The RIP to OSI Layer Question
Consider this question: On which OSI layer does RIP work:
In which OSI Layer RIP Protocol works? Can some one explain in which layer it works and justify that?
At first, it's hard to know what exactly works means given the bad descriptive assumption (which layer) in the question. Obviously, RIP is a multi-layered component; as such, there isn't just one layer it operates on. Eventually the question was clarified. I appreciate Fizzle's attempt to answer the question, although I disagree with parts of the answer itself.
Theoretical response
In the face of extremely vague OSI mapping questions like this, we could have just assumed that the person wants to know how to map RIP to the various layers of the OSI seven-layer model. I am opposed to mind reading; however, if we did try to do that it's possible to answer this question by enumerating the various ways to map RIP to OSI-Layer equivalents.
One possible answer to how you'd map RIP to various OSI layers
RIP is just another application running in an operating system. Thus, there are several ways to answer this question, among them:
- RIP has components within the OSI Network Layer (Layer 3), because it uses IP broadcasts / multicasts to communicate.
- RIP has components within the OSI Transport Layer (Layer 4), because it uses UDP port 521 for protocol packets
RIP has components within the OSI Application Layer (Layer 7), due to the application state contained in the packets:
- Route Identifier (Network)
- Route Metric (Hop Count)
The "ghost question" idea
Ron also proposed a ghost question (not quite sure what he meant... perhaps this... but it only mentions RIP in passing, and it actually looks like a Meta Network Engineering discussion in itself).
My Questions
I don't have peace about this RIP OSI mapping question yet; there was debate in the comments which genuinely should happen here on Meta. Nobody voted to close, but in my opinion there are still open questions to resolve about how we handle questions like this in the future.
What should we do with vague OSI protocol mapping questions, such as this RIP question or others similar to it?
- Are there some OSI mapping questions which would be too broad, or off-topic? If so, give examples.
- Are there some guidelines for handling OSI protocol mapping questions? What are there boundaries of on / off-topic / too broad for OSI protocol mappings?
- What do we want to do with Ron's question and answer; is this a meta discussion, or is this for the main NE site?
NE community, please respond with your thoughts.