Which protocol is used to find the best path between the source and the destination router using its own shortest path first?

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Prerequisite – OSPF fundamentals 
Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) is a link-state routing protocol that is used to find the best path between the source and the destination router using its own Shortest Path First). OSPF is developed by Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) as one of the Interior Gateway Protocol (IGP), i.e, the protocol which aims at moving the packet within a large autonomous system or routing domain. It is a network layer protocol which works on protocol number 89 and uses AD value 110. OSPF uses multicast address 224.0.0.5 for normal communication and 224.0.0.6 for update to designated router(DR)/Backup Designated Router (BDR). 

OSPF terms – 

1. Router I’d – It is the highest active IP address present on the router. First, the highest loopback address is considered. If no loopback is configured then the highest active IP address on the interface of the router is considered. 
    
2. Router priority – It is an 8-bit value assigned to a router operating OSPF, used to elect DR and BDR in a broadcast network. 
    
3. Designated Router (DR) – It is elected to minimize the number of adjacencies formed. DR distributes the LSAs to all the other routers. DR is elected in a broadcast network to which all the other routers share their DBD. In a broadcast network, the router requests for an update to DR, and DR will respond to that request with an update. 
    
4. Backup Designated Router (BDR) – BDR is a backup to DR in a broadcast network. When DR goes down, BDR becomes DR and performs its functions. 
    

DR and BDR election – DR and BDR election takes place in the broadcast network or multi-access network. Here are the criteria for the election: 

1. Router having the highest router priority will be declared as DR. 
    
2. If there is a tie in router priority then the highest router I’d be considered. First, the highest loopback address is considered. If no loopback is configured then the highest active IP address on the interface of the router is considered. 
    

OSPF states – The device operating OSPF goes through certain states. These states are: 

1. Down – In this state, no hello packets have been received on the interface. 
   Note – The Downstate doesn’t mean that the interface is physically down. Here, it means that the OSPF adjacency process has not started yet. 
    
2. INIT – In this state, the hello packets have been received from the other router. 
    
3. 2WAY – In the 2WAY state, both the routers have received the hello packets from other routers. Bidirectional connectivity has been established. 
   Note – In between the 2WAY state and Exstart state, the DR and BDR election takes place. 
    
4. Exstart – In this state, NULL DBD are exchanged. In this state, the master and slave elections take place. The router having the higher router I’d become the master while the other becomes the slave. This election decides Which router will send its DBD first (routers who have formed neighbourship will take part in this election). 
    
5. Exchange – In this state, the actual DBDs are exchanged. 
    
6. Loading – In this state, LSR, LSU, and LSA (Link State Acknowledgement) are exchanged. 
   Important – When a router receives DBD from other router, it compares its own DBD with the other router DBD. If the received DBD is more updated than its own DBD then the router will send LSR to the other router stating what links are needed. The other router replies with the LSU containing the updates that are needed. In return to this, the router replies with the Link State Acknowledgement. 
    
7. Full – In this state, synchronization of all the information takes place. OSPF routing can begin only after the Full state. 
    

The OSPF (Open Shortest Path First) protocol is one of a family of IP Routing protocols, and is an Interior Gateway Protocol (IGP) for the Internet, used to distribute IP routing information throughout a single Autonomous System (AS) in an IP network.

The OSPF protocol is a link-state routing protocol, which means that the routers exchange topology information with their nearest neighbors. The topology information is flooded throughout the AS, so that every router within the AS has a complete picture of the topology of the AS. This picture is then used to calculate end-to-end paths through the AS, normally using a variant of the Dijkstra algorithm. Therefore, in a link-state routing protocol, the next hop address to which data is forwarded is determined by choosing the best end-to-end path to the eventual destination.

The main advantage of a link state routing protocol like OSPF is that the complete knowledge of topology allows routers to calculate routes that satisfy particular criteria. This can be useful for traffic engineering purposes, where routes can be constrained to meet particular quality of service requirements. The main disadvantage of a link state routing protocol is that it does not scale well as more routers are added to the routing domain. Increasing the number of routers increases the size and frequency of the topology updates, and also the length of time it takes to calculate end-to-end routes. This lack of scalability means that a link state routing protocol is unsuitable for routing across the Internet at large, which is the reason why IGPs only route traffic within a single AS.

Each OSPF router distributes information about its local state (usable interfaces and reachable neighbors, and the cost of using each interface) to other routers using a Link State Advertisement (LSA) message. Each router uses the received messages to build up an identical database that describes the topology of the AS.

From this database, each router calculates its own routing table using a Shortest Path First (SPF) or Dijkstra algorithm. This routing table contains all the destinations the routing protocol knows about, associated with a next hop IP address and outgoing interface.

• The protocol recalculates routes when network topology changes, using the Dijkstra algorithm, and minimises the routing protocol traffic that it generates.
• It provides support for multiple paths of equal cost.
• It provides a multi-level hierarchy (two-level for OSPF) called "area routing," so that information about the topology within a defined area of the AS is hidden from routers outside this area. This enables an additional level of routing protection and a reduction in routing protocol traffic.
• All protocol exchanges can be authenticated so that only trusted routers can join in the routing exchanges for the AS.

OSPF Version 3 (OSPFv3)

OSPF version 2 (OSPFv2) is used with IPv4. OSPFv3 has been updated for compatibility with IPv6's 128-bit address space. However, this is not the only difference between OSPFv2 and OSPFv3. Other changes in OSPFv3, as defined in RFC 2740, include

• protocol processing per-link not per-subnet
• addition of flooding scope, which may be link-local, area or AS-wide
• removal of opaque LSAs
• support for multiple instances of OSPF per link
• various packet and LSA format changes (including removal of addressing semantics).

Both OSPFv2 and OSPFv3 are fully supported by DC-OSPF.

Learn more: view the specification of our OSPF protocol stack.

Routing protocol for IP networks

Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) is a routing protocol for Internet Protocol (IP) networks. It uses a link state routing (LSR) algorithm and falls into the group of interior gateway protocols (IGPs), operating within a single autonomous system (AS).

OSPF gathers link state information from available routers and constructs a topology map of the network. The topology is presented as a routing table to the Internet Layer for routing packets by their destination IP address. OSPF supports Internet Protocol Version 4 (IPv4) and Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6) networks and supports the Classless Inter-Domain Routing (CIDR) addressing model.

OSPF is widely used in large enterprise networks. IS-IS, another LSR-based protocol, is more common in large service provider networks.

Originally designed in the 1980s, OSPF is defined for IPv4 in protocol version 2 by RFC 2328 (1998).[1] The updates for IPv6 are specified as OSPF Version 3 in RFC 5340 (2008).[2] OSPF supports the Classless Inter-Domain Routing (CIDR) addressing model.

Concepts

OSPF is an interior gateway protocol (IGP) for routing Internet Protocol (IP) packets within a single routing domain, such as an autonomous system. It gathers link state information from available routers and constructs a topology map of the network. The topology is presented as a routing table to the Internet Layer which routes packets based solely on their destination IP address.

OSPF detects changes in the topology, such as link failures, and converges on a new loop-free routing structure within seconds.[3] It computes the shortest-path tree for each route using a method based on Dijkstra's algorithm. The OSPF routing policies for constructing a route table are governed by link metrics associated with each routing interface. Cost factors may be the distance of a router (round-trip time), data throughput of a link, or link availability and reliability, expressed as simple unitless numbers. This provides a dynamic process of traffic load balancing between routes of equal cost.

OSPF divides the network into routing areas to simplify administration and optimize traffic and resource utilization. Areas are identified by 32-bit numbers, expressed either simply in decimal, or often in the same octet-based dot-decimal notation used for IPv4 addresses. By convention, area 0 (zero), or 0.0.0.0, represents the core or backbone area of an OSPF network. While the identifications of other areas may be chosen at will, administrators often select the IP address of a main router in an area as the area identifier. Each additional area must have a connection to the OSPF backbone area. Such connections are maintained by an interconnecting router, known as an area border router (ABR). An ABR maintains separate link-state databases for each area it serves and maintains summarized routes for all areas in the network.

OSPF runs over Internet Protocol Version 4 (IPv4) and Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6), but does not use a transport protocol, such as UDP or TCP. It encapsulates its data directly in IP packets with protocol number 89. This is in contrast to other routing protocols, such as the Routing Information Protocol (RIP) and the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP). OSPF implements its own transport error detection and correction functions. OSPF uses multicast addressing for distributing route information within a broadcast domain. It reserves the multicast addresses 224.0.0.5 (IPv4) and FF02::5 (IPv6) for all SPF/link state routers (AllSPFRouters) and 224.0.0.6 (IPv4) and FF02::6 (IPv6) for all Designated Routers (AllDRouters).[4][5] For non-broadcast networks, special provisions for configuration facilitate neighbor discovery.[1] OSPF multicast IP packets never traverse IP routers, they never travel more than one hop. The protocol may therefore be considered a link layer protocol, but is often also attributed to the application layer in the TCP/IP model. It has a virtual link feature that can be used to create an adjacency tunnel across multiple hops. OSPF over IPv4 can operate securely between routers, optionally using a variety of authentication methods to allow only trusted routers to participate in routing. OSPFv3 (IPv6) relies on standard IPv6 protocol security (IPsec), and has no internal authentication methods.

For routing IP multicast traffic, OSPF supports the Multicast Open Shortest Path First (MOSPF) protocol.[6] Cisco does not include MOSPF in their OSPF implementations.[7] Protocol Independent Multicast (PIM) in conjunction with OSPF or other IGPs, is widely deployed.

OSPF version 3 introduces modifications to the IPv4 implementation of the protocol.[2] Except for virtual links, all neighbor exchanges use IPv6 link-local addressing exclusively. The IPv6 protocol runs per link, rather than based on the subnet. All IP prefix information has been removed from the link-state advertisements and from the hello discovery packet making OSPFv3 essentially protocol-independent. Despite the expanded IP addressing to 128 bits in IPv6, area and router Identifications are still based on 32-bit numbers.

Router relationships

OSPF supports complex networks with multiple routers, including backup routers, to balance traffic load on multiple links to other subnets. Neighboring routers in the same broadcast domain or at each end of a point-to-point link communicate with each other via the OSPF protocol. Routers form adjacencies when they have detected each other. This detection is initiated when a router identifies itself in a hello protocol packet. Upon acknowledgment, this establishes a two-way state and the most basic relationship. The routers in an Ethernet or Frame Relay network select a designated router (DR) and a backup designated router (BDR) which act as a hub to reduce traffic between routers. OSPF uses both unicast and multicast transmission modes to send "hello" packets and link-state updates.

As a link-state routing protocol, OSPF establishes and maintains neighbor relationships for exchanging routing updates with other routers. The neighbor relationship table is called an adjacency database. Two OSPF routers are neighbors if they are members of the same subnet and share the same area ID, subnet mask, timers and authentication. In essence, OSPF neighborship is a relationship between two routers that allow them to see and understand each other but nothing more. OSPF neighbors do not exchange any routing information – the only packets they exchange are hello packets. OSPF adjacencies are formed between selected neighbors and allow them to exchange routing information. Two routers must first be neighbors and only then, can they become adjacent. Two routers become adjacent if at least one of them is designated router or backup designated router (on multiaccess-type networks), or they are interconnected by a point-to-point or point-to-multipoint network type. For forming a neighbor relationship between, the interfaces used to form the relationship must be in the same OSPF area. While an interface may be configured to belong to multiple areas, this is generally not practiced. When configured in a second area, an interface must be configured as a secondary interface.

Operation modes

The OSPF can have different operation modes on the following setups on an interface/network:

• Broadcast (default), each router advertises itself by periodically multicasting hello packets, and the use of designated routers. Using multicast
• Non-broadcast multi-access, with the use of designated routers. May need static configuration. Packets are sent as unicast,
• Point-to-multipoint, where OSPF treats neighbours as point-to-point links. No designated router is elected. Using multicast. Separate hello packets are sent to each neighbor.
• Point-to-point. Each router advertises itself by periodically multicasting hello packets. No designated router is elected. The interface can be IP unnumbered (without assigning a unique IP address to it). Using multicast.
• Virtual links, the packets are sent as unicast. Can only be configured on a non-backbone area (but not stub-area). Endpoints need to be ABR, the virtual links behave as unnumbered point-to-point connections. The cost of an intra-area path between the two routers is added to the link.
• Virtual link over Generic Routing Encapsulation (GRE). Since OSPF does not support virtual links for other areas then the backbone. A workaround is to use GRE over backbone area.[8] Note if the same IP or router ID is used the link creates two equal-cost routes to the destination.[9]
• Sham link[10][11][12] A link that connects sites that belong to the same OSPF area and share an OSPF backdoor link via MPLS VPN backbone.

Adjacency state machine

Each OSPF router within a network communicates with other neighboring routers on each connecting interface to establish the states of all adjacencies. Every such communication sequence is a separate conversation identified by the pair of router IDs of the communicating neighbors. RFC 2328 specifies the protocol for initiating these conversations (Hello Protocol) and for establishing full adjacencies (database description packets, link-state request packets). During its course, each router conversation transitions through a maximum of eight conditions defined by a state machine:[1][13]

1. Down: The state down represents the initial state of a conversation when no information has been exchanged and retained between routers with the Hello Protocol.
2. Attempt: The attempt state is similar to the down state, except that a router is in the process of efforts to establish a conversation with another router, but is only used on non-broadcast multiple-access networks (NBMAs).
3. Init: The init state indicates that a hello packet has been received from a neighbor, but the router has not established a two-way conversation.
4. Two-way: The two-way state indicates the establishment of a bidirectional conversation between two routers. This state immediately precedes the establishment of adjacency. This is the lowest state of a router that may be considered as a DR.
5. Exchange start (exstart): The exstart state is the first step of adjacency of two routers.
6. Exchange: In the exchange state, a router is sending its link-state database information to the adjacent neighbor. At this state, a router can exchange all OSPF routing protocol packets.
7. Loading: In the loading state, a router requests the most recent link-state advertisements (LSAs) from its neighbor discovered in the previous state.
8. Full: The full state concludes the conversation when the routers are fully adjacent, and the state appears in all router- and network-LSAs. The link-state databases of the neighbors are fully synchronized.

OSPF areas

A network is divided into OSPF areas that are logical groupings of hosts and networks. An area includes its connecting router having an interface for each connected network link. Each router maintains a separate link-state database for the area whose information may be summarized towards the rest of the network by the connecting router. Thus, the topology of an area is unknown outside the area. This reduces the routing traffic between parts of an autonomous system.

OSPF can handle thousands of routers with more a concern of reaching capacity of the forwarding information base (FIB) table when the network contains lots of routes and lower-end devices.[14] Modern low-end routers have a full gigabyte of RAM,[15] which allows them to handle many routers in an area 0. Many resources[16] refer to OSPF guides from over 20 years ago where it was impressive to have 64 MB of RAM.

Areas are uniquely identified with 32-bit numbers. The area identifiers are commonly written in the dot-decimal notation, familiar from IPv4 addressing. However, they are not IP addresses and may duplicate, without conflict, any IPv4 address. The area identifiers for IPv6 implementations (OSPFv3) also use 32-bit identifiers written in the same notation. When dotted formatting is omitted, most implementations expand area 1 to the area identifier 0.0.0.1, but some have been known to expand it as 1.0.0.0.[citation needed]

Several vendors (Cisco, Allied Telesis, Juniper, Alcatel-Lucent, Huawei, Quagga), implement totally stubby and NSSA totally stubby area for stub and not-so-stubby areas. Although not covered by RFC standards, they are considered by many to be standard features in OSPF implementations.

OSPF defines several area types:

• Backbone
• Non-backbone/regular
• Stub
• Totally stubby
• Not-so-stubby
• Totally not-so-stubby
• Transit

Backbone area

The backbone area (also known as area 0 or area 0.0.0.0) forms the core of an OSPF network. All other areas are connected to it, either directly or through other routers. OSPF requires this to prevent routing loops. [17] Inter-area routing happens via routers connected to the backbone area and to their own associated areas. It is the logical and physical structure for the 'OSPF domain' and is attached to all nonzero areas in the OSPF domain. In OSPF the term autonomous system boundary router (ASBR) is historic, in the sense that many OSPF domains can coexist in the same Internet-visible autonomous system, RFC 1996.[18][19]

All OSPF areas must connect to the backbone area. This connection, however, can be through a virtual link. For example, assume area 0.0.0.1 has a physical connection to area 0.0.0.0. Further assume that area 0.0.0.2 has no direct connection to the backbone, but this area does have a connection to area 0.0.0.1. Area 0.0.0.2 can use a virtual link through the transit area 0.0.0.1 to reach the backbone. To be a transit area, an area has to have the transit attribute, so it cannot be stubby in any way.

Regular area

A regular area is just a non-backbone (nonzero) area without specific feature, generating and receiving summary and external LSAs. The backbone area is a special type of such area.

Transit area

A transit area is an area with two or more OSPF border routers and is used to pass network traffic from one adjacent area to another. The transit area does not originate this traffic and is not the destination of such traffic. The backbone area is a special type of transit area.

Examples of this:

• Backbone area
• OSPF requires all areas to be directly connected to the backbone area. If they are not, virtual links have to be used, and the area that it transits is called a transit area.

Stub area

A stub area is an area that does not receive route advertisements external to the AS and routing from within the area is based entirely on a default route. An ABR deletes type 4 and 5 LSAs from internal routers, sends them a default route of 0.0.0.0 and turns itself into a default gateway. This reduces LSDB and routing table size for internal routers.

Modifications to the basic concept of stub area have been implemented by systems vendors, such as the totally stubby area (TSA) and the not-so-stubby area (NSSA), both an extension in Cisco Systems routing equipment.

Totally stubby area

A totally stubby area is similar to a stub area. However, this area does not allow summary routes in addition to not having external routes, that is, inter-area (IA) routes are not summarized into totally stubby areas. The only way for traffic to get routed outside the area is a default route which is the only Type-3 LSA advertised into the area. When there is only one route out of the area, fewer routing decisions have to be made by the route processor, which lowers system resource utilization.

Not-so-stubby area

A not-so-stubby area (NSSA) is a type of stub area that can import autonomous system external routes and send them to other areas, but still cannot receive AS-external routes from other areas.[21]

NSSA is an extension of the stub area feature that allows the injection of external routes in a limited fashion into the stub area. A case study simulates an NSSA getting around the stub-area problem of not being able to import external addresses. It visualizes the following activities: the ASBR imports external addresses with a type 7 LSA, the ABR converts a type 7 LSA to type 5 and floods it to other areas, the ABR acts as an "ASBR" for other areas. The ASBRs do not take type 5 LSAs and then convert to type 7 LSAs for the area.

Totally not-so-stubby area

An addition to the standard functionality of an NSSA, the totally stubby NSSA is an NSSA that takes on the attributes of a TSA, meaning that type 3 and 4 summary routes are not flooded into this type of area. It is also possible to declare an area both totally stubby and not-so-stubby, which means that the area will receive only the default route from area 0.0.0.0, but can also contain an autonomous system boundary router (ASBR) that accepts external routing information and injects it into the local area, and from the local area into area 0.0.0.0.

A newly acquired subsidiary is one example of where it might be suitable for an area to be simultaneously not-so-stubby and totally stubby if the practical place to put an ASBR is on the edge of a totally stubby area. In such a case, the ASBR does send externals into the totally stubby area, and they are available to OSPF speakers within that area. In Cisco's implementation, the external routes can be summarized before injecting them into the totally stubby area. In general, the ASBR should not advertise default into the TSA-NSSA, although this can work with extremely careful design and operation, for the limited special cases in which such an advertisement makes sense.

By declaring the totally stubby area as NSSA, no external routes from the backbone, except the default route, enter the area being discussed. The externals do reach area 0.0.0.0 via the TSA-NSSA, but no routes other than the default route enter the TSA-NSSA. Routers in the TSA-NSSA send all traffic to the ABR, except to routes advertised by the ASBR.

Router types

OSPF defines the following overlapping categories of routers:

The router type is an attribute of an OSPF process. A given physical router may have one or more OSPF processes. For example, a router that is connected to more than one area, and which receives routes from a BGP process connected to another AS, is both an area border router and an autonomous system boundary router.

Each router has an identifier, customarily written in the dotted-decimal format (e.g., 1.2.3.4) of an IP address. This identifier must be established in every OSPF instance. If not explicitly configured, the highest logical IP address will be duplicated as the router identifier. However, since the router identifier is not an IP address, it does not have to be a part of any routable subnet in the network, and often isn't to avoid confusion.

Non-point-to-point network

On networks (same subnet) with more than 2 OSPF routers as system of designated router (DR) and backup designated router (BDR), is used to reducing network traffic by providing a source for routing updates. This is done using multicast addresses:

• 224.0.0.5, all routers in the topology will listen on that multicast address.
• 224.0.0.6, DR and BDR will listen on that multicast address.

The DR and BDR maintains a complete topology table of the network and sends the updates to the other routers via multicast. All routers in a multi-access network segment will form a slave/master relationship with the DR and BDR. They will form adjacencies with the DR and BDR only. Every time a router sends an update, it sends it to the DR and BDR on the multicast address 224.0.0.6. The DR will then send the update out to all other routers in the area, to the multicast address 224.0.0.5. This way all the routers do not have to constantly update each other, and can rather get all their updates from a single source. The use of multicasting further reduces the network load. DRs and BDRs are always setup/elected on OSPF broadcast networks. DR's can also be elected on NBMA (Non-Broadcast Multi-Access) networks such as Frame Relay or ATM. DRs or BDRs are not elected on point-to-point links (such as a point-to-point WAN connection) because the two routers on either side of the link must become fully adjacent and the bandwidth between them cannot be further optimized. DR and non-DR routers evolve from 2-way to full adjacency relationships by exchanging DD, Request, and Update.

Designated router

A designated router (DR) is the router interface elected among all routers on a particular multiaccess network segment, generally assumed to be broadcast multiaccess. Special techniques, often vendor-dependent, may be needed to support the DR function on non-broadcast multiaccess (NBMA) media. It is usually wise to configure the individual virtual circuits of an NBMA subnet as individual point-to-point lines; the techniques used are implementation-dependent.

Backup designated router

A backup designated router (BDR) is a router that becomes the designated router if the current designated router has a problem or fails. The BDR is the OSPF router with the second-highest priority at the time of the last election.

A given router can have some interfaces that are designated (DR) and others that are backup designated (BDR), and others that are non-designated. If no router is a DR or a BDR on a given subnet, the BDR is first elected, and then a second election is held for the DR.[1]: 75 

Designated router election

The DR is elected based on the following default criteria:

• If the priority setting on an OSPF router is set to 0, that means it can NEVER become a DR or BDR.
• When a DR fails and the BDR takes over, there is another election to see who becomes the replacement BDR.
• The router sending the Hello packets with the highest priority wins the election.
• If two or more routers tie with the highest priority setting, the router sending the Hello with the highest RID (Router ID) wins. NOTE: a RID is the highest logical (loopback) IP address configured on a router, if no logical/loopback IP address is set then the router uses the highest IP address configured on its active interfaces (e.g. 192.168.0.1 would be higher than 10.1.1.2).
• Usually the router with the second-highest priority number becomes the BDR.
• The priority values range between 0 – 255,[22] with a higher value increasing its chances of becoming DR or BDR.
• If a higher priority OSPF router comes online after the election has taken place, it will not become DR or BDR until (at least) the DR and BDR fail.
• If the current DR 'goes down' the current BDR becomes the new DR and a new election takes place to find another BDR. If the new DR then 'goes down' and the original DR is now available, still previously chosen BDR will become DR.

Protocol messages

Unlike other routing protocols, OSPF does not carry data via a transport protocol, such as the User Datagram Protocol (UDP) or the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP). Instead, OSPF forms IP datagrams directly, packaging them using protocol number 89 for the IP Protocol field. OSPF defines five different message types, for various types of communication. Multiple packets can be sent per frame.

OSPF uses the following packets 5 type:

• Hello
• Database description
• Link State Request
• Link State Update
• Link State Acknowledgement

Hello Packet

OSPF's Hello messages are used as a form of greeting, to allow a router to discover other adjacent routers on its local links and networks. The messages establish relationships between neighboring devices (called adjacencies) and communicate key parameters about how OSPF is to be used in the autonomous system or area. During normal operation, routers send hello messages to their neighbors at regular intervals (the hello interval); if a router stops receiving hello messages from a neighbor, after a set period (the dead interval) the router will assume the neighbor has gone down.

Database description DBD

Database description messages contain descriptions of the topology of the autonomous system or area. They convey the contents of the link-state database (LSDB) for the area from one router to another. Communicating a large LSDB may require several messages to be sent by having the sending device designated as a master device and sending messages in sequence, with the slave (recipient of the LSDB information) responding with acknowledgments.

Link state packets

Main article: Link-state advertisement

LS type	LS name	Generated by	Description
1	Router-LSAs	Each internal router within an area	The link-state ID of the type 1 LSA is the originating router ID. Router-LSAs, describe the following types of interfaces: Point-to-point connection to another router Connection to a transit network Connection to a stub network (Reserved in v3) Virtual link
2	Network-LSAs	The DR	Originated for broadcasts and NBMA networks by the designated router. This LSA contains the list of routers connected to the network. The link-state ID of the type 2 LSA is the IP interface address of the DR.
3	Summary-LSAs	The ABR	Type 3 summary-LSAs describe routes to networks. To inform other areas about inter-area routers. These routes can also be summarised.
4	ASBR-summary	The ABR	Type 4 describe routes to AS boundary routers beyond its area. The area border router (ABR) generates this LSA to inform other routers in the OSPF domain, that the matching router is an autonomous system boundary router (ASBR), so that the external LSAs (Type 5 / Type 7) it sent may be properly resolved outside its own area.
5	AS-external-LSAs	The ASBR	Type 5 These describe routes advertised by the ASBR. LSAs contain information imported into OSPF from other routing processes. Together with Type 4 they describe they way to an external route.
7	NSSA external link-state advertisements	The ASBR, within a not-so-stubby area	Type 7-LSAs are identical to type-5 LSAs. Type-7 LSAs are only flooded within the NSSA. At the area border router, selected type-7 LSAs are translated into type 5-LSAs and flooded into the backbone.
8	Link-LSA (v3)	Each internal router within an link	Provide it local router's link-local address to all other routers on the local network.
9	Intra-Area-Prefix-LSAs (v3)	Each internal router within an area	Replaces some of the functionality of Router-LSAs; stub network segment, or an attached transit network segment.

OSPF v2 area types and accepted LSAs

Not all area types use all LSA. Below is a matrix of accepted LSAs.

Routing metrics

OSPF uses path cost as its basic routing metric, which was defined by the standard not to equate to any standard value such as speed, so the network designer could pick a metric important to the design. In practice, it is determined by comparing the speed of the interface to a reference-bandwidth for the OSPF process. The cost is determined by dividing the reference bandwidth by the interface speed (although the cost for any interface can be manually overridden). If a reference bandwidth is set to '10000', then a 10 Gbit/s link will have a cost of 1. Any speeds less than 1 are rounded up to 1.[25] Here is an example table that shows the routing metric or 'cost calculation' on an interface.

• Type-1 LSA has a size of 16-bit field (65,535 in decimal)[26]
• Type-3 LSA has a size of 24-bit field (16,777,216 in decimal)

OSPF is a layer 3 protocol: if a layer 2 switch is between the two devices running OSPF, one side may negotiate a speed different from the other side. This can create an asymmetric routing on the link (Router 1 to Router 2 could cost '1' and the return path could cost '10'), which may lead to unintended consequences.

Metrics, however, are only directly comparable when of the same type. Four types of metrics are recognized. In decreasing preference, these types are (for example, an intra-area route is always preferred to an external route regardless of metric):

1. Intra-area
2. Inter-area
3. External Type 1, which includes both the external path cost and the sum of internal path costs to the ASBR that advertises the route,[27]
4. External Type 2, the value of which is solely that of the external path cost,

OSPF v3

OSPF version 3 introduces modifications to the IPv4 implementation of the protocol.[2] Despite the expansion of addresses to 128 bits in IPv6, area and router identifications are still 32-bit numbers.

High-level changes

• Except for virtual links, all neighbor exchanges use IPv6 link-local addressing exclusively. The IPv6 protocol runs per link, rather than based on the subnet.
• All IP prefix information has been removed from the link-state advertisements and from the hello discovery packet, making OSPFv3 essentially protocol-independent.
• Three separate flooding scopes for LSAs:
  • Link-local scope: LSA is flooded only on the local link and no further.
  • Area scope: LSA is flooded throughout a single OSPF area.
  • AS scope: LSA is flooded throughout the routing domain.
• Use of IPv6 link-local addresses, for neighbor discovery, auto-configuration.
• Authentication has been moved to the IP Authentication Header

Changes introduced in OSPF v3, then backported by vendors to v2

• Explicit support for multiple instances per link[28]

Packet format changes

• OSPF version number changed to 3
• From the LSA header, the options field has been removed.
• In hello packets and database description, the options field is changed from 16 to 24 bits.
• In hello packet, the address information has been removed. The interface ID has been added.
• In router-LSAs, two options bits, the "R-bit" and the "V6-bit", have been added.
  • "R-bit": allows for multi-homed hosts to participate in the routing protocol.
  • "V6-bit": specializes the R-bit.
• Add "instance ID", which allows multiple OSPF protocol instances on the same logical interface.

LSA format changes

• The LSA type field is changed to 16 bits.
  • Add support for handling unknown LSA types
  • Three bits are used for encoding flooding scope.
• With IPv6, addresses in LSAs are expressed as prefix and prefix length.
• In router-LSAs and network-LSAs, the address information is removed.
• Router-LSAs and network-LSAs are made network-protocol independent.
• A new LSA type is added, link-LSA, which provides the router's link-local address to all other routers attached to the logical interface, provides a list of IPv6 prefixes to associate with the link, and can send information that reflect the router's capabilities.
• LSA Type-3 summary-LSAs have been renamed "inter-area-prefix-LSAs".
• LSA Type-4 summary LSAs have been renamed "inter-area-router-LSAs".
• Intra-area-prefix-LSA is added, an LSA that carries all IPv6 prefix information.

OSPF over MPLS-VPN

A customer can use OSPF over a MPLS-VPN, where the service provider uses BGP or RIP as their interior gateway protocol.[30] When using OSPF over MPLS-VPN, the VPN backbone becomes part of the OSPF backbone area 0. In all areas, isolated copies of the IGP are run.

Advantages:

• The MPLS-VPN is transparent to the customer's OSPF standard routing.
• Customer's equipment only needs to support OSPF.
• Reduce the need for tunnels (Generic Routing Encapsulation, IPsec, wireguard) to use OSPF.

To achieve this, a non-standard OSPF-BGP redistribution is used. All OSPF routes retain the source LSA type and metric.[31][32] To prevent loops, an optional DN bit[33] is used in LSAs to indicate that a route has already been sent from the provider edge to the customer's equipment.

OSPF extensions

Traffic engineering

OSPF-TE is an extension to OSPF extending the expressivity to allow for traffic engineering and use on non-IP networks.[34] Using OSPF-TE, more information about the topology can be exchanged using opaque LSA carrying type–length–value elements. These extensions allow OSPF-TE to run completely out of band of the data plane network. This means that it can also be used on non-IP networks, such as optical networks.

OSPF-TE is used in GMPLS networks as a means to describe the topology over which GMPLS paths can be established. GMPLS uses its own path setup and forwarding protocols, once it has the full network map.

In the Resource Reservation Protocol (RSVP), OSPF-TE is used for recording and flooding RSVP signaled bandwidth reservations for label switched paths within the link-state database.

Optical routing

RFC 3717 documents work in optical routing for IP based on extensions to OSPF and IS-IS.[35]

Multicast Open Shortest Path First

The Multicast Open Shortest Path First (MOSPF) protocol is an extension to OSPF to support multicast routing. MOSPF allows routers to share information about group memberships.

OSPF in broadcast and non-broadcast networks

In broadcast multiple-access networks, neighbor adjacency is formed dynamically using multicast hello packets to 224.0.0.5. A DR and BDR are elected normally, and function normally.

For non-broadcast multiple-access networks (NBMA), the following two official modes are defined:[1]

• non-broadcast
• point-to-multipoint

Cisco has defined the following three additional modes for OSPF in NBMA topologies:[36]

• point-to-multipoint non-broadcast
• broadcast
• point-to-point

Notable implementations

• Allied Telesis implements OSPFv2 & OSPFv3 in Allied Ware Plus (AW+)
• Arista Networks implements OSPFv2 and OSPFv3
• BIRD implements both OSPFv2 and OSPFv3
• Cisco IOS and NX-OS
• Cisco Meraki
• D-Link implements OSPFv2 on Unified Services Router.
• Dell's FTOS implements OSPFv2 and OSPFv3
• ExtremeXOS
• GNU Zebra, a GPL routing suite for Unix-like systems supporting OSPF
• Juniper Junos
• NetWare implements OSPF in its Multi Protocol Routing module.
• OpenBSD includes OpenOSPFD, an OSPFv2 implementation.
• Quagga, a fork of GNU Zebra for Unix-like systems
• FRRouting, the successor of Quagga
• XORP, a routing suite implementing RFC2328 (OSPFv2) and RFC2740 (OSPFv3) for both IPv4 and IPv6
• Windows NT 4.0 Server, Windows 2000 Server and Windows Server 2003 implemented OSPFv2 in the Routing and Remote Access Service, although the functionality was removed in Windows Server 2008.

Applications

OSPF is a widely deployed routing protocol that can converge a network in a few seconds and guarantee loop-free paths. It has many features that allow the imposition of policies about the propagation of routes that it may be appropriate to keep local, for load sharing, and for selective route importing. IS-IS, in contrast, can be tuned for lower overhead in a stable network, the sort more common in ISP than enterprise networks. There are some historical accidents that made IS-IS the preferred IGP for ISPs, but ISPs today may well choose to use the features of the now-efficient implementations of OSPF,[37] after first considering the pros and cons of IS-IS in service provider environments.[38]

OSPF can provide better load-sharing on external links than other IGPs.[citation needed] When the default route to an ISP is injected into OSPF from multiple ASBRs as a Type I external route and the same external cost specified, other routers will go to the ASBR with the least path cost from its location. This can be tuned further by adjusting the external cost. If the default route from different ISPs is injected with different external costs, as a Type II external route, the lower-cost default becomes the primary exit and the higher-cost becomes the backup only.

See also

• Fabric Shortest Path First
• Mesh networking
• Route analytics
• Routing
• Shortest path problem

References

1. ^ a b c d e J. Moy (April 1998). OSPF Version 2. Network Working Group, IETF. doi:10.17487/RFC2328. OSPFv2., Updated by RFC 5709, RFC 6549, RFC 6845, RFC 6860, RFC 7474, RFC 8042.
2. ^ a b c R. Coltun; D. Ferguson; J. Moy (July 2008). A. Lindem (ed.). OSPF for IPv6. Network Working Group, IETF. doi:10.17487/RFC5340. OSPFv3. Updated by RFC 6845, RFC 6860, RFC 7503, RFC 8362.
3. ^ OSPF Convergence, August 6, 2009, retrieved June 13, 2016
4. ^ "RFC 2328 - OSPF Version 2". Tools.ietf.org. April 2, 1998. Retrieved November 30, 2011.
5. ^ "RFC 5340 - OSPF for IPv6". Tools.ietf.org. Retrieved November 30, 2011.
6. ^ RFC 1584, Multicast Extensions to OSPF, J. Moy, The Internet Society (March 1994)
7. ^ IP Routing: OSPF Configuration Guide, Cisco Systems, retrieved June 13, 2016, Cisco routers do not support LSA Type 6 Multicast OSPF (MOSPF), and they generate syslog messages if they receive such packets.
8. ^ "[Junos] GRE Configuration Example - Juniper Networks". kb.juniper.net. Retrieved November 28, 2021.
9. ^ "Generic Routing Encapsulation (GRE) | Interfaces User Guide for Switches | Juniper Networks TechLibrary". www.juniper.net. Retrieved November 28, 2021.
10. ^ Eric C. Rosen; Peter Psenak; Padma Pillay-Esnault (June 2006). OSPF as the Provider/Customer Edge Protocol for BGP/MPLS IP Virtual Private Networks (VPNs). Internet Engineering Task Force. doi:10.17487/RFC4577. RFC 4577.
11. ^ "Understanding OSPF Sham Links - Technical Documentation - Support - Juniper Networks". www.juniper.net. Retrieved November 14, 2021.
12. ^ "IP Routing: OSPF Configuration Guide, Cisco IOS Release 15SY - OSPF Sham-Link Support for MPLS VPN [Cisco IOS 15.1SY]". Cisco. Retrieved November 14, 2021.
13. ^ "OSPF Neighbor States". Cisco. Retrieved October 28, 2018.
14. ^ "Show 134 – OSPF Design Part 1 – Debunking the Multiple Area Myth". Packet Pushers. podcast debunking 50-router advice on old Cisco article
15. ^ Mikrotik RB4011 has 1 GB RAM for example, mikrotik.com, Retrieved Feb 1, 2021.
16. ^ "Stub Area Design Golden Rules". Groupstudy.com. Archived from the original on August 31, 2000. Retrieved November 30, 2011. 64 MB of RAM was a big deal in 2020 for OSPF.
17. ^ Doyle, Jeff (September 10, 2007). "My Favorite Interview Question". Network World. Retrieved December 28, 2021.
18. ^ (ASGuidelines 1996, p. 25) harv error: no target: CITEREFASGuidelines1996 (help)
19. ^ Hawkinson, J; T. Bates (March 1996). "Guidelines for creation, selection, and registration of an Autonomous System". Internet Engineering Task Force. ASguidelines. Retrieved September 28, 2007.
20. ^ "Stub Area Design Golden Rules". Groupstudy.com. Archived from the original on August 31, 2000. Retrieved November 30, 2011.. This is not necessarily true. If there are multiple ABRs, as might be required for high availability, routers interior to the TSA will send non-intra-area traffic to the ABR with the lowest intra-area metric (the "closest" ABR) but that requires special configuration.
21. ^ Murphy, P. (January 2003). "The OSPF Not-So-Stubby Area (NSSA) Option". The Internet Society. Retrieved June 22, 2014.
22. ^ "Cisco IOS IP Routing: OSPF Command Reference" (PDF). Cisco Systems. April 2011. Archived from the original (PDF) on April 25, 2012.
23. ^ "juniper configuring-ospf-areas". Juniper Networks. January 18, 2021. Retrieved October 23, 2021.
24. ^ "OSPF Area's Explained". Packet Coders. January 23, 2019. Retrieved October 23, 2021.
25. ^ Adjusting OSPF Costs, OReilly.com
26. ^ "OSPF Stub Router Advertisement". Internet Engineering Task Force. Internet Engineering Task Force. June 2001. Retrieved October 23, 2021.
27. ^ Whether an external route is based on a Type-5 LSA or a Type-7 LSA (NSSA) does not affect its preference. See RFC 3101, section 2.5.
28. ^ "secondary (Protocols OSPF) - TechLibrary - Juniper Networks". www.juniper.net. Retrieved November 7, 2021.
29. ^ "Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) Extended Communities". www.iana.org. Retrieved November 28, 2021.
30. ^ RFC 4577
31. ^ "MPLS VPN OSPF PE and CE Support". Cisco. Retrieved November 28, 2021.
32. ^ Cisco. "Using OSPF in an MPLS VPN Environment" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on October 10, 2022. Retrieved November 28, 2021.
33. ^ RFC 4576
34. ^ Katz, D; D. Yeung (September 2003). Traffic Engineering (TE) Extensions to OSPF Version 2. The Internet Society. doi:10.17487/RFC3630. OSPF-TEextensions. Retrieved September 28, 2007.
35. ^ B. Rajagopalan; J. Luciani; D. Awduche (March 2004). IP over Optical Networks: A Framework. Internet Engineering Task Force. doi:10.17487/RFC3717. RFC 3717.
36. ^ Changing the Network Type on an Interface, retrieved March 1, 2019
37. ^ Berkowitz, Howard (1999). OSPF Goodies for ISPs. North American Network Operators Group NANOG 17. Montreal. Archived from the original on June 12, 2016.
38. ^ Katz, Dave (2000). OSPF and IS-IS: A Comparative Anatomy. North American Network Operators Group NANOG 19. Albuquerque. Archived from the original on June 20, 2018.

Further reading

• Colton, Andrew (October 2003). OSPF for Cisco Routers. Rocket Science Press. ISBN 978-0972286213.
• Doyle, Jeff; Carroll, Jennifer (2005). Routing TCP/IP. Vol. 1 (2nd ed.). Cisco Press. ISBN 978-1-58705-202-6.
• Moy, John T. (1998). OSPF: Anatomy of an Internet Routing Protocol. Addison-Wesley. ISBN 978-0201634723.
• Parkhurst, William R. (2002). Cisco OSPF Command and Configuration Handbook. ISBN 978-1-58705-071-8.
• Basu, Anindya; Riecke, Jon (2001). "Stability issues in OSPF routing". Proceedings of the 2001 conference on Applications, technologies, architectures, and protocols for computer communications. SIGCOMM '01. pp. 225–236. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.99.6393. doi:10.1145/383059.383077. ISBN 978-1-58113-411-7. S2CID 7555753.
• Valadas, Rui (2019). OSPF and IS-IS: From Link State Routing Principles to Technologies. CRC Press. doi:10.1201/9780429027543. ISBN 9780429027543.

External links

• IETF OSPF Working Group
• Cisco OSPF
• Cisco OSPF Areas and Virtual Links
• Summary of OSPF v2

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