TheBabelrouting protocol is adistance-vector routing protocol forInternet Protocolpacket-switched networks that is designed to be robust and efficient on both wireless mesh networks and wired networks. Babel is described in RFC 8966.^[1]

Babel is based on the ideas inDestination-Sequenced Distance Vector routing (DSDV),Ad hoc On-Demand Distance Vector Routing (AODV), andCisco'sEnhanced Interior Gateway Routing Protocol (EIGRP), but uses different techniques for loop avoidance. Babel has provisions for using multiple dynamically computed metrics; by default, it uses hop-count on wired networks and a variant ofexpected transmission count on wireless links, but can be configured to take radio diversity into account^[2] or to automatically compute a link's latency and include it in the metric.^[3]

Babel operates onIPv4 andIPv6 networks. It has been reported to be a robust protocol and to have fast convergence properties.^[4][5]

In October 2015, Babel was chosen as the mandatory-to-implement protocol by the IETF Homenet working group, albeit on an Experimental basis.^[6] In June 2016, an IETF working group was created whose main goal is to produce a standard version of Babel.^[7] In January 2021, the working group produced a standard version of Babel,^[1] then proceeded to publish a number of extensions, including for authentication, source-specific routing, and routing of IPv4 through IPv6 routers.^[8]

babeld

Developer(s)	Juliusz Chroboczek
Repository	github.com/jech/babeld
Operating system	Linux,BSD,Mac OS X
Type	Routing software
License	MIT License
Website	www.irif.fr/~jch/software/babel/

Several implementations of Babel are freely available:

• The standalone "reference" implementation
• A complete reimplementation integrated in theBIRD routing platform^[9]
• A version integrated into the FRR routing suite^[10] (previouslyQuagga, from which Babel has been removed^[11]).
• A tiny, stub-only subset implementation^[12]
• A minimal, IPv6-only reimplementation in Python^[13]
• An independent implementation in Java,^[14] part of the freeRouter project^[15]

Both BIRD and the reference version have support forSource-specific routing^[16] and for cryptographic authentication.^[17]

• Babel – a loop-avoiding distance-vector routing protocol
• J. Chroboczek (2011),The Babel Routing ProtocolRFC 6126

• Routing algorithms
• Ad hoc routing protocols
• Routing protocols
• Mesh networking

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