Flooding (computer networking)
Encyclopedia
Flooding is a simple routing algorithm
Routing
Routing is the process of selecting paths in a network along which to send network traffic. Routing is performed for many kinds of networks, including the telephone network , electronic data networks , and transportation networks...

 in which every incoming packet is sent through every outgoing link. See flooding algorithm
Flooding algorithm
A flooding algorithm is an algorithm for distributing material to every part of a connected network. The name derives from the concept of inundation by a flood....

 for details.

Advantages

  • If a packet can be delivered, it will (probably multiple times).
  • Since flooding naturally utilizes every path through the network, it will also use the shortest path.

  • This algorithm is very simple to implement.

Problems

  • Flooding can be costly in terms of wasted bandwidth and, as in the case of a Ping flood
    Ping flood
    A ping flood is a simple denial-of-service attack where the attacker/s overwhelms the victim with ICMP Echo Request packets. It is most successful if the attacker has more bandwidth than the victim...

     or a Denial of service attack, it can be harmful to the reliability of a computer network
    Computer network
    A computer network, often simply referred to as a network, is a collection of hardware components and computers interconnected by communication channels that allow sharing of resources and information....

    .
  • Duplicate packets may circulate forever, unless certain precautions are taken:
    • Use a hop count or a time to live
      Time to live
      Time to live is a mechanism that limits the lifespan of data in a computer or network. TTL may be implemented as a counter or timestamp attached to or embedded in the data. Once the prescribed event count or timespan has elapsed, data is discarded. In computer networking, TTL prevents a data...

      count and include it with each packet. This value should take into account the number of nodes that a packet may have to pass through on the way to its destination.
    • Have each node keep track of every packet seen and only forward each packet once.
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