The hold timer delays the preemption of a master VRRP device by a high-priority backup device.
A hold timer is used when a VRRP-enabled device that was previously a master device failed, but is now back up. This restored device now has a higher priority than the current VRRP master device, and VRRP normally triggers an immediate switchover. In this situation, it is possible that not all software components on the backup device have converged yet. The hold timer can enforce a waiting period before the higher-priority backup device assumes the role of master VRRP device again. The timer must be set to a number greater than 0 seconds for this functionality to take effect.
Hold timer functionality is supported in both version 2 and version 3 of VRRP and VRRP-E.