The TCP/IP Guide  9  TCP/IP Lower-Layer (Interface, Internet and Transport) Protocols (OSI Layers 2, 3 and 4)       9  TCP/IP Internet Layer (OSI Network Layer) Protocols            9  TCP/IP Routing Protocols (Gateway Protocols)                 9  TCP/IP Interior Routing Protocols (RIP, OSPF, GGP, HELLO, IGRP, EIGRP)                      9  TCP/IP Routing Information Protocol (RIP, RIP-2 and RIPng)                           9  RIP Version-Specific Message Formats and Features

RIP Version 1 (RIP-1) Message Format 1 2 3 RIPng ("RIPv6") Message Format and Features

The original Routing Information Protocol (RIP-1) has a number of problems and limitations. As the TCP/IP protocol suite evolved and changed, RIP-1's problems were compounded by it becoming somewhat out of date, unable to handle newer IP features. There were some who felt that the existence of newer and better interior routing protocols meant that it would be best to just give up on RIP entirely and move over to something like Open Shortest Path First (OSPF).

However, RIP's appeal was never its technical superiority, but its simplicity and ubiquity in industry. By the early 1990s. RIP was already in use in many thousands of networks. For those who liked RIP, it made more sense to migrate to a newer version that addressed some of RIP-1's shortcomings than to go to an entirely different protocol. To this end, a new version of the protocol, RIP Version 2 (RIP-2) was developed, and initially published in RFC 1388 in 1993. It is now defined in RFC 2453, RIP Version 2, published in November 1998.

RIP Version 1 (RIP-1) Message Format 1 2 3 RIPng ("RIPv6") Message Format and Features