ROUTED(8)               OpenBSD System Manager's Manual              ROUTED(8)

NAME
     routed - network RIP and router discovery routing daemon



SYNOPSIS
     routed [-sqdghmpAt] [-T tracefile] [-F net[/mask[,metric]]] [-P parms]

DESCRIPTION
     Routed is a dameon invoked at boot time to manage the network routing ta-
     bles.  It uses Routing Information Protocol, RIPv1 (RFC 1058), RIPv2
     (RFC 1723), and Internet Router Discovery Protocol (RFC 1256) to maintain
     the kernel routing table.  The RIPv1 protocol is based on the reference
     4.3BSD daemon.

     It listens on the udp(4) socket for the route(8) service (see
     services(5))  for Routing Information Protocol packets.  It also sends
     and receives multicast Router Discovery ICMP messages.  If the host is a
     router, routed periodically supplies copies of its routing tables to any
     directly connected hosts and networks.  It also advertise or solicits de-
     fault routes using Router Discovery ICMP messages.

     When started (or when a network interface is later turned on), routed us-
     es an AF_ROUTE address family facility to find those directly connected
     interfaces configured into the system and marked "up".  It adds necessary
     routes for the interfaces to the kernel routing table.  Soon after being
     first started, and provided there is at least one interface on which RIP
     has not been disabled, routed deletes all pre-existing non-static routes
     in kernel table.  Static routes in the kernel table are preserved and in-
     cluded in RIP responses if they have a valid RIP metric (see route(8)).

     If more than one interface is present (not counting the loopback inter-
     face), it is assumed that the host should forward packets among the con-
     nected networks.  After transmitting a RIP request and Router Discovery
     Advertisements or Solicitations on a new interface, the daemon enters a
     loop, listening for RIP request and response and Router Discover packets
     from other hosts.

     When a request packet is received, routed formulates a reply based on the
     information maintained in its internal tables.  The response packet gen-
     erated contains a list of known routes, each marked with a "hop count"
     metric (a count of 16 or greater is considered "infinite").  Advertised
     metrics reflect the metric associated with interface (see ifconfig(8)),
     so setting the metric on an interface is an effective way to steer traf-
     fic.

     Responses do not contain routes with a first hop on the requesting net-
     work to implement in part split-horizon. Requests from query programs
     such as rtquery(8) are answered with the complete table.

     The routing table maintained by the daemon includes space for several
     gateways for each destination to speed recovery from a failing router.
     RIP response packets received are used to update the routing tables pro-
     vided they are from one of the several currently recognized gateways or
     advertise a better metric than at least one of the existing gateways.

     When an update is applied, routed records the change in its own tables
     and updates the kernel routing table if the best route to the destination
     changes.  The change in the kernel routing table is reflected in the next
     batch of response packets sent.  If the next response is not scheduled
     for a while, a flash update response containing only recently changed
     routes is sent.

     In addition to processing incoming packets, routed also periodically
     checks the routing table entries.  If an entry has not been updated for 3
     minutes, the entry's metric is set to infinity and marked for deletion.
     Deletions are delayed until the route has been advertised with an infi-
     nite metric to insure the invalidation is propagated throughout the local
     internet.  This is a form of poison reverse.

     Routes in the kernel table that are added or changed as a result of ICMP
     Redirect messages are deleted after a while to minimize black-holes. When
     a TCP connection suffers a timeout, the kernel tells routed, which
     deletes all redirected routes through the gateway involved, advances the
     age of all RIP routes through the gateway to allow an alternate to be
     chosen, and advances of the age of any relevant Router Discovery Protocol
     default routes.

     Hosts acting as internetwork routers gratuitously supply their routing
     tables every 30 seconds to all directly connected hosts and networks.
     These RIP responses are sent to the broadcast address on nets that sup-
     port broadcasting, to the destination address on point-to-point links,
     and to the router's own address on other networks.  If RIPv2 is enabled,
     multicast packets are sent on interfaces that support multicasting.

     If no response is received on a remote interface, if there are errors
     while sending responses, or if there are more errors than input or output
     (see netstat(8)),  then the cable or some other part of the interface is
     assumed to be disconnected or broken, and routes are adjusted appropri-
     ately.

     The Internet Router Discovery Protocol is handled similarly.  When the
     daemon is supplying RIP routes, it also listens for Router Discovery So-
     licitations and sends Advertisements.  When it is quiet and only listen-
     ing to other RIP routers, it sends Solicitations and listens for Adver-
     tisements.  If it receives a good Advertisement, it stops listening for
     broadcast or multicast RIP responses.  It tracks several advertising
     routers to speed recovery when the currently chosen router dies.  If all
     discovered routers disappear, the daemon resumes listening to RIP re-
     sponses.

     While using Router Discovery (which happens by default when the system
     has a single network interface and a Router Discover Advertisement is re-
     ceived), there is a single default route and a variable number of redi-
     rected host routes in the kernel table.

     The Router Discover standard requires that advertisements have a default
     "lifetime" of 30 minutes.  That means should something happen, a client
     can be without a good route for 30 minutes.  It is a good idea to reduce
     the default to 45 seconds using -P rdisc_interval=45 on the command line
     or rdisc_interval=45 in the /etc/gateways file.

     See the pm_rdisc facility described below to support "legacy" systems
     that can handle neither RIPv2 nor Router Discovery.

     By default, neither Router Discovery advertisements nor solicications are
     sent over point to point links (e.g. PPP).


     Options supported by routed:

     -s      this option forces routed to supply routing information.  This is
             the default if multiple network interfaces are present on which
             RIP or Router Discovery have not been disabled, and if the kernel
             switch ipforwarding=1.

     -q      is the opposite of the -s option.

     -d      Do not run in the background.  This option is meant for interac-


             tive use.

     -g      This flag is used on internetwork routers to offer a route to the
             "default" destination.  It is equivalent to -F 0/0,1 and is pre-
             sent mostly for historical reasons.  A better choice is -P
             pm_rdisc on the command line or pm_rdisc in the /etc/gateways
             file.  since a larger metric will be used, reducing the spread of
             the potentially dangerous default route.  This is typically used
             on a gateway to the Internet, or on a gateway that uses another
             routing protocol whose routes are not reported to other local
             routers.  Notice that because a metric of 1 is used, this feature
             is dangerous.  It is more commonly accidently used to create
             chaos with routing loop than to solve problems.

     -h      This causes host or point-to-point routes to not be advertised,
             provided there is a network route going the same direction.  That
             is a limited kind of aggregation.  This option is useful on gate-
             ways to ethernets that have other gateway machines connected with
             point-to-point links such as SLIP.

     -m      This causes the machine to advertise a host or point-to-point
             route to its primary interface.  It is useful on multi-homed ma-
             chines such as NFS servers.  This option should not be used ex-
             cept when the cost of the host routes it generates is justified
             by the popularity of the server.  It is effective only when the
             machine is supplying routing information, because there is more
             than one interface.  The -m option overrides the -q option to the
             limited extent of advertising the host route.

     -A      do not ignore RIPv2 authentication if we do not care about RIPv2
             authentication.  This option is required for conformance with RFC
             1723.  However, it makes no sense and breaks using RIP as a dis-
             covery protocol to ignore all RIPv2 packets that carry authenti-
             cation when this machine does not care about authentication.

     -T tracefile
             increases the debugging level to at least 1 and causes debugging
             information to be appended to the trace file.  Note that because
             of security concerns, it is wisest to not run routed routinely
             with tracing directed to a file.

     -t      increases the debugging level, which causes more information to
             be logged on the tracefile specified with -T or standard out.
             The debugging level can be increased or decreased with the
             SIGUSR1 or SIGUSR2 signals or with the rtquery command.

     -F net[/mask][,metric]
             minimize routes in transmissions via interfaces with addresses
             that match net/mask, and synthesizes a default route to this ma-
             chine with the metric. The intent is to reduce RIP traffic on
             slow, point-to-point links such as PPP links by replacing many
             large UDP packets of RIP information with a single, small packet
             containing a "fake" default route.  If metric is absent, a value
             of 14 is assumed to limit the spread of the "fake" default route.

             This is a dangerous feature that when used carelessly can cause
             routing loops.  Notice also that more than one interface can
             match the specified network number and mask.  See also -g.

     -P parms
             is equivalent to adding the parameter line parms to the
             /etc/gateways file.

     Any other argument supplied is interpreted as the name of a file in which
     the actions of routed should be logged.  It is better to use -T instead
     of appending the name of the trace file to the command.

     routed also supports the notion of "distant" passive or active gateways.
     When routed is started, it reads the file /etc/gateways to find such dis-
     tant gateways which may not be located using only information from a
     routing socket, to discover if some of the local gateways are passive,
     and to obtain other parameters.  Gateways specified in this manner should
     be marked passive if they are not expected to exchange routing informa-
     tion, while gateways marked active should be willing to exchange RIP
     packets.  Routes through passive gateways are installed in the kernel's
     routing tables once upon startup and are not included in transmitted RIP
     responses.

     Distant active gateways are treated like network interfaces.  RIP re-
     sponses are sent to the distant active gateway.  If no responses are re-
     ceived, the associated route is deleted from the kernel table and RIP re-
     sponses advertised via other interfaces.  If the distant gateway resumes
     sending RIP responses, the associated route is restored.

     Such gateways can be useful on media that do not support broadcasts or
     multicasts but otherwise act like classic shared media like Ethernets
     such as some ATM networks.  One can list all RIP routers reachable on the
     ATM network in /etc/gateways with a series of "host" lines.

     Gateways marked external are also passive, but are not placed in the ker-
     nel routing table nor are they included in routing updates.  The function
     of external entries is to indicate that another routing process will in-
     stall such a route if ncessary, and that alternate routes to that desti-
     nation should not be installed by routed. Such entries are only required
     when both routers may learn of routes to the same destination.

     The /etc/gateways file is comprised of a series of lines, each in one of
     the following formats or consist of parameters described below:

     net Nname[/mask] gateway Gname metric value <passive | active | extern>

     host Hname gateway Gname metric value <passive | active | extern>

     Nname or Hname is the name of the destination network or host.  It may be
     a symbolic network name or an Internet address specified in "dot" nota-
     tion (see inet(3)).  (If it is a name, then it must either be defined in
     /etc/networks or /etc/hosts, or named(8),  must have been started before
     routed.)

     mask is an optional number between 1 and 32 indicating the netmask asso-
     ciated with Nname.

     Gname is the name or address of the gateway to which RIP responses should
     be forwarded.

     Value is the hop count to the destination host or network.  host hname is
     equivalent to net nname/32.

     One of the keywords passive, active or external must be present to indi-
     cate whether the gateway should be treated as passive or active (as de-
     scribed above), or whether the gateway is external to the scope of the
     RIP protocol.

     Lines that start with neither "net" nor "host" must consist of one or
     more of the following parameter settings, separated by commas or blanks:

     if=ifname
             indicates that the other parameters on the line apply to the in-
             terface name ifname.

     subnet=nname[/mask][,metric]
             advertises a route to network nname with mask mask and the sup-
             plied metric (default 1).  This is useful for filling "holes" in
             CIDR allocations.  This parameter must appear by itself on a
             line.

             Do not use this feature unless necessary.  It is dangerous.

     passwd=XXX
             specifies a RIPv2 password that will be included on all RIPv2 re-
             sponses sent and checked on all RIPv2 responses received.  The
             password must not contain any blanks, tab characters, commas or
             '#' characters.

     no_ag   turns off aggregation of subnets in RIPv1 and RIPv2 responses.

     no_super_ag
             turns off aggregation of networks into supernets in RIPv2 re-
             sponses.

     passive
             is equivalent no_rip no_rdisc.

     no_rip  disables all RIP processing on the specified interface.  If no
             interfaces are allowed to process RIP packets, routed acts purely
             as a router discovery daemon.  No_rip is equivalent to
             no_ripv1_in no_ripv2_in no_ripv1_out no_ripv2_out.

             Note that turning off RIP without explicitly turning on router
             discovery advertisements with rdisc_adv or -s causes routed to
             act as a client router discovery daemon, not adveritising.

     no_ripv1_in
             causes RIPv1 received responses to be ignored.

     no_ripv2_in
             causes RIPv2 received responses to be ignored.

     ripv2_out
             turns off RIPv1 output and causes RIPv2 advertisements to be mul-
             ticast when possible.

     no_rdisc
             disables the Internet Router Discovery Protocol.

     no_solicit
             disables the tranmission of Router Discovery Solicitations.

     send_solicit
             specifies that Router Discovery solicitations should be sent,
             even on point-to-point links, which by default only listen to
             Router Discovery messages.

     no_rdisc_adv
             disables the transmission of Router Discovery Advertisements

     rdisc_adv
             specifies that Router Discovery advertisements should be sent,
             even on point-to-point links, which by default only listen to
             Router Discovery messages

     bcast_rdisc
             specifies that Router Discovery packets should be broadcast in-
             stead of multicast.

     rdisc_pref=N
             sets the preference in Router Discovery Advertisements to the in-

             teger N.

     rdisc_interval=N
             sets the nominal interval with which Router Discovery Advertise-
             ments are transmitted to N seconds and their lifetime to 3*N.

     fake_default=metric
             has an identical effect to -F net[/mask][,metric] with the net-
             work and mask coming from the sepcified interface.

     pm_rdisc
             is similar to fake_default. When RIPv2 routes are multicast, so
             that RIPv1 listeners cannot receive them, this feature causes a
             RIPv1 default route to be broadcast to RIPv1 listeners.  Unless
             modified with fake_default, the default route is broadcast with a
             metric of 14.  That serves as a "poor man's router discovery"
             protocol.

     Note that the netmask associated with point-to-point links (such as SLIP
     or PPP, with the IFF_POINTOPOINT flag) is used by routed to infer the
     netmask used by the remote system when RIPv1 is used.

FILES
     /etc/gateways  for distant gateways

SEE ALSO
     gated(8),  udp(4),  icmp(4),  htable(8),  rtquery(8).

     Internet Transport Protocols, XSIS 028112, Xerox System Integration
     Standard.

BUGS
     It does not always detect unidirectional failures in network interfaces
     (e.g., when the output side fails).

HISTORY
     The routed command appeared in 4.2BSD.

4.4BSD                           June 1, 1996                                6