IRDP

ICMP Router Discovery Protocol (IRDP), an extension of the ICMP, is independent of any routing protocol. It allows hosts to discover the IP addresses of neighboring routers that can act as default gateways to reach devices on other IP networks.

IRDP operation

IRDP uses the following types of ICMP messages:

  • Router advertisement (RA): Sent by a router to advertise IP addresses (including the primary and secondary IP addresses) and preference.
  • Router solicitation (RS): Sent by a host to request the IP addresses of routers on the subnet.

An interface with IRDP enabled periodically broadcasts or multicasts an RA message to advertise its IP addresses. A receiving host adds the IP addresses to its routing table, and selects the IP address with the highest preference as the default gateway.

When a host attached to the subnet starts up, the host multicasts an RS message to request immediate advertisements. If the host does not receive any advertisements, it retransmits the RS several times. If the host does not discover the IP addresses of neighboring routers because of network problems, the host can still discover them from periodic RAs.

IRDP allows hosts to discover neighboring routers, but it does not suggest the best route to a destination. If a host sends a packet to a router that is not the best next hop, the host will receive an ICMP redirect message from the router.

IP address preference

Every IP address advertised in RAs has a preference value. A larger preference value represents a higher preference. The IP address with the highest preference is selected as the default gateway address.

You can specify the preference for IP addresses to be advertised on a router interface.

An address with the minimum preference value (-2147483648) will not be used as a default gateway address.

Lifetime of an IP address

An RA contains a lifetime field that specifies the lifetime of advertised IP addresses. If the host does not receive a new RA for an IP address within the address lifetime, the host removes the route entry.

All the IP addresses advertised by an interface have the same lifetime.

Advertising interval

A router interface with IRDP enabled sends out RAs randomly between the minimum and maximum advertising intervals. This mechanism prevents the local link from being overloaded by a large number of RAs sent simultaneously from routers.

As a best practice, shorten the advertising interval on a link that suffers high packet loss rates

Destination address of RA

An RA uses either of the following destination IP addresses:

  • Broadcast address 255.255.255.255.
  • Multicast address 224.0.0.1, which identifies all hosts on the local link.

By default, the destination IP address of an RA is the multicast address. If all listening hosts in a local area network support IP multicast, specify 224.0.0.1 as the destination IP address.

Proxy-advertised IP addresses

By default, an interface advertises its primary and secondary IP addresses. You can specify IP addresses of other gateways for an interface to proxy-advertise.

VRF support

In IP-based computer networks, virtual routing and forwarding (VRF) is a technology that allows multiple instances of a routing table to co-exist within the same router at the same time. Because the routing instances are independent, the same or overlapping IP addresses can be used without conflicting with each other.

IRDP is VRF aware. As the router advertisements and solicit processing occurs on the interface, packet is through the interface and corresponding VRF.

VSX synchronization

IRDP supports VSX synchronization. For more information on using VSX, see the Virtual Switching Extension (VSX) Guide for your switch and software version