FHRP is layer 3 protocol whose purpose is to protect the default gateway by offering redundancy of the gateway in a subnet. This is achieved by allowing two or more routers to provide a backup for the first-hop IP router address. If a failure of an active router occurs, the backup router will take over the address. The routers negotiate their roles (Active/Standby) with each other by multicast hello messages to share the VIP (virtual IP address) between the FHRP routers. The terms Active/Standby vary between the different types of FHRP. The active router will act as the default gateway and the standby router acts as a backup the active router.