RIPng

In addition to IPv4 networks, RIP is also applicable to IPv6 networks to provide accurate route information for IPv6 packets. The IETF has defined RIP next generation (RIPng) based on RIP for IPv6 networks. RIPng is an important protocol for IPv6 networks.

Comparison Between RIPng and RIP

RIPng made the following modifications to RIP:

• RIPng uses UDP port 521 to send and receive routing information.
• RIPng uses the destination addresses with 128-bit prefixes (mask length).
• RIPng uses 128-bit IPv6 addresses as next-hop addresses.
• RIPng uses the local-link address FE80::/10 as the source address to send RIPng Update packets.
• RIPng periodically sends routing information in multicast mode and uses FF02::9 as multicast address.
• A RIPng packet consists of a header and multiple route table entries (RTEs). In a RIPng packet, the maximum number of RTEs depends on the MTU of an interface.