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From: tsuchiya@THUMPER.BELLCORE.COM (Paul Tsuchiya)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip
Subject: Re: gateways ignores ICMP redirect
Message-ID: <wcAKIMG0M2Yz8iPuVx@thumper.bellcore.com>
Date: 15 May 91 16:43:04 GMT
References: <1991May15.095703@sicsun.epfl.ch>
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 13

Briefly put, it is quite dangerous for routers to use icmp redirects.
For a routing algorithm to work correctly (that is, no long-term
looping), then the information received at each router must be
consistent with that received  by other routers.

The use of icmp redirects by routers can easily lead to looping,
if it is not a coordinated part of the routing algorithm (I don't know
any routing algorithms that explicitly use redirects).

One question is--why is the router getting the redirects in the
first place?

PT