What Is Route Poisoning?
What's funny about the internet is that you can send a packet from one corner of the globe to another, but you need the right path to reach its destination. This problem is called route poisoning, and it occurs when a network has multiple ways to a destination that has become invalid. It informs all the routers connected in the network that a particular path is invalid by saying that it has a hop count that exceeds the maximum allowable. The process consists of two parts: first, it checks whether the route is valid; second, if not, it marks it invalid and informs other routers about it. Suppose there are multiple routes between two networks. In that case, only one is considered valid at any given time because they share standard information about their distance and cost metrics, but only one can be used at any given time. In Routing Information Protocol (RIP), the hop count of a route is 15 by default. So, if you want to poison a way, you can just set its hop count to 16. It makes that path unreachable and will no longer be used for routing data. The hop count is a metric used in routing protocols to determine how many routers the packet has passed through. The value is stored in each route entry, indicating the number of routers traversed to reach the destination. Route poisoning is an excellent way to avoid inconsistent updates. When used with triggered updates, it will help speed up network combination because routers no longer have to wait before they can advertise any particular route that has been poisoned. We've all seen the movie where someone gets bitten by a vampire and then becomes one themselves. Well, that's what route poisoning does: it poisons routes!
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