Hack the Route Start free Open app Dynamic routing
Counting to infinity
Routers in a loop each believe the next about a lost route, raising its metric one step at a time.
When a network disappears and a router hears an older, wrong offer for it from a neighbour that was itself relying on that router, both keep raising the metric and packets circle until TTL runs out. RIP ends it by declaring 16 infinity, which also caps a RIP network at 15 hops across. Link-state protocols (OSPF) and EIGRP's feasibility condition avoid it altogether.