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Virtual Router Redundancy Protocol
The Virtual Router Redundancy Protocol (VRRP) is a computer networking protocol that provides for automatic assignment of available Internet Protocol (IP) routers to participating hosts. This increases the availability and reliability of routing paths via automatic default gateway selections on an IP subnetwork.
The protocol achieves this by the creation of virtual routers, which are an abstract representation of multiple routers, i.e. primary/active and secondary/Standby routers, acting as a group. The virtual router is assigned to act as a default gateway of participating hosts, instead of a physical router. If the physical router that is routing packets on behalf of the virtual router fails, another physical router is selected to automatically replace it. The physical router that is forwarding packets at any given time is called the primary/active router.
VRRP provides information on the state of a router, not the routes processed and exchanged by that router. Each VRRP instance is limited, in scope, to a single subnet. It does not advertise IP routes beyond that subnet or affect the routing table in any way. VRRP can be used in Ethernet, MPLS and Token Ring networks with Internet Protocol Version 4 (IPv4), as well as IPv6.
A virtual router must use 00-00-5E-00-01-XX as its media access control (MAC) address. The last byte of the address (XX) is the virtual router identifier (VRID), which is different for each virtual router in the network. This address is used by only one physical router at a time, and it will reply with this MAC address when an ARP request is sent for the virtual router's IP address.
Physical routers within the virtual router must communicate within themselves using packets with multicast IP address 224.0.0.18 and IP protocol number 112 for IPv4, or ff02::12 and IP protocol number 112 for IPv6.
Routers backing up a virtual router have a priority between 1 and 254, and the router with the highest priority will become the primary/active. The default priority is 100; for the MAC address owner, the priority is always 255.
A failure to receive a multicast packet from the primary/active router for a period longer than three times the advertisement timer causes the secondary/standby routers to assume that the primary/active router is dead. The virtual router then transitions into an unsteady state and an election process is initiated to select the next primary/active router from the secondary/standby routers. This is fulfilled through the use of multicast packets.
Secondary/standby router(s) are only supposed to send multicast packets during an election process. One exception to this rule is when a physical router is configured with a higher priority than the current primary/active, which means that on connection to the network it will pre-empt the primary/active status. This allows a system administrator to force a physical router to the primary/active state immediately after booting, for example when that particular router is more powerful than others within the virtual router. The secondary/standby router with the highest priority becomes the primary/active router by raising its priority above that of the current primary/active. It will then take responsibility for routing packets sent to the virtual gateway's MAC address. In cases where secondary/standby routers all have the same priority, the secondary/standby router with the highest IP address becomes the primary/active router.
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Virtual Router Redundancy Protocol
The Virtual Router Redundancy Protocol (VRRP) is a computer networking protocol that provides for automatic assignment of available Internet Protocol (IP) routers to participating hosts. This increases the availability and reliability of routing paths via automatic default gateway selections on an IP subnetwork.
The protocol achieves this by the creation of virtual routers, which are an abstract representation of multiple routers, i.e. primary/active and secondary/Standby routers, acting as a group. The virtual router is assigned to act as a default gateway of participating hosts, instead of a physical router. If the physical router that is routing packets on behalf of the virtual router fails, another physical router is selected to automatically replace it. The physical router that is forwarding packets at any given time is called the primary/active router.
VRRP provides information on the state of a router, not the routes processed and exchanged by that router. Each VRRP instance is limited, in scope, to a single subnet. It does not advertise IP routes beyond that subnet or affect the routing table in any way. VRRP can be used in Ethernet, MPLS and Token Ring networks with Internet Protocol Version 4 (IPv4), as well as IPv6.
A virtual router must use 00-00-5E-00-01-XX as its media access control (MAC) address. The last byte of the address (XX) is the virtual router identifier (VRID), which is different for each virtual router in the network. This address is used by only one physical router at a time, and it will reply with this MAC address when an ARP request is sent for the virtual router's IP address.
Physical routers within the virtual router must communicate within themselves using packets with multicast IP address 224.0.0.18 and IP protocol number 112 for IPv4, or ff02::12 and IP protocol number 112 for IPv6.
Routers backing up a virtual router have a priority between 1 and 254, and the router with the highest priority will become the primary/active. The default priority is 100; for the MAC address owner, the priority is always 255.
A failure to receive a multicast packet from the primary/active router for a period longer than three times the advertisement timer causes the secondary/standby routers to assume that the primary/active router is dead. The virtual router then transitions into an unsteady state and an election process is initiated to select the next primary/active router from the secondary/standby routers. This is fulfilled through the use of multicast packets.
Secondary/standby router(s) are only supposed to send multicast packets during an election process. One exception to this rule is when a physical router is configured with a higher priority than the current primary/active, which means that on connection to the network it will pre-empt the primary/active status. This allows a system administrator to force a physical router to the primary/active state immediately after booting, for example when that particular router is more powerful than others within the virtual router. The secondary/standby router with the highest priority becomes the primary/active router by raising its priority above that of the current primary/active. It will then take responsibility for routing packets sent to the virtual gateway's MAC address. In cases where secondary/standby routers all have the same priority, the secondary/standby router with the highest IP address becomes the primary/active router.