RIP-MTI: A New Way to Cope with Routing Loops

We introduce a new downward compatible routing protocol called Routing Information Protocol with Minimal Topology Information (RIP-MTI) which is based on the simple Routing Information Protocol (RIP). We exploit the distance vector updates more thoroughly than common RIP-protocols, and therefore, need not alter the interactive behavior of the Routing Information Protocol. With this approach, we are able to recognize loops and avoid the well known Counting to Infinity problem of distance vector routing. This new protocol can recognize and reject updates which have made their way along loops by evaluating simple metric-based equations.