Introduction to IPv6 Routing and IPv6 Routing Protocols

The most widely accepted IPv6 Interior Gateway Protocols (IGP) routing protocols are RIPng, OSPFv3 and IPv6 EIGRP. One and only IPv6 Exterior Gateway Protocol (EGP) is the new BGP, known as MP-BGP4 (Multiprotocol BGP4).

The main features of the above mentioned routing protocols are almost the same. RIPng (RIP next generation) is the version or RIP with IPv6 support (RIPng is based on RIPv2) is a distance vector protocol similar to its parent. The metric of RIPng is still hop count and the hop limit is 15 hops. OSPFv3 (OSPF for IPv6) is also a link-state routing protocol. Metric of OSPFv3 is cost as previous OSPF. Following table lists important IPv6 routing protocols and their RFC's.