VRRP: Increasing Reliability and Failover with the Virtual Router Redundance Protocol

4.2. VRRP State Machine in Motion

A VRRP router implements an instance of the state machine for each virtual router. A VRRP router participating in the election process of multiple virtual routers implements multiple instances of the state machine.

The VRRP state machine contains three states:

1. Initialize

2. Master

3. Backup

The machine permits the transition from any state to any state.

4.2.1. VRRP State Machine Overview

A startup event such as startup of VRRP puts the VRRP state machine in motion by leading it to the initialize state. Depending on whether the router is the owner or not, the machine transitions either to master or backup state. A shutdown event such as a VRRP being stopped, whatever the current state is, brings the state back to the ...