IP packet question for my cisco academy class

[rossghanim]

I am a Cisco academy instructor at Sunny Hills Academy teaching Cisco CCNA. I want to ask this questions for my class at Cisco Academy Program in Fullerton CA.

1-what is the maximum # of the outgoing links in a backbone router?

in other words, when a packet reach a router, a router has to take a decision to send the packet to a particular outgoing interface, port, which has a mac address. What is the max. # of outgoing interfaces in a backbone router? I am not talking about routing protocol but ip packets.

2- The TTL field in the ip header is 8-bit, so the max. # of hops is 255, but this to prevent the ip packet from moving forever. What is the max. # of hops that the ip packet can traverse from the source to the destination?

I like to ask Cisco expert Vivek Baveja this question please

Thanks

[thisisshanky]

1. It depends on what router you are using as the backbone router....Your question is kinda unclear....

2. Practically the value of TTL set on a packet by the host varies from host to host. If you set it to 255, it should go 255 hops before which it is dropped, but I dont think, there is any location reachable via the internet, where the number of hops would be that much high!

[rossghanim]

Now you confused between the Routing protocol and

> IP

> >packet it self.

> >

> > IEGRP knows up to 255 net. but I'm looking to the

> IP

> >it self not the protocol.

> >

> >For example. if some body send a packet from RIP

> >protocol to the destination far away 60 hops, the

> IP

> >address will reach the destination. so, nothing to

> do

> >with routing protocol RIP (max 15 network this

> >protocol knows),but still the IP packet will

> continue.