Equal cost eigrp load balancing and the meaning of *

[g.eleftheriou]

Hello,

I have a route that is equally load balanced across two links. However I see the * only on the second link. Does this mean that this is the preferred route and when will it use the other route?

3560G#sh ip route 10.X.X.0
Routing entry for 10.X.X.0/24
  Known via "eigrp 200", distance 90, metric 1792768, type internal
  Redistributing via eigrp 200
  Last update from 10.254.252.102 on Vlan110, 15:10:35 ago
  Routing Descriptor Blocks:
    10.254.252.102, from 10.254.252.102, 15:10:35 ago, via Vlan110
      Route metric is 1792768, traffic share count is 1
      Total delay is 21210 microseconds, minimum bandwidth is 2048 Kbit
      Reliability 255/255, minimum MTU 1500 bytes
      Loading 1/255, Hops 4
  * 10.254.245.227, from 10.254.245.227, 15:10:35 ago, via Vlan120
      Route metric is 1792768, traffic share count is 1
      Total delay is 21210 microseconds, minimum bandwidth is 2048 Kbit
      Reliability 255/255, minimum MTU 1500 bytes
      Loading 5/255, Hops 3

[Jon Marshall]

If the 2 paths are both equal cost then the * should switch between the 2 routes. Are you saying that you only ever see it next to the 2nd route ?

Jon

[g.eleftheriou]

yes i only see it on the second route the last hours I checked, although both routes have equal metric and both are in cef table.

[shailesh.h]

Hi,

Following link provides load balancing function for EIGRP

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/tech/tk365/technologies_tech_note09186a0080094820.shtml

By default any routing protocol it installs the route with the lowest administrative distance in the routing table.

There is also an asterisk (*) next to one of the block entries This corresponds to the active route that is used for new traffic.

The position of the asterisk (*) keeps rotating among the equal cost paths each time a packet/flow is served.