The Babel

routing protocol A routing protocol specifies how routers communicate with each other to distribute information that enables them to select routes between nodes on a computer network. Routers perform the traffic directing functions on the Internet; data packet ...

is a

distance-vector routing protocol A distance-vector routing protocol in data networks determines the best route for data packets based on distance. Distance-vector routing protocols measure the distance by the number of routers a packet has to pass; one router counts as one hop. ...

for

Internet Protocol The Internet Protocol (IP) is the network layer communications protocol in the Internet protocol suite for relaying datagrams across network boundaries. Its routing function enables internetworking, and essentially establishes the Internet. ...

packet-switched network In telecommunications, packet switching is a method of grouping data into '' packets'' that are transmitted over a digital network. Packets are made of a header and a payload. Data in the header is used by networking hardware to direct the pac ...

s that is designed to be robust and efficient on both wireless mesh networks and wired networks. Babel is described in RFC 8966. Babel is based on the ideas in

Destination-Sequenced Distance Vector routing Destination-Sequenced Distance-Vector Routing (DSDV) is a table-driven routing scheme for ad hoc mobile networks based on the Bellman–Ford algorithm. It was developed by C. Perkins and P. Bhagwat in 1994. The main contribution of the algorithm w ...

(DSDV),

Ad hoc On-Demand Distance Vector Routing Ad hoc On-Demand Distance Vector (AODV) Routing is a routing protocol for mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) and other wireless ad hoc networks. It was jointly developed in July 2003 in Nokia Research Center, University of California, Santa Barbara an ...

(AODV), and

Cisco Cisco Systems, Inc., commonly known as Cisco, is an American-based multinational corporation, multinational digital communications technology conglomerate (company), conglomerate corporation headquartered in San Jose, California. Cisco develo ...

Enhanced Interior Gateway Routing Protocol Enhanced Interior Gateway Routing Protocol (EIGRP) is an advanced distance-vector routing protocol that is used on a computer network for automating routing decisions and configuration. The protocol was designed by Cisco Systems as a proprietary p ...

(EIGRP), but uses different techniques for loop avoidance. Babel has provisions for using multiple dynamically computed metrics; by default, it uses hop-count on wired networks and a variant of ETX on wireless links, but can be configured to take radio diversity into account or to automatically compute a link's latency and include it in the metric. Babel operates on

IPv4 Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) is the fourth version of the Internet Protocol (IP). It is one of the core protocols of standards-based internetworking methods in the Internet and other packet-switched networks. IPv4 was the first version d ...

and

IPv6 Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) is the most recent version of the Internet Protocol (IP), the communications protocol that provides an identification and location system for computers on networks and routes traffic across the Internet. I ...

networks. It has been reported to be a robust protocol and to have fast convergence properties. In October 2015, Babel was chosen as the mandatory-to-implement protocol by the IETF Homenet working group, albeit on an Experimental basis. In June 2016, an IETF working group was created whose main goal is to produce a standard version of Babel. In January 2021, the working group produced a standard version of Babel, then proceeded to publish a number of extensions, including for authentication, source-specific routing, and routing of IPv4 through IPv6 routers.

Implementations

Several implementations of Babel are freely available: * The standalone "reference" implementation * A complete reimplementation integrated in the

BIRD Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweig ...

routing platform * A version integrated into th
FRR
routing suite (previously

Quagga The quagga ( or ) (''Equus quagga quagga'') is a subspecies of the plains zebra that was endemic to South Africa until it was hunted to extinction in the late 19th century. It was long thought to be a distinct species, but early genetic ...

, from which Babel has been removed). * A tiny, stub-only subset implementation * A minimal, IPv6-only reimplementation in Python * An independent implementation in Java, part of the freeRouter project Both BIRD and the reference version have support for

Source-specific routing Source-specific routing, also called source-address dependent routing (SADR), is a routing technique in which a routing decision is made by looking at the source address of a packet in addition to its destination address. The main application of s ...

and for cryptographic authentication.

References

External links

Babel – a loop-avoiding distance-vector routing protocol
* {{Routing protocols Routing algorithms Ad hoc routing protocols Routing protocols Mesh networking