Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN Routing Configuration Guide, Releases 26.x and Later

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EIGRP in Cisco IOS XE Catalyst SD-WAN devices

Updated: April 24, 2026

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Explains the fundamental characteristics of EIGRP and its role in reducing network flooding. Understanding these core mechanics allows you to leverage its Cisco-developed enhancements for improved performance on supported Cisco IOS XE Catalyst SD-WAN devices.

Enhanced Interior Gateway Routing Protocol (EIGRP) is a Cisco proprietary routing protocol that:

  • is an open-standard Interior Gateway Protocol (IGP),

  • is an enhancement to the original Interior Gateway Routing Protocol (IGRP) developed by Cisco,

  • does not fully update if there are no changes in the network, which reduces flooding activities in other IGPs.

EIGRP is supported only on Cisco IOS XE Catalyst SD-WAN devices. For more information, see Introduction to EIGRP.

When an EIGRP network configuration is sent to a device from any network management protocol or if entered through the CLI when device is in controller mode, it is first stored in the SD-WAN running configuration. The configuration is then sent to the CLI parser, which stores it in running-config after the processing. This processing done by CLI parser results in an inconsistent configuration in the running-configuration. The autonomous mode device allows EIGRP config under default VRF mode.

Device(config)# router eigrp eigrp-name
Device(config-router)# address-family ipv4 vrf 1 autonomous-system 1
Device(config-router-af)# network 10.0.0.0
Device(config-router-af)# commit 
Commit complete.

Device(config-router-af)#
Device# show sdwan running-config | section eigrp
router eigrp eigrp-name
 address-family ipv4 vrf 1 autonomous-system 1
  network 10.0.0.0 0.255.255.255
  network 10.0.0.0
  network 11.0.0.0
  topology base
   exit-af-topology
  !
  exit-address-family

Benefits of EIGRP

EIGRP provides several advantages that enhance network performance and simplify management for network administrators.

These are the key benefits of using EIGRP:

  • Increased network width: EIGRP supports an increased network width from 15 to 100 hops.

  • Fast convergence: EIGRP provides fast convergence.

  • Incremental updates: EIGRP uses incremental updates, which minimizes bandwidth consumption.

  • Protocol-independent neighbor discovery: EIGRP supports protocol-independent neighbor discovery.

  • Easy scaling: EIGRP is designed for easy scaling.

EIGRP restrictions

When implementing EIGRP, note these limitations and restrictions

  • EIGRP is not supported on the transport side network on Cisco IOS XE Catalyst SD-WAN devices.

  • EIGRP route match is not supported in Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN Controller centralized control policy.