Talk:Routing/Archive 1

Value of ON content and quality of reference
The content added from the ON reference remains in this article, but the reference has been removed. This action is disputed and a conversation is ongoing here. Uriah923 06:18, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

Replace external link?
The following was recently removed from the article for being spam unless a consensus could be reached here that it is not: "See [(see this page's history for the link) this article] for a good example of a distance vector and link state algorithm application."

I think the link should remain as it is quality and valuable content. Uriah923 16:51, 12 September 2005 (UTC)


 * I'll say pretty much the same thing here as I did at Talk:ITunes. This is just one out of a SEO campaign by the ON people to get links to that site from Wikipedia. (Just as we don't need the above link since it can be seen in the diff where it was removed) The same thing was done with multiple Wikipedia articles until people cried foul, and the consensus was that ON articles do not make the type of quality references Wikipedia needs. That said, if a consensus forms here (with a reasonable minimum of 5-6 people involved) that the article is valuable enough to justify an external link despite the linkspam implications, I certainly wouldn't stand in the way. That said, our article would be much better off using the actual RFC's and highly regarded networking textbooks as references than linking to a website with no inherent credibility. Verifiability is the goal, not seeing how many links we can get to ON. - Taxman Talk 18:33, September 12, 2005 (UTC)


 * We are not discussing the use of the site as a reference, but leaving the aforementioned sentence. My contention is that it should be replaced.  As far as I can surmise, you are against it's addition purely due to SEO suspicions.  Can we have some people evaluate this on a purely content basis?  Uriah923 19:59, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

Remove the darn ON link. It is not verifiable or reliable. Agree with Taxman that RFCs and textbooks (of which I have a slew) make better references. Zora 21:09, 12 September 2005 (UTC)


 * It's too bad there isn't an ON link to remove or that we aren't talking about references or else your comment might make sense. Uriah923 22:09, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

Ether
Please help clarify the entry in the "aether" disambiguation page: "in internet routing, the term ether is associated with hosts" What the heck is it? (Previously "hosts" was a redirect to "hosts file") `'mikka (t) 17:38, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Proposed merge
The proposed merge is a really bad idea. Routing is a generic concept which applied across lots of kinds of networks (e.g. rail, truck), whereas routing protocols are pretty much specific to packet networks. Noel (talk) 16:00, 18 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree that it is a really bad idea. However this article needs to be fixed as well.  Routing is about the act of routing routing protocols are about how diff. vendors propose to / or do this.  Routing is what makes the Internet function.  There is a great deal of mis-information about this entire topic including (routers).  It needs to be fixed, not merged. I don't see any merit to the merge suggestion and will remove the merge maint. tag if there is no objection in 24 hour. I respond to expert tag requests on this field --User: (talk • contribs • count) 14:01, 25 June 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree that "Routing" and "Routing Protocol" are distinct ideas, though routing protocol is more general than what you describe—not just packet networks, but all computer networks. The way I see it, an article on Routing protocol would cover how routing is done in computer networks.  An article on Routing would probably be at least 50% on routing in computer networks.  Seems like a lot of overlap to me, and that's why I think a merge makes sense.  What are your thoughts on why they should be separate?


 * Besides that as you say, the articles are a mess right now. In fact there's virtually zero useful information in Routing protocol—possibly even less than that. --Nethgirb 18:33, 25 June 2007 (UTC)


 * The problem is that both articles need a deal of help. The issue in my mind is that when we talk about routing we are talking about how things route. In computer routing, that would be how a packet gets from point a to b. Now when we talk about routing protocols we are generally talking about how a vendor implemented this and the vendor or the IETF wrote an RFC on how to do this in a specific way.  In the more abstract you could talk about the OSI model for example.  These things are routing protocols.  Routing protocols are usually talk about how a router talks to another router to define their routing tables.  It is not actually about the act of routing so to speak.  I am a bit tired as I type this so feel free to correct me if you believe I am wrong but I will try with this def I fond:


 * Routing is the act of moving information across an internetwork from a source to a destination. Along the way, at least one intermediate node typically is encountered. Routing is often contrasted with bridging, which might seem to accomplish precisely the same thing to the casual observer. The primary difference between the two is that bridging occurs at Layer 2 (the link layer) of the OSI reference model, whereas routing occurs at Layer 3 (the network layer). This distinction provides routing and bridging with different information to use in the process of moving information from source to destination, so the two functions accomplish their tasks in different ways.


 * It has nothing to do with the protocols that routers use to talk to one another. Now have a look at this page: Cisco Routing Protocols is Cisco definition of thier protocols.  I hope you can see the difference I point to. In no way should they be merged. They both however need to be fixed properly. --User: (talk • contribs • count) 19:07, 25 June 2007 (UTC)


 * PS: the whole routing protocol article is basically trash and needs to be re-written. (sigh) --User: (talk • contribs • count) 19:11, 25 June 2007 (UTC)


 * I think your point is that the high-level routing algorithm is a distinct concept from a protocol which implements that algorithm. I agree completely.  I am not suggesting that Routing should include the details of routing protocols; those can be saved for articles on individual protocols like BGP and OSPF.  However, the article Routing protocol should presumably not include these details either, since it is not about any one particular protocol.  Whatever it includes should be higher-level material applicable to a wide range of implementations.  Because that material is higher-level and widely applicable, I think it would be essentially the same material as would appear in Routing, except that it would be restricted to computer networks (as there is not really a routing "protocol" as such for e.g. transportation networks).


 * Let me put it this way—what information do you think should appear in Routing protocol, beyond the basic definition? To take an example, the Routing protocol article currently discusses "metrics" such as path length as they are one "important parameter" of a routing protocol.  Well that is surely a general concept which even appears in using Google Maps to find directions.  There is in fact currently a section on metrics in the Routing article as well.


 * One solution might be to make Routing protocol a very short article that gives the definition and refers to Routing for the higher-level material (i.e., what the protocols are trying to do) and refers to List of routing protocols for details on specific implementations. (And also List of routing protocols could be merged with Routing protocol.) What do you think of that? --Nethgirb 22:15, 25 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Correction, I mis-read your post. I agree with you. Routing protocol should be a stub explaining what a routing protocol is, then list them. There is no need for a routing protocol list, seperate, it belongs in the stub. I agree that this mess needs to be fixed.  I think routing needs to talk about routing (period) you could give a class on routing and not ever talk about routing protocols.  In the beginning (I am old enough to remember) there were no routing protocols, but there was routing.  There are also people out there that want to setup thier routers only by defining static routes, once again, its routing and no routing protocol involved.  Routing protocols did not really come out until the 80's 10 or more years after routing existed. Please also remember routing protocols that come and go with time. I can remember when RIP was the latest and greatest thing since sliced bread!  I think the list of routing protocols should be removed and be merged with routing protocols. Now even though routing protocols come and go, routing remains the same.  section Reposted with corrections --User: (talk • contribs • count) 00:08, 26 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Nethgirb, I agree with you 100% that the list of protocols should be merged with the Routing protocol and I tagged it with a maint. tag for a merge. If I get a change before you or someone else does, when the routing protcol article is re-written this had got to be removed. So I hope we are in agreement here. Routing is about routing and routing protocols are about the protocol that routers may or may not use to communicate with each other to perform the task of routing which is completely different then the protocol that may or may not be used. Therefore routing and routing protocols should not be merged. Dont forget routers can do routing with no routing protocol. --User: (talk • contribs • count) 23:10, 25 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Nethgirb, please go the talk page for the list of routing protocols and let me know if you agree with my logic there. --User: (talk • contribs • count) 23:21, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

What belongs on this page
Update the article Router if you are updating infomation about Routers, NOT routing protocols. Update the article, Routing protocol if you want to update information on the protocols routers use.

Finally update the article, Routing, if you want to update this topic without discussing the protocols behind routing.

Please remember: in the beginning there were no routing protocols, everthing has static maps. Splitting the articles in this manner was the best way to avoid confusing the average user. Remember, Wiki is an encyclopedia, as such it is not a how-to guide or a user manual. the articles are connected with Wiki links so if I usere wants the detailed information, it is only a click away. Please do not place the wrong information in the wrong article or your edits will be reverted. --User: (talk • contribs • count) 11:46, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Page contents
Update the article Router if you are updating infomation about Routers, NOT routing protocols. Update the article, Routing protocol if you want to update information on the protocols routers use.

Finally update the article, Routing, if you want to update this topic without discussing the protocols behind routing.

Please remember: in the beginning there were no routing protocols, everthing has static maps. Splitting the articles in this manner was the best way to avoid confusing the average user. Remember, Wiki is an encyclopedia, as such it is not a how-to guide or a user manual. the articles are connected with Wiki links so if I usere wants the detailed information, it is only a click away. Please do not place the wrong information in the wrong article or your edits will be reverted. --User: (talk • contribs • count) 11:48, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Placed out of order to make sure editor see notice

This page fairly desperately needs to be split up into:


 * Routing - about the general concept, including forwarding
 * Routing algorithm - about the concept of finding paths, including the basic division into Map-Distribution and Destination-Vector classes
 * Routing protocol - about how an algorithm gets turned into an actual protocol

Will someone else please do this? If I do it, I'm likely to simply rewrite the whole lot from scratch, throwing all the existing text out (as I just did for link-state routing protocol). Noel (talk) 04:30, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)


 * I just upgraded the "Distance vector algorithms" and "Link state algorithms" sections (the second of which was completely inaccurate), only to discover that they now basically duplicate content at distance vector protocol and link state protocol. Sigh. I'll add links, and maybe we should trip the text here? Noel (talk) 14:02, 2 October 2005 (UTC)


 * I agree with you that this page needs a complete rewrite. First of all, there is absolutely no discussion (at the time of this writing) about how routing works, at least for IP.  That is, there is no presentation about:
 * what a route is (with a prefix and length),
 * what a next hop is (via an interface or gateway),
 * how routing works by selecting the most specific route to a destination (using longest prefix match),
 * what happens when there are two identical routes to the same destination but using different routing protocols (route preference),
 * what a default route is,
 * classful versus CIDR routes (and why the latter became necessary),
 * etc.
 * This is basic stuff!


 * What this page contains is how entries are added and removed from the routing table. It should go on a separate page about routing algorithms/protocols as you mention above.  Mordomo 06:28, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

What belongs on this page
Update the article Router if you are updating infomation about Routers, NOT routing protocols. Update the article, Routing protocol if you want to update information on the protocols routers use.

Finally update the article, Routing, if you want to update this topic without discussing the protocols behind routing.

Please remember: in the beginning there were no routing protocols, everthing has static maps. Splitting the articles in this manner was the best way to avoid confusing the average user. Remember, Wiki is an encyclopedia, as such it is not a how-to guide or a user manual. the articles are connected with Wiki links so if I usere wants the detailed information, it is only a click away. Please do not place the wrong information in the wrong article or your edits will be reverted. --User: (talk • contribs • count) 11:48, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Definition of routing
The lead sentence in the article states "Routing (or routeing) is the process of selecting paths in a computer network along which to send data". I disagree, because this definition could include bridging. I would define "forwarding" in this way.

Also, I now read here on the discussion page: "Routing is often contrasted with bridging, which might seem to accomplish precisely the same thing to the casual observer. The primary difference between the two is that bridging occurs at Layer 2 (the link layer) of the OSI reference model, whereas routing occurs at Layer 3 (the network layer)." Again, I disagree. The primary difference, IMHO, is that routing depends on addresses being assigned in a meaningful fashion (so that route aggregation can occur), while bridging works with any kind of addressing whatsoever.

I know these are quibbles over definitions, but maybe clarifying the basic terms would be a good start to cleaning up this page. Baccala@freesoft.org 01:48, 27 June 2007 (UTC)


 * I think the definition is fine (though it could be generalized a bit).


 * Forwarding is the process of actually sending data. It depends on routing, but routing can occur without forwarding.


 * Routing does not depend on having an aggregatable address. For example, prefixes blocks on the Internet today are becoming less aggregatable.  This is a problem for BGP's scalability, but it doesn't make BGP less of a routing protocol.  In fact, there exist routing protocols which need no concept of an address at all, such as ROFL, distributed hash tables, many ad hoc routing protocols like DSDV, and various proposals in a research area known as "compact routing" . In these protocols nodes have unique names but not addresses.


 * There may be more narrow senses of the word "routing", but for the purposes of this encyclopedia article, I would say bridging is a type of routing. --Nethgirb 05:47, 27 June 2007 (UTC)


 * "for the purposes of this encyclopedia article, I would say bridging is a type of routing"


 * Don't you think this will lead to some controversy? Maybe a disambiguation page is in order.  Routing can refer either to the process of path selection, or to a particular type of path selection (to be contrasted with bridging)
 * Baccala@freesoft.org 01:47, 28 June 2007 (UTC)


 * I think our disagreement is due to the fact that there are multiple definitions of "router" or "routing". There is the OSI definition of a router as a Layer 3 device, and then there is the more general definition as I am proposing.  For an encyclopedia article on routing I think we should use the more general definition.  I don't think this is particularly controversial; for example, Radia Perlman has referred to bridges as performing routing (see her recent USENIX talk—abstract and links to audio and PDFs here  or see slide 41 ).  So I agree with you that we should note this differing usage in the article; but the article should be about the more general definition, not the more narrow one. --Nethgirb 03:19, 28 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Excuse me but: Bridging is a forwarding technique used in packet-switched computer networks. Unlike routing, bridging makes no assumptions about where in a network a particular address is located. Instead, it depends on broadcasting to locate unknown devices. Once a device has been located, its location is recorded in a routing table where the MAC address is stored alongside its IP Address so as to preclude the need for further broadcasting. Are you trying to redefine this definition of bridging?  If so, you are going to have an issue, Routing is not bridging. --User: (talk • contribs • count) 02:55, 29 June 2007 (UTC)


 * We've got two possible definitions of routing floating about. Let me be very explicit and call them "Narrow Routing" and "General Routing" for lack of better terms. The definition of bridging you give is OK and its (and your) use of the term "routing" is roughly consistent with Narrow Routing. I agree Bridging is different than Narrow Routing. But there are more general uses of the term "routing". In my first comment in this thread, I cited examples of routing algorithms which do not fall under your "Narrow Routing" definition, but which are General Routing algorithms. And in particular, yes, bridging is absolutely an example of General Routing. Radia Perlman seems to agree with me that bridging can be seen as General Routing. By the way, she is the one who invented bridging's spanning tree algorithm...


 * In my opinion the article should be about General Routing. The article can give the Narrow Routing definition as well and note the differing usage. But routing is a big, big topic which is not limited by the particular technical definition of Narrow Routing. At one time "routing" might have meant Narrow Routing, but certainly not now (good thing, too, because I don't think that's a particularly enlightening way of structuring the underlying ideas...)


 * Also I'm not entirely sure that the definition you implicitly give of Narrow Routing is correct. It would seem to exclude BGP.  Where did you get this definition from?  Anyway, we can come to that later. --Nethgirb 04:35, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Let's try this a different way, starting with this: "Routing is the Internet's key design innovation."

Agree? Disagree? Discuss...

Baccala@freesoft.org 06:28, 29 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Is this supposed to be a definition? --Nethgirb 06:56, 29 June 2007 (UTC)


 * I was thinking of it more like a statement that could motivate a definition, i.e, is routing's ability to scale to a global network one of it's key properties?
 * Baccala@freesoft.org 16:45, 29 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Oh, ok. I'd certainly say routing is one of the Internet's key components.  Not sure if it's one of the Internet's key innovations, as I think routing was around before the Internet. --Nethgirb 20:25, 29 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Nethgirb, I'm just listening to the MP3 of that Radia Perlman talk you linked to. She makes a pretty compelling case for what you're saying; I see your point.  At right around the 22 min mark, she talks about the OSI/DECnet distinction between Level 1 routing (flat addresses) and Level 2 routing (structured addresses).  Maybe that Level 1/Level 2 distinction is the way to lead into this article.
 * Baccala@freesoft.org 18:10, 29 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Yes, I think that would be a good way to distinguish between General Routing (selecting paths) and Narrow Routing (selecting paths at OSI Layer 3, traditionally with structured addresses). Not that you were suggesting the following, but: I don't think the whole article, or our general definition of routing, should be structured around the OSI's layers. It would tie the concept of routing to the Internet too much, and even for the Internet the OSI model is old and crufty.  As RP said it was designed by committee. --Nethgirb 20:25, 29 June 2007 (UTC)


 * OK, I just updated the second and third paragraphs of the article to reflect this discussion.
 * Baccala@freesoft.org 18:44, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Article structure
I think this article is worth developing into something good since routing is such an important topic. First step is to get some sort of a sane organization. To get us started here's a list of topics that might be covered in no particular order: What else? --Nethgirb 22:12, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Goals or challenges facing routing: distributed state, using limited memory, responding to failures, picking "good" paths, separate entities (autonomous systems) making their own choices ...
 * "castiness": anycast, unicast, multicast, broadcast
 * Link state vs. distance vector vs. path vector vs. other state distribution methods
 * Path selection: metrics like shortest path, operator preference, etc.
 * Routed vs. routing protocols (how important is this? Does it belong in Routing protocol instead?)
 * Identifiers vs. addresses
 * Routing for different types of networks: Interdomain, intradomain, overlay network, ad hoc network, PSTN, interstate highway system, social networks (see, e.g., Milgram's small world experiment) ...


 * Yeah, "castiness" is the next change I've been thinking about making. There's already a decent discussion of it on the forwarding page (where it belongs, I think), and I'm thinking about adding a short paragraph in the intro that notes that different forwarding models typically use different routing protocols.  I'm also thinking about removing that graphic completely, since there's already a similar one on Packet forwarding
 * Baccala@freesoft.org 05:01, 2 July 2007 (UTC)


 * It's a good question where castiness should go. My opinion is that this article should focus on general, high-level algorithmic topics and any/uni/multi/broadcast could fall under that category since efficiently doing those can be an interesting and nontrivial algorithmic issue.  On the other hand probably more than 90% of the time routing means unicast and maybe that's what this article should focus on, briefly mentioning the others with pointers to their main articles: Anycast, Multicast, Broadcast. --Nethgirb 06:11, 2 July 2007 (UTC)


 * p.s. yeah, removing that graphic would be a good idea I think, or at least moving it down. The current placement makes it seem like the graphic shows "routing in a nutshell". --Nethgirb 06:13, 2 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Totally agree with you. No reason to wait.  I moved it. Could always revert it, if you do not like the way it looks.  --User: (talk • contribs • count) 20:22, 2 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks. I added a section header and a bit of text for it --Nethgirb 21:39, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Thinking about an actual outline now. Here are 5 major topics under which most everything I listed above fits, with subtopics or items to mention listed in pseudorandom order afterwards. Apologies if it's unreadable... --Nethgirb 11:22, 5 July 2007 (UTC) ... and updated Nethgirb 07:58, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
 * 1) Delivery semantics: anycast, unicast, multicast, broadcast. Maybe mention 3-digit call routing (e.g. 911) as an example of something like anycast in a network other than the Internet
 * 2) Distributing state: Statically configured vs. dynamic routes; Link state, path vector, distance vector; how the Internet does it; how the PSTN does it
 * 3) Using little state per node: compact routing; Identifiers vs. addresses, the latter having topological significance; IP addresses as example; Milgram's small world experiment, Kleinberg's routing in small world networks; greedy routing and distributed hash table techniques; routing on flat identifiers; routers vs. bridges; current issues with future scaling of the Internet routing system due to increase in the number of prefixes
 * 4) Multiple cooporating or competing entities: Braess' paradox, selfish routing, hot potato routing, autonomous systems, convergence problems resulting from autonomy; bypassing the problems (overlay networks) or mitigating problems (tolls/pricing)
 * 5) Selecting among multiple paths: metrics, load balance, operator preference, maybe mention BGP decision process, maybe multipath routing

Trimming the intro
The intro's kind of a mess. I'll work on trimming it down (and don't let me stop anyone else from doing the same), but I wanted to keep the text on hand which might be useful at some later point in the article. This text is too detailed for the intro and talks more about forwarding than routing.
 * Traditional IP routing stays relatively simple because it uses next-hop routing where the router only needs to consider where it sends the packet, and does not need to consider the subsequent path of the packet on the remaining hops. However, more complex routing strategies can be, and are, often used in systems such as MPLS, ATM or Frame Relay, which are sometimes used as underlying technologies to support IP networks.

--Nethgirb 10:12, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

"Routeing"
Is there a reliable source for this alternative spelling? /Blaxthos ( t / c ) 03:48, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Oxford English Dictionary says both spellings are correct, but I think "routeing" has fallen out of favor, especially in the online context. I'm not sure it's worth mentioning. 87.97.2.204 (talk) 16:51, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Actually, Routeing is the grammatically correct form of the word and OED is incorrect if it states both are correct - Routing is definately an Americanism (as is favor - English= favour). This alternative phase should not be deleted as it is perfectly valid in UK English. The Collins English Dictionary makes this clear: "..when forming the present participle or verbal noun from the verb to route it is preferable to retain the e in order to distinguish the word from routing, the present participle or verbal noun from rout, to defeat or rout, to dig...the spelling routing in this sense is, however, sometimes encountered, esp. in American English."

Gossip protocol redirection to here.
I would sujest that it be merjed into this article, but I don't see any information in it that lets you manually configure a hop or evaluate tractability of methods -- very few design decisions at all, mostly brainstorming. BrewJay (talk) 06:05, 10 July 2008 (UTC)


 * BrewJay (and others): Gossip isn't really a routing protocol. Sounds like some confusion here but I'm not sure it was caused by the article itself.   Actually, gossip is more of a data replication technique than a routing protocol.  A routing protocol, as you clearly know, is for getting messages from a sender to a destination.  For example, 123.45.76.1024 wants to send a packet to 72.31.16.1570.  How can we best get it there with the fastest throughput and lowest latency?  So that's routing.


 * A gossip protocol is a way to share knowledge in a big group of nodes. For example, you might use gossip in a system like Skype to replicate information about the current list of supernodes that do Skype call setup.  That list changes a lot, pretty much all the time, so you need a really robust way to ensure that everybody has all the data, and that it tracks changes.  Gossip is incredibly simple and is a great way to solve this and similar problems.  But it actually depends on, and doesn't replace, routing.  To do gossip, I need a way to get messages from node to node.  So we're at the next level "up" the protocol stack.  Does this help?


 * Sorry about my delay in responding. Didn't log in for a few weeks... Ken Birman (talk) 13:57, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Symmetric and Asymmetric Routing
How about a section on this topic? Who will bell the cat? I am hardly an expert. Luis F. Gonzalez 21:44, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

I think that those terms rarely qualify routing. In the underlying bits going over an analog channel, there is often a greater speed in one direction, which is asymmetric. You might want to look use carrier and modulation as search terms. Routing involves at least one layer above modulation. BrewJay (talk) 06:47, 10 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I suspect Luis was talking about the common behaviour of a path from A to B being different from the path return traffic will take from B to A. This is certainly what "asymmetric routing" means to me, and most other network engineers I deal with each day. --58.28.152.52 (talk) 06:55, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Static routing?
I did not find any reference to static routing in this article. It might be a good idea, to mention it. There is a stub article on Static routing. Dbu 14:26, 24 January 2007 (UTC)


 * As a read the article, now, static routing is dominant. IOW, IP numbers don't change, and they're largely regional, much like telephone numbers. BrewJay (talk) 06:51, 10 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I added a link to static routing in the "Topology distribution" section. -- TripleF (talk) 15:52, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Original Author of the Routing Scheme Pictures
While I was making the svg images that visualize the routing schemes I copied the node layout, coloring etc. from some lecture slides I found online. I thought at the time that the images would be too simple to be protected by intellectual property right laws. While I tagged them public domain I was thinking more about my work in creating the svg images, than the work that the original author did when he created the diagrams for the lecture slides. Unfortunately I do not remember where the original images are from. However if we can figure out who the original author is, we should accredit him/her for the work, and make sure he/she does not mind we are using them. I apologize for failing to do this back then. --Easyas12c (talk) 17:01, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Routeing in networks
This article has started with the following text for a long period:
 * Previous discussion at above (2008).
 * Diff of recent change which I reverted.
 * Routing is the process of selecting best paths in a network.

That was changed to:
 * Routing ("routeing" in British and international English Spelling) is the process of selecting best paths in a network.

The following was posted to my talk (diff):
 * I don't really understand why you've reverted this edit, which was clearly and correctly referenced. If you look at, for example, http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/routeing?s=t, Colins, Harts Rules (as ref’ed), or Wiener and Delahunty’s The Oxford Guide to English Usage (but, oddly, not Fowler). you will see that it is given as the correct British & int. English spelling.
 * The reason it is spelled that way is to differentiate the gerund and p.p. of route from that of rout, as with "swingeing" and "swinging" and "singeing" and "singing", which are pronounced differently almost everywhere but the US.
 * As to context, it is used in British and international English in all contexts, including networks. Graham.Fountain | Talk 11:48, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

I am reminded of HTTP referer which glorifies a typo in the title and text (some info is at Talk:HTTP referer). I argued that the article should use the correct spelling, namely "referrer", in the text, and use the typo only when needed for the "technical" term. Regardless of that, I do not see the need to let people know that "routing" (in the context of this article) can be spelt/spelled in other ways). If someone can point to reasonably modern usage of "routeing in networks", the alternate spelling could be mentioned if the usage is more than one or two oddities. However, I have not seen that term. Thoughts? Johnuniq (talk) 02:11, 19 March 2014 (UTC)


 * I did some quick and dirty research.
 * On UK IT Associatiation website, many occurrences of routing, no occurrences of routeing
 * Cambridge technical paper uses routing
 * 5000 routeing hits on Google Scholar, 2 million routing hits
 * Routing is definitely used outside the US and it appears to be widely so. I found a few occurrences of network routeing on Scholar but there are so few that it is probably not worth mentioning (especially in the lead) since Wikipedia is not a dictionary. ~KvnG 04:58, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

Scoping the article
From my reading of this article, all the text deals with routing in packet-switched networks, with a heavy focus on the Internet. Perhaps this could be made more explicit by renaming the article to something more specific e.g. `Routing (packet switched networks)` as routing applies differently in e.g. circuit-switched networks? Zynwyx (talk) 13:46, 29 March 2015 (UTC)


 * We don't put parenthesis in titles unless we need to. We don't have any stand-alone content in the encyclopedia about routing for circuit-switched networks. Once someone creates Routing (circuit-switched networks) we can discuss renaming this article. Another alternative is to add a section about circuit-switched routing to this article. --Kvng (talk) 14:00, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 2 one external links on Routing. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive http://web.archive.org/web/20061209093728/http://wiki.uni.lu:80/secan-lab/Count-To-Infinity+Problem.html to http://wiki.uni.lu/secan-lab/Count-To-Infinity+Problem.html
 * Added archive http://web.archive.org/web/20070216114435/http://www.cisco.com:80/web/about/ciscoitatwork/case_studies/routing.html to http://www.cisco.com/web/about/ciscoitatwork/case_studies/routing.html

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Cheers.—cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 13:36, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

routing metric
It is not clear from the article if a higher value means a route is more or less likely to be chosen. It also doesn't make clear what happens if two routes have the same metric.
 * No longer appears to be a problem. Path selection is discussed and equal-cost multi-path routing is linked. ~Kvng (talk) 14:40, 7 May 2023 (UTC)

Nullrouting
Please add a link to Nullroute if it belongs in this article or any other routing related article.
 * Addded Black hole (networking) to See also. ~Kvng (talk) 14:42, 7 May 2023 (UTC)

Adaptive vs. Dynamic Routing
The section "Topology distribution" mentions both adaptive and dynamic routing, and both link to the same article Adaptive Routing. If they are the same, it should be made clear both in the section and in the Adaptive Routing article. -- TripleF (talk) 15:55, 18 April 2009 (UTC)


 * According to Dynamic routing, these are synonyms. This article now only uses the former terminology. ~Kvng (talk) 14:51, 7 May 2023 (UTC)