This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
2.6 Virtual Routers Without Owner
Now that we have discussed the issues of ownership and nonownership, we may call attention to the assertion that there can be at most one owner in a virtual router. The term used at most one suggests that it is possible to have virtual routers protecting IP addresses that are not owned by any specific router. As a matter of fact, it is not uncommon to have virtual routers in which none of the group members is an owner of the protected address(es). Figure 2-7 depicts such a virtual router.
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FIGURE
2-7. Virtual router without an owner
We have three VRRP routers in Figure 2-7—R1, R2, and R3—all members of the virtual router V1. Since the IP address, IP(V1) protected by the V1 is not the real IP address of any of these routers, we call V1 a virtual router without an owner. We refer to the address(es) such as IP(V1) protected in virtual routers without owners as floating addresses or as pure virtual addresses.
The main advantage of having a virtual router without an owner is the flexibility it gives to the network administrator. Since the protected IP address is not the real address of any one of the participant routers, the administrator can change these physical routers or their addresses without any need to reconfigure the virtual router itself or the hosts. In Figure 2-7, for example, the network administrator is free to change the IP addresses of R1, R2, or R3 without having any impact on the virtual router V1—that is, of course, as long as these addresses are in the same subnet 192.32.5.0.