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OSPF (Open Shortest Path First) Review

Overview:

This is a Link State Protocol.

It is scalable.

It can be used in a single area for small networks and in multiple areas for large networks.

It requires hierarchical network design principles by (separating routers into different areas) to be able to be used for large
networks.

Multiple areas connect to a distribution area, Area 0 (also known as the backbone).

Defining areas reduces overhead, speeds up convergence, confines network instability to an area and improves performance,
e.g. areas break up the network so that routers in one area know less topology information about subnets in the other area
and nothing about the routers in the area at all.
It identifies neighbouring routers and communicates with these neighbours; this solves most of the common problems with
running OSPF in larger networks.

Each OSPF router tells about the status of its connections, or links, this information is flooded to all neighbours.

Flooding is the process that sends out information out all ports with exception of the port on which the information was
received.

An OSPF router advertises its link states and passes on received link states i.e. Links State Protocols such as OSPF rely on rapid
dissemination of information about failed routers and subnets to prevent loops, therefore when a link or router fails, a router
noticing the failure immediately floods the new router or link status to its neighbours, these routers in turn forward the
updated status to their neighbours, eventually flooding the new status information to all routers in the network.

OSPF first uses a process by which it discovers neighbours (other routers) running the same link state protocol (OSPF in this
case) that share a common subnet, as soon as routers know that they are neighbours, they can exchange their respective
copies of the topology information called the topology database and then run the SPF to calculate the new routes. It sends
several types of packets which are used to identify their neighbours and to update link state routing information.
There are five types as follows:

OSPF Packet Type Description

Type 1 – Hello Establishes and maintains adjacency information with
neighbours
Type 2 – Database Description packet (DBD) Describes the contents of an OSPF router’s links state
database

Type 3 – Link State Request Requests specific pieces of router’s links state database

Type 4 – Link State Update (LSU) Transports link state advertisements (LSA’s) to neighbour
routers
Type 5 – Link State Acknowledgement (LSACK) Acknowledges receipt of a neighbour’s LSA

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Advantages:
It is based on open standards, (open to the public and non-proprietary), it will run on most routers.
It uses the Shortest First Path (SPF) algorithm to provide loop free topology.
It provides fast convergence with triggered incremental up dates via Link State Advertisements (LSA’s).
It is a classless protocol and allows for a hierarchical design with VLSM and route summarisation.

Disadvantages:
It requires more memory to hold the adjacency (list of OSPF neighbours), topology (a link state database containing all of the
routers and their routes) and routing tables.
It requires more processor power to run the SPF algorithm (this is especially true when you first turn on the routers and they
are initially building the adjacency and topology tables, processor power also grows exponentially with the size of the
topology database).
A single status interface change in a large network forces every router to run SPF again, (thus the need for areas to break up
the network).
For large networks it requires careful design to break up the network into an appropriate hierarchical design by separating
routers into different areas.
It is complex to configure and more difficult to troubleshoot.

OSPF Interface States:

Down – the OSPF process has not exchanged information with any neighbour/waiting to enter the next state.
Init – OSPF routers send type 1 packets at regular intervals. When an interface receives its first hello packet the router enters
the Init state.
Two-way – Using hello packets every OSPF router tries to establish a bidirectional communication with every neighbour router
on the same IP network.
Exstart – This is established using type 2 DBD packets, the two routers negotiate the master and slave relationship and they
use DBD packets to exchange databases.
Exchange - This is established when neighbour routers use type 2 DBD packets to send each other their link state information.
Loading – After each router describes its database to the others, the sending routers use type 3 packets for more specific
information (LSR’s). The receiving router then sends a type 4 packet (LSU) containing LSA’s are at the heart of the link state
routing protocols. Type 4 packets are then acknowledged from the sending router using type 5 packets (LSACK’s)
Full Adjacency – The routers are fully adjacent and keep a list of adjacent neighbours called the adjacency database.

OSPF Databases:
Database Description
Adjacency Database List of all neighbour routers to which a router has established
bidirectional communication. This is unique for each router.
Topology Database List of information about all other routers in the network.
(or Link State Database) This database shows the network topology. All routers within
an area have identical link state databases.
Routing Table List of routes generated when an algorithm is run on the link
(or Forwarding Database) state database. Each router’s routing table is unique and
contains information on how and where to send packets to
other routers.

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OSPF terms:

Backbone – The part of the network that acts as the primary path for traffic that is most often sourced from, and destined for,
other networks.

Backup Designated Router (BDR) – Backup to the designated router.

Designated Router (DR) – An OSPF router that generates LSA’s for a multi-access network and has other special responsibilities
in running OSPF. Each multi access network that has at least two attached routers has a designated router that is elected by
the OSPF Hello protocol. The designated router enables a reduction in the number of adjacencies required on a multi access
network, which reduces the amount of routing protocol traffic and the topological database’s size. Not used on point to point
links. The OSPF router talks to a DR using the multicast IP address of 224.0.0.6 and the DR and BDR talk to all routers using the
224.0.0.5 multicast IP address.

Hello Protocol – Protocol used by OSPF systems to establish and maintain neighbours.

Loopback – A special IP number (127.0.0.1) designated for a machine’s software loopback interface.
A loopback interface is a virtual interface that can be configured with the interface loopback (interface number) command.
Loopback interfaces are always up and up unless manually shutdown, therefore they are most suitable for using as an OSPF
router ID.
Example configuration:
Router (config) # interface loopback 0
Router (config – if) # ip address 192.168.100.1 255.255.255.0

Links State Advertisement (LSA) – Broadcast packet used by link state protocols that contain information about neighbours
and path costs. Receiving routers use LSA’s to maintain their routing tables. Sometimes called a link state packet (LSP).

Multi access network – Network that allows multiple devices to connect and communicate simultaneously.

Point to Point – Communication between one receiver and one location.

Process ID (process identifier) – A numerical number assigned during the OSPF configuration process that identifies each OSPF
process running on a router. This is locally significant to the router.

Router ID (router identifier) – IP address that identifies a router participating in OSPF. The router ID is taken from the active
interface with the highest IP address or form a configured loopback address.
 The router first looks for the existence of any loopback (logical) interfaces that are set up. If so the router picks the
highest numeric IP address among the loopback interfaces.
 If no loopback is found the router picks the highest numeric IP address from all of its active physical (up and up)
interfaces.
If later interfaces come up that happen to have higher IP addresses, then the OSPF RID does not change until the OSPF process
is restarted. This can be accomplished by the clear ip ospf process command as well.
If there is no active interface the OSPF process does not start and no routes are in the routing table.

Copyright D Little 2017