Can anyone explain flooding algorithm in networking in detail?

Answer 1

Algorithm:There are several variants of flooding algorithm. Most work roughly as follows:

1. Each node acts as both a transmitter and a receiver.
2. Each node tries to forward every message to every one of its neighbors except the source node.

This results in every message eventually being delivered to all reachable parts of the network.

Algorithms may need to be more complex than this, since, in some case, precautions have to be taken to avoid wasted duplicate deliveries and infinite loops, and to allow messages to eventually expire from the system. A variant of flooding called selective flooding partially addresses these issues by only sending packets to routers in the same direction. In selective flooding the routers don't send every incoming packet on every line but only on those lines which are going approximately in the right direction.

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. While a message may only have one destination it has to be sent to every host. In the case of a ping flood or a denial of service attack, it can be harmful to the reliability of a Computer Network.
• Messages can become duplicated in the network further increasing the load on the networks bandwidth as well as requiring an increase in processing complexity to disregard duplicate messages.
• Messages can become duplicated in the network further increasing the load on the networks bandwidth as well as requiring an increase in processing complexity to disregard duplicate messages.