Tags are simply a way to mark the routes. Typically people will do it if they have multiple redistribution points (or if someone tells them to set a tag). Depending on the complexity of the network, tags are used for many different reasons, but those are all "internal" reasons to a company unless you have a relationship and reason to exchange RIP with your customer (MPLS VPN?). If you are seeing this on VRF customers, would you have any reason to be concerned about it? The VRF should keep things separate from the rest of your network. If you aren't running a VRF, why do you have RIP enabled on the edge interface to see these things anyway? (e.g. why do you care?) Scott -----Original Message----- From: owner-nanog@merit.edu [mailto:owner-nanog@merit.edu] On Behalf Of Tom Sanders Sent: Friday, August 19, 2005 5:34 AM To: nanog@nanog.org Subject: Tags Hi, I know RIP is outdated and IETF doesnt support it anymore. Knowing this i couldnt think of a more appropriate place to post this query: I keep seeing RIP packets with a tag field filled with some non zero number. Any clues on why this is happening? I know that the border routers were meant to use this to fill their AS numbers there, but is there any vendor that really uses this. Moreover, does it make any sense now in doing so. Thanks, Tom