Editing Routing Information Protocol (section)

===RIP version 2===
Due to the deficiencies of the original RIP specification, RIP version 2 (RIPv2) was developed in 1993,<ref name="ciscopress.com"/> published in 1994,{{Ref RFC|1723}} and declared [[Internet Standard]] 56 in 1998.{{Ref RFC|2453}} It included the ability to carry subnet information, thus supporting [[Classless Inter-Domain Routing]] (CIDR). To maintain backward compatibility, the hop count limit of 15 remained. RIPv2 has facilities to fully interoperate with the earlier specification if all ''Must Be Zero'' protocol fields in the RIPv1 messages are properly specified. In addition, a ''compatibility switch'' feature{{Ref RFC|2453|repeat=yes}} allows fine-grained interoperability adjustments.

In an effort to avoid unnecessary load on hosts that do not participate in routing, RIPv2 ''[[multicast]]s'' the entire routing table to all adjacent routers at the address [[Multicast address|{{IPaddr|224.0.0.9}}]], as opposed to RIPv1 which uses [[Broadcasting (networking)|broadcast]]. [[Unicast]] addressing is still allowed for special applications.

([[MD5]]) authentication for RIP was introduced in 1997.{{Ref RFC|2082}}{{Ref RFC|4822}}

Route tags were also added in RIP version 2. This functionality allows a distinction between routes learned from the RIP protocol and routes learned from other protocols.