VRRP Object Tracking

Object tracking is an independent process that manages creating, monitoring, and removing tracked objects such as the state of the line protocol of an interface. Clients such as the Hot Standby Router Protocol (HSRP), Gateway Load Balancing Protocol (GLBP), and VRRP register their interest with specific tracked objects and act when the state of an object changes.

Each tracked object is identified by a unique number that is specified on the tracking CLI. Client processes such as VRRP use this number to track a specific object.

The tracking process periodically polls the tracked objects and notes any change of value. The changes in the tracked object are communicated to interested client processes, either immediately or after a specified delay. The object values are reported as either up or down.

VRRP object tracking gives VRRP access to all the objects available through the tracking process. The tracking process provides the ability to track individual objects such as a the state of an interface line protocol, state of an IP route, or the reachability of a route.

VRRP provides an interface to the tracking process. Each VRRP group can track multiple objects that may affect the priority of the VRRP router. You specify the object number to be tracked and VRRP will be notified of any change to the object. VRRP increments (or decrements) the priority of the virtual router based on the state of the object being tracked.

How Object Tracking Affects the Priority of a VRRP Router
The priority of a device can change dynamically if it has been configured for object tracking and the object that is being tracked goes down. The tracking process periodically polls the tracked objects and notes any change of value. The changes in the tracked object are communicated to VRRP, either immediately or after a specified delay. The object values are reported as either up or down. Examples of objects that can be tracked are the line protocol state of an interface or the reachability of an IP route. If the specified object goes down, the VRRP priority is reduced. The VRRP router with the higher priority can now become the virtual router master if it has the vrrp preempt command configured. See the VRRP Object Tracking section for more information on object tracking.