IP Routing Protocols

  • Article

Applies To: Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2003 R2, Windows Server 2003 with SP1, Windows Server 2003 with SP2

IP routing protocols

In dynamic IP routing environments, IP routing information is propagated by using IP routing protocols. The two most common IP routing protocols that are used on intranets are Routing Information Protocol (RIP) and Open Shortest Path First (OSPF).

You can run multiple routing protocols on the same intranet. In this case, you must configure which routing protocol is the most preferred source of learned routes by configuring preference levels. The preferred routing protocol is the source of the route that is added to the routing table, regardless of the metric of the learned route. For example, if the metric of an OSPF learned route is 5 and the metric of the corresponding RIP learned route is 3 and OSPF is the preferred routing protocol, then the OSPF route is added to the IP routing table and the RIP route is ignored. For more information, see Change preference levels.

This section provides information about:

Notes

  • If you are using multiple IP routing protocols, configure only a single routing protocol per interface.

  • OSPF is not available on Windows XP 64-bit Edition (Itanium) and the 64-bit versions of the Windows Server 2003 family.