
262 Networking Explained, Second Edition
command, version number, AFI, IP address, and metric fields. RIP-2 messages that carry
information in any of the unused fields from Version 1 will have a 2 in the version number
field. The content of the two-byte unused field in both versions is ignored. Thus, a RIP-2
packet does not alter the contents of RIP.
The new features of RIP-2 include the following:
• Authentication. If the AFI field of the first entry in a message is FFFF, then this
signifies that the message is an authentication packet. Presently, RIP-2 only sup-
ports simple passwords for authentication.
Command (1 Byte)
Version Number (1 Byte)
Unused ...