Download Router
Emelia Lute
A router is connected to two or more data lines from different IP networks. When a data packet comes in on a line, the router reads the network address information in the packet header to determine the ultimate destination. Then, using information in its routing table or routing policy, it directs the packet to the next network on its journey. Data packets are forwarded from one router to another through an internetwork until it reaches its destination node.[5]
The most familiar type of IP routers are home and small office routers that forward IP packets between the home computers and the Internet. More sophisticated routers, such as enterprise routers, connect large business or ISP networks to powerful core routers that forward data at high speed along the optical fiber lines of the Internet backbone.
Routers can be built from standard computer parts but are mostly specialized purpose-built computers. Early routers used software-based forwarding, running on a CPU. More sophisticated devices use application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) to increase performance or add advanced filtering and firewall functionality.
When multiple routers are used in interconnected networks, the routers can exchange information about destination addresses using a routing protocol. Each router builds up a routing table, a list of routes, between two computer systems on the interconnected networks.[6][7]
A router may have interfaces for multiple types of physical layer connections, such as copper cables, fiber optic, or wireless transmission. It can also support multiple network layer transmission standards. Each network interface is used to enable data packets to be forwarded from one transmission system to another. Routers may also be used to connect two or more logical groups of computer devices known as subnets, each with a unique network prefix.
Routers may provide connectivity within enterprises, between enterprises and the Internet, or between internet service providers' (ISPs') networks, they are also responsible for directing data between different networks.[9] The largest routers (such as the Cisco CRS-1 or Juniper PTX) interconnect the various ISPs, or may be used in large enterprise networks.[10] Smaller routers usually provide connectivity for typical home and office networks.
All sizes of routers may be found inside enterprises.[11] The most powerful routers are usually found in ISPs, academic and research facilities. Large businesses may also need more powerful routers to cope with ever-increasing demands of intranet data traffic. A hierarchical internetworking model for interconnecting routers in large networks is in common use.[12] Some routers can connect to Data service units for T1 connections[13][14][15] via serial ports.[16][17]
Access routers, including small office/home office (SOHO) models, are located at home and customer sites such as branch offices that do not need hierarchical routing of their own. Typically, they are optimized for low cost. Some SOHO routers are capable of running alternative free Linux-based firmware like Tomato, OpenWrt, or DD-WRT.[18]
Distribution routers aggregate traffic from multiple access routers. Distribution routers are often responsible for enforcing quality of service across a wide area network (WAN), so they may have considerable memory installed, multiple WAN interface connections, and substantial onboard data processing routines. They may also provide connectivity to groups of file servers or other external networks.[19]
In enterprises, a core router may provide a collapsed backbone interconnecting the distribution tier routers from multiple buildings of a campus, or large enterprise locations. They tend to be optimized for high bandwidth, but lack some of the features of edge routers.[20]
External networks must be carefully considered as part of the overall security strategy of the local network. A router may include a firewall, VPN handling, and other security functions, or they may be handled by separate devices. Routers also commonly perform network address translation which restricts connections initiated from external connections but is not recognized as a security feature by all experts.[21] Some experts argue that open source routers are more secure and reliable than closed source routers because errors and potentially exploitable vulnerabilities are more likely to be discovered and addressed in an open-source environment.[22][23]
Routers are also often distinguished on the basis of the network in which they operate. A router in a local area network (LAN) of a single organisation is called an interior router. A router that is operated in the Internet backbone is described as exterior router. While a router that connects a LAN with the Internet or a wide area network (WAN) is called a border router, or gateway router.[24]
Wi-Fi routers combine the functions of a router with those of a wireless access point. They are typically devices with a small form factor, operating on the standard electric power supply for residential use. Connected to the Internet as offered by an Internet service provider, they provide Internet access through a wireless network for home or office use.
The concepts of a switching node using software and an interface computer were first proposed by Donald Davies for the NPL network in 1966.[31][32][33] The same idea was conceived by Wesley Clark the following year for use in the ARPANET, which were named Interface Message Processors (IMPs).[34] The first interface computer was implemented at the National Physical Laboratory in the United Kingdom in early 1969, followed later that year by the IMPs at the University of California, Los Angeles, the Stanford Research Institute, the University of California, Santa Barbara, and the University of Utah School of Computing in the United States.[35][36][37][38] All were built with the Honeywell 516. These computers had fundamentally the same functionality as a router does today.
The idea for a router (called a gateway at the time) initially came about through an international group of computer networking researchers called the International Network Working Group (INWG).[39] These gateway devices were different from most previous packet switching schemes in two ways. First, they connected dissimilar kinds of networks, such as serial lines and local area networks. Second, they were connectionless devices, which had no role in assuring that traffic was delivered reliably, leaving that function entirely to the hosts.[40] This particular idea, the end-to-end principle, was pioneered in the CYCLADES network.[41]
The first multiprotocol routers were independently created by staff researchers at MIT and Stanford in 1981 and both were also based on PDP-11s. Stanford's router program was led by William Yeager and MIT's by Noel Chiappa.[48][49][50][51] Virtually all networking now uses TCP/IP, but multiprotocol routers are still manufactured. They were important in the early stages of the growth of computer networking when protocols other than TCP/IP were in use. Modern routers that handle both IPv4 and IPv6 are multiprotocol but are simpler devices than ones processing AppleTalk, DECnet, IPX, and Xerox protocols.
From the mid-1970s and in the 1980s, general-purpose minicomputers served as routers. Modern high-speed routers are network processors or highly specialized computers with extra hardware acceleration added to speed both common routing functions, such as packet forwarding, and specialized functions such as IPsec encryption. There is substantial use of Linux and Unix software-based machines, running open source routing code, for research and other applications. The Cisco IOS operating system was independently designed. Major router operating systems, such as Junos and NX-OS, are extensively modified versions of Unix software.
The main purpose of a router is to connect multiple networks and forward packets destined either for directly attached networks or more remote networks. A router is considered a layer-3 device because its primary forwarding decision is based on the information in the layer-3 IP packet, specifically the destination IP address. When a router receives a packet, it searches its routing table to find the best match between the destination IP address of the packet and one of the addresses in the routing table. Once a match is found, the packet is encapsulated in the layer-2 data link frame for the outgoing interface indicated in the table entry. A router typically does not look into the packet payload,[52] but only at the layer-3 addresses to make a forwarding decision, plus optionally other information in the header for hints on, for example, quality of service (QoS). For pure IP forwarding, a router is designed to minimize the state information associated with individual packets.[53] Once a packet is forwarded, the router does not retain any historical information about the packet.[b]
A router can run more than one routing protocol at a time, particularly if it serves as an autonomous system border router between parts of a network that run different routing protocols; if it does so, then redistribution may be used (usually selectively) to share information between the different protocols running on the same router.[55]
Besides deciding to which interface a packet is forwarded, which is handled primarily via the routing table, a router also has to manage congestion when packets arrive at a rate higher than the router can process. Three policies commonly used are tail drop, random early detection (RED), and weighted random early detection (WRED). Tail drop is the simplest and most easily implemented: the router simply drops new incoming packets once buffer space in the router is exhausted. RED probabilistically drops datagrams early when the queue exceeds a pre-configured portion of the buffer, until reaching a pre-determined maximum, when it drops all incoming packets, thus reverting to tail drop. WRED can be configured to drop packets more readily dependent on the type of traffic.