Exterior Gateway Protocol

What Does Exterior Gateway Protocol Mean?

Exterior Gateway Protocol (EGP) is an obsolete routing protocol that was used for data exchange between neighboring gateway hosts in autonomous systems. EGP was frequently used by research institutes, universities, government agencies and private organizations, but was replaced by Border Gateway Protocol (BGP).

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EGP is based on periodic message exchange polling for neighbor reachability and poll commands to request update responses. EGP is documented in RFC 904, which was published in April of 1984.

Exterior Gateway Protocol is also known as External Gateway Protocol.

Techopedia Explains Exterior Gateway Protocol

Prior to the introduction of BGP, Internet hosts used EGP for data table routing exchanges. The EGP routing table includes known routers, addresses, cost metrics and each optimal route selection path. The EGP model is built with finite event, action and transition automation.

EGP mechanisms are:

  • Acquire neighbors
  • Monitor neighbors
  • Exchange data as update messages

While Interior Gateway Protocols are used within a domain, EGP provides a way for neighboring routers in different domains to share information.

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Margaret Rouse

Margaret Rouse is an award-winning technical writer and teacher known for her ability to explain complex technical subjects to a non-technical, business audience. Over the past twenty years her explanations have appeared on TechTarget websites and she's been cited as an authority in articles by the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine and Discovery Magazine.Margaret's idea of a fun day is helping IT and business professionals learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages. If you have a suggestion for a new definition or how to improve a technical explanation, please email Margaret or contact her…