Category: EIGRP

The Graceful Shutdown feature allows EIGRP to advertise it is being deactivated. This means neighbours do not need to wait for hold timers to expired and can shutdown a neighbour immediately. The Graceful Shutdown is achieved by sending a hello packet with the K-Values all set to 255.

In named mode the shutdown command can be used to initiate a graceful shutdown, and can be implemented as follows:

R2(config-router)#?
Router configuration commands:
<snip>
shutdown Shutdown this instance of EIGRP

R2(config-router-af)#?
Address Family configuration commands:
<snip>
shutdown Shutdown address family
timers Adjust peering based timers
topology Topology configuration mode

R2(config-router-af-interface)#?
Address Family Interfaces configuration commands:
<snip>
shutdown Disable Address-Family on interface
split-horizon Perform split horizon
summary-address Perform address summarization

The below network shows two routers advertising two loopbacks. Wireshark is being used to analyse the Ethernet segment between the two routers.

R1 gracefully shuts down its fa0/0 interface as follows:

Enter configuration commands, one per line. End with CNTL/Z.
R1(config)#router eigrp ccie
R1(config-router)#address-family ipv4 as 100
R1(config-router-af)#af-interface fastEthernet 0/0
R1(config-router-af-interface)#shut
*Oct 6 20:49:35.899: %DUAL-5-NBRCHANGE: EIGRP-IPv4 100: Neighbor 1.2.1.2 (FastEthernet0/0) is down: interface down

The following packet capture shows the hello packet set to the neighbour with all the K values set to 255