Introduction to RIPng (RIP Next Generation), RIP for IPv6

RIP (Routing Information Protocol) is the first routing protocol for IP. Because of the technical problems, new RIP, known as RIPv2 was developed. RIP for IPv6 (RIPng) is described in RFC 2080.

When IPv6 protocol came up, again a new version of RIP was required to support IPv6. This new version of RIP is now known as RIP New Generation (or RIPng). RIPng is the new routing protocol for IPv6 and it is based on RIPv2. RIPng is an entirely different protocol and does not support IPv4.

RIPng uses the same timers and message types as RIPv2. RIPng has a 30 second update timer and a 180 second hold down timer. The metric value of RIPng is also based on hop count.

RIPng sends and receives the Routing Protocol messages at UDP port 521.

The multicast IPv6 address used by RIPng is FF02::9. (Remember for RIPv2, it was Class D IPv4 address 224.0.0.9).