RIP is a routing protocol and uses which metric as its primary measure?

• A. Distance Vector/Hop Count
• B. Link-State/Cost
• C. Path Vector/AS-Path
• D. Hybrid/Delay

Answer: (A)

RIP uses a distance-vector routing approach, and its primary metric is hop count—the number of routers a packet must traverse to reach a destination. The route with the fewest hops is preferred, so networks are chosen by the shortest path in terms of hops. A key consequence is a hard limit: RIP considers destinations more than 15 hops away as unreachable, which helps prevent routing loops in this simple scheme. This simplicity is why RIP is suited for small networks, but it lacks the more nuanced costs that reflect link quality in larger, more complex networks. By comparison, link-state protocols evaluate costs based on factors like bandwidth, path-vector protocols (such as BGP) track path information like the AS path, and hybrid approaches like EIGRP combine multiple metrics, including delay, but RIP sticks to hop count.