Stabilization of general loop-free routing

We present a protocol for maintaining a spanning tree that is maximal with respect to any given (bounded and monotonic) routing metric. This protocol has two interesting adaptive properties. First, the protocol is stabilizing: starting from any state, the protocol stabilizes to a state where a maximal tree is present. Second, the protocol is loop-free: starting from any state where a spanning tree is present, the protocol stabilizes, without forming any loops, to a state where a maximal tree is present. The stabilization time of this protocol is O(n deg), where n is the number of nodes, and deg is the node degree in the network. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science (USA).