In computer networking, the Hot Standby Routing Protocol (HSRP) is a Cisco proprietary redundancy protocol for establishing a fault-tolerant default gateway, and has been described in detail in RFC 2281.

The protocol establishes a framework between network routers in order to achieve default gateway failover if the primary gateway becomes inaccessible, in close association with a rapid-converging routing protocol like EIGRP or OSPF. HSRP routers send multicast Hello messages to other routers to notify them of their priorities (which router is preferred) and current status (Active or Standby).