv2 has largely been replaced by more scalable routing protocols in modern enterprise networks, it remains an excellent introduction to the principles of dynamic routing. Network engineers and systems administrators must understand how routers exchange routing information, build routing tables, and adapt to network changes before progressing to enterprise protocols such as OSPF and BGP. The concepts introduced in this chapter provide the foundation for understanding routing convergence, route selection, and automated path discovery—core skills used throughout enterprise networking.

End of Lab