EIGRP loadbalancing diable

[ajay kondapalli]

Can we disable EIGRP Loadbalancing feature completely ?

By default it loadbalances upto 4 equal paths , if i want to disable that feature completely, is it possible to do using variance command ?

Thanks,

Ajay

[Richard Burts]

Ajay

The variance command does not have any effect on equal cost load balancing, so there is not any way to disable EIGRP load balancing using the variance command.

I am not sure why you would want to disable EIGRP load balancing, but if you do I think the approach to take would be to configure the maximum paths parameter to 1.

HTH

Rick

[manish arora]

Hi Rick & Aj,

@rick , wouldn't it be much better to change the Delay parameter and make one of the link appear with more cost then other. My only worry with maximum paths is that it is configured under the routing process and will effect all eigrp interface on that router, where as Changing Delay value will just effect that interface route.

Manish

[Richard Burts]

Manish

Your concern is: "with maximum paths is that it is configured under the routing process and will effect all eigrp interface on that router". But the question that Ajay asks in the original post is: "Can we disable EIGRP Loadbalancing feature completely ?"

So my understanding is that Ajay does want all EIGRP interfaces to be affected. And that is what I made suggestions about in my response suggesting maximum paths.

Your suggestion to manipulate delay works on an interface by interface basis. And it does not disable load balancing, but assures that routes will not have equal metrics and so by default will not load balance. I have adopted your approach in numerous customer environments where we wanted to be deterministic about how traffic would flow in situations where load balancing  was possible. My personal preference would be to use your approach and to manipulate delay. But to answer the question that Ajay asks, I believe that manimum paths would do specifically what he is asking for.

HTH

Rick

[ajay kondapalli]

Thanks Rick,  Can this theory be applied to all routing protocols like BGP, OSPF?

[Richard Burts]

Ajay

I am not sure which theory you are asking about. The theory of changing the maximum paths parameter does work with other routing protocols (though BGP is a bit different since by default BGP wants to choose a single path and does not load share by default). The theory of changing the delay on an interface to affect the routing decision is unique to EIGRP and would not work for OSPF or other routing protocols.

HTH

Rick

[Kishore Chennupati]

Hi Manish,

From what I can see from  AJ's post he wants  just one path which would be the best path and as rick suggested maximum-path is the way to go. If we change interface by interface and increase the delay on all other interface, firstly its an admin task and also in future if he decides to have equal cost load balancing then he needs to revert back all of this changes and everytime he does that the adjacencies go up and down and bit of a hassle.

With the maximum-path command, all he has to do is to remove that from the eigrp routing process and that would be enough

Regards,

[manish arora]

Thanks Rick