Hello Jeff
Thanks for picking that out! I will let @ReneMolenaar know to make the correction.
Laz
thank you for this excellent explanationâŚ
So, for an eigrp route to be installed on the rib, it must first meet the feasibility condition (RD (reported distance or advertise distance) of the feasible successor < Feasible distance of the successor) and then itâs FD must be < Succesorâs FD * Variance integer
For example, if a Feasible Successor has a RD > FD of Succesor (doesnât meet the feasibility condition) it wont never be installed on the rib⌠despite itâs FD < Succesorâs FD * Variance integer⌠thats right ?
Hello Juan
Yes, that is correct. If the feasibility condition is not met, then the route will not be installed in the RIB and will not be a candidate to be used in a load balancing scenario.
I hope this has been helpful!
Laz
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Hello,
in your diagram, the loopback has a very low cost (1 or 0 ?).
when the loopback is replaced by a real LAN, with a higher cost, do you know if for calculating the variance the value indicated in
show ip eigrp topology âhost ipâ
will take into account the cost of the LAN after the last hop? or only until the last hop ?
Hello Hugues
When EIGRP calculates metric, it will include the cost of the hop to the final destination network. This means that for the diagram in the lesson, the metric includes the cost of the of the step from R5 to the loopback address.
If you replace the loopback address with an actual physical LAN, then the metric will include the cost of the step from R5 to that physical LAN segment. This metric will depend on the bandwidth of that particular interface that connects to the LAN.
When this is applied to the variance command, this actually doesnât make a difference, since that last part of the journey to the destination is the same regardless of which path is taken. So whether you go via R2, R3, or R4, the cost of that portion is equally included in all alternative paths.
I hope this has been helpful!
Laz
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thank you. so adding the cost of the lan, the variance up to the lan must be for example greater than 2.43 and until the last jump it will be greater than 2.59 then variance = 3 is suitable in both cases. (I am doing your icnd2 test, when the values are 1.5 on the last jump, easy to calculate and 1.3 with the lan, which requires more attention in the calculation)
Hello Hugues
Yes, I see what you mean. The actual value of the LAN portion, when added, changes the value of the calculated variance. So yes, to confirm, you must also include the cost of the LAN portion of the route to the destination in the calculation of the variance.
I hope this has been helpful!
Laz
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everything clears up, thank you
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Hi Rene,
Thanks for your great class.
I just wanted to know, in your example when we used the second variance (Variance 15) is it override the (Variance 3) for the same AS? or you used both?
if it is override it, then are all the links in the router will use the variance 15 only?
Hello Wisam
When you configure the variance for EIGRP, it overwrites the previous setting. So when a variance of 15 was applied to EIGRP process 1, the value of 3 was replaced with 15. With the specific configuration of a variance of 15, all three links are being used, as is shown in the routing table of R1:
R1#show ip route | begin 5.5.5.5
D 5.5.5.5 [90/2300416] via 192.168.14.4, 00:00:05, Serial2/0
[90/412160] via 192.168.13.3, 00:00:05, Ethernet1/0
[90/158720] via 192.168.12.2, 00:00:05, FastEthernet0/0
Variance is not something that is applied to each individual link, but is used to calculate how many paths will be included in the routing table. The value of 15 is applied to ALL routes within the EIGRP process. It is a value used to compare alternate paths to the successor (best path) to see if they should be included in the routing table.
I hope this has been helpful!
Laz
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Hi Rene,
Iâve enabled variance and I can see according to the âshow ip routeâ command that the unequal links are load balancing, however they are load balancing as a 1:1, even though the delay (and therefore metric) are different. This is what I am seeing:
Routing entry for 192.168.50.0/24
Known via "eigrp 987", distance 90, metric 1026560, type internal
Redistributing via eigrp 987
Last update from 192.168.10.2 on GigabitEthernet0/1, 00:02:15 ago
Routing Descriptor Blocks:
* 192.168.20.2, from 192.168.20.2, 00:02:18 ago, via GigabitEthernet0/0
Route metric is 1026560, traffic share count is 1
Total delay is 40000 microseconds, minimum bandwidth is 1000000 Kbit
Reliability 255/255, minimum MTU 1500 bytes
Loading 1/255, Hops 2
192.168.10.2, from 192.168.10.2, 00:02:15 ago, via GigabitEthernet0/1
Route metric is 1154560, traffic share count is 1
Total delay is 45000 microseconds, minimum bandwidth is 1000000 Kbit
Reliability 255/255, minimum MTU 1500 bytes
Loading 1/255, Hops 2
Any idea why the Share Count is 1 for both? I canât figure it out.
Thanks!
Hello Louis
This is indeed strange. Since the metrics of the two routes are indeed different, and you do see both routes in the routing table, and you have configured the variance command, then the traffic share count should not be 1:1.
One thing that I suspect is that because the metrics are relatively close, it may be that the router is estimating, or assuming that the ratio between the two metrics is close enough to 1:1 to use that as the share count. For example, the ratio of your metrics above is 1026560/1154560 = 0.8891 or about a share count of 89:100.
I tried to replicate your results by creating two routes that have a very close metric, and when I got my metrics to be 156416/154880 their share counts were 119:120 which does show a difference even though the metrics are almost the same. I further adjusted the parameters to get a closer metric value of 156416/156160 which, even though the metrics are not the same, did indeed result in a share count of 1:1.
So if you get the metrics close enough, even though they are not the same, you will eventually get a share ratio of 1:1 simply because youâre close enough to that value to warrant its use.
Now this doesnât completely resolve the issue, because your difference in metric was quite large, where I had to get the metric values much closer to each other to result in a share count of 1:1, but this may depend on the IOS as well as the router platform that is being used. For my tests I used Cisco IOSv Software (VIOS-ADVENTERPRISEK9-M), Version 15.7(3)M3.
I hope this has been helpful!
Laz
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Is it possible to use Variance so that it only effects a specific network in the RIB and not the entire RIB? Would it only be avaialble in a CSR under named mode TOPOLOGY Name?
Hello Marc
The variance feature for EIGRP is something that you apply across the board. It is not prefix-specific. When using named mode, you can enable and configure it under the topology base configuration mode, but only on a per address-family basis⌠Beyond that, you canât get any more specific.
If you want to adjust how a particular prefix will be routed independently of others, the most control can be obtained using route-maps or policy-based routing. You can take a look at the following lessons for more information.
Using route maps, you can actually change the metric of a particular prefix such that it will fall within the tolerance of the configured variance value, and in that way, cause that specific prefix to behave the way you want it.
I admit that the above may not fully resolve the issue youâre facing. However, it would be helpful if you would share with us what exactly you would like to achieve. By doing so, we may be able to suggest another option that would suit your needs even betterâŚ
I hope this has been helpful!
Laz
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Why we call that the control plane is the opposite direction of data plane , ??
if i change the BW and DELAY on an interface , How it impacts the traffic in terms of inbound and outbound ??
Hello Narad
Iâm not sure what you mean. Can you clarify your question?
Bandwidth and delay as components of the EIGRP metric are always measured in an outbound direction. That means that the EIGRP metric is affected by the bandwidth or delay configurations of an interface for paths that have an outbound direction on that interface. For example, take a look at this network diagram:
If we change the bandwidth on the Fa 0/1 interface of R3, then the metric from R1 to destination 5.5.5.5 will be affected, because, for that path, Fa1/0 is participating as an outbound interface. This change, however, will not affect the metric from R5 to the E1/0 interface of R1 for exampleâŚ
I hope this has been helpful!
Laz
1 Like
Great explanation! I am using CML for these labs and we cannot assign Fa or S links between devices. This creates an issue where the FD and AD for many of these routes are the same. What happens when the FD is the same across mulitple routes and none is lower than the other?
r1(config-router)#do sho ip ei topo 5.5.5.5 255.255.255.255
EIGRP-IPv4 Topology Entry for AS(1)/ID(192.168.14.1) for 5.5.5.5/32
State is Passive, Query origin flag is 1, 3 Successor(s), FD is 131072
Descriptor Blocks:
192.168.12.2 (GigabitEthernet0/0), from 192.168.12.2, Send flag is 0x0
Composite metric is (131072/130816), route is Internal
Vector metric:
Minimum bandwidth is 1000000 Kbit
Total delay is 5020 microseconds
Reliability is 255/255
Load is 1/255
Minimum MTU is 1500
Hop count is 2
Originating router is 5.5.5.5
192.168.13.3 (GigabitEthernet0/1), from 192.168.13.3, Send flag is 0x0
Composite metric is (131072/130816), route is Internal
Vector metric:
Minimum bandwidth is 1000000 Kbit
Total delay is 5020 microseconds
Reliability is 255/255
Load is 1/255
Minimum MTU is 1500
Hop count is 2
Originating router is 5.5.5.5
192.168.14.4 (GigabitEthernet0/2), from 192.168.14.4, Send flag is 0x0
Composite metric is (131072/130816), route is Internal
Vector metric:
Minimum bandwidth is 1000000 Kbit
Total delay is 5020 microseconds
Reliability is 255/255
Load is 1/255
Minimum MTU is 1500
Hop count is 2
Originating router is 5.5.5.5
Hello Kyle
When two or more routes to a particular destination exist that have the same metrics, the EIGRP will perform equal-cost load balancing (ECLB) by default. You can think of ECLB for EIGRP as a special case of unequal cost load balancing, where the variance is simply set to 1 (by default) which means load balancing will take place only if the metrics are exactly the same.
EIGRP will load balance up to 4 equal paths, but this can be increased by using the maximum-paths command in EIGRP router mode. More info about this can be found here:
https://www.ciscopress.com/articles/article.asp?p=2101519&seqNum=2
I hope this has been helpful!
Laz
ďźR3 and R4 have been selected as feasible successors because their advertised distance of 156.160 is lower than the feasible distance (158.729) of R2.
â
Isnât the feasible distance of R2 158.720?
Hello Shogo
Yes, you are correct. That seems to be a typo. It should be 158720. I will let Rene know to make the correction.
Thanks for pointing that out!
Laz
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