OSPF

In This Chapter
This chapter provides information about configuring the Open Shortest Path First (OSPF)
protocol.

Topics in this chapter include:

• Overview of OSPF
• OSPF Configuration Process Overview
• Configuration Notes
• Configuring OSPF with CLI
• OSPF Command Reference

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Overview of OSPF
OSPF (Open Shortest Path First) is an interior gateway protocol (IGP) that is used within
large autonomous systems (ASs). An autonomous system is a group of networks and network
equipment under a common administration. OSPF is a link-state protocol; each router
maintains an identical database (called the link-state database, topological database, or
routing information database [RIB]) of the AS, including information about the local state of
each router (for example, its usable interfaces and reachable neighbors).

OSPF-TE (OSPF with traffic engineering extensions) is used to advertise reachability

information and traffic engineering information such as bandwidth. OSPF routers exchange
status, cost, and other relevant interface information with neighboring routers. The
information exchange enables all participating routers to establish their link-state database.

OSPF uses a cost metric that represents the status of the link and the bandwidth of the
interface in an algorithm to determine the best route to a destination. The algorithm used is
called the SPF (shortest path first) or Dijkstra algorithm. Path selection is based on lowest
cost, which might not necessarily be the shortest route but is the best route in regards to
bandwidth. Each router applies the algorithm to calculate the shortest path to each destination
in the network.

When the best route to a particular destination is determined, the route information is sent to
the routing table manager (RTM). The RTM may contain more than one best route to a
destination from multiple protocols. Because metrics from different protocols are not
comparable, the RTM uses preference to select the best route. The route with the lowest
preference value is selected. For more information, see Configuring Route Preferences.

The best routes from the RTM are then added to the forwarding table (also known as the
forwarding database [or FIB]). All forwarding decisions are based on the information in the
forwarding database.

The forwarding (or dropping) of packets is controlled by filters applied to the interface and
route policies applied to the OSPF protocol. Refer to the 7705 SAR OS Router Configuration
Guide for information on filters and route policies.

Alcatel-Lucent’s implementation of OSPF conforms to OSPF Version 2 specifications

presented in RFC 2328, OSPF Version 2 and OSPF Version 3 specifications presented in
RFC 5340, OSPF for IPv6. Routers running OSPF can be enabled with minimal
configuration. All default and command parameters can be modified.

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Changes between OSPF for IPv4 and OSPF3 for IPv6 include the following:

• Addressing semantics have been removed from OSPF packets and the basic
link-state advertisements (LSAs). New LSAs have been created to carry IPv6
addresses and prefixes.
• OSPF3 runs on a per-link basis, instead of on a per-IP-subnet basis.
• Flooding scope for LSAs has been generalized.
• Unlike OSPFv2, OSPFv3 authentication relies on IPV6's authentication header and
encapsulating security payload.
• Most packets in OSPF for IPv6 are almost as compact as those in OSPF for IPv4,
even with the larger IPv6 addresses.
• Most field and packet-size limitations present in OSPF for IPv4 have been relaxed.
• Option handling has been made more flexible.

The following major OSPF features are supported:

• areas – backbone, stub, and not-so-stubby areas (NSSAs)

• virtual links
• neighbors and adjacencies
• link-state advertisements (LSAs)
• metrics
• authentication (OSPFv2 only)
• route redistribution and summarization
• OSPF traffic engineering (TE) extensions (to track and advertise available bandwidth
(OSPFv2 only)– used by MPLS traffic engineering; that is, RSVP-TE)

OSPF Areas
An autonomous system can be divided into areas, with each area containing a group of
networks. An area’s topology is concealed from the rest of the AS, which significantly
reduces OSPF protocol traffic (LSA updates), simplifies the network topology, and simplifies
the routing table by populating it with summarized routes rather than exact routes on each
router. This decrease in LSA updates, link-state database size, and CPU time, all required for
OSPF route calculations, results in a decrease in route calculation time.

All routers in an area have identical link-state databases for that area.

Areas within the same AS are linked to each other via area border routers (ABRs). An ABR
is a router that belongs to more than one area. An ABR maintains a separate topological
database for each area it is connected to.

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Routing in the AS takes place on two levels, depending on whether the source and destination
of a packet reside in the same area (intra-area routing) or different areas (inter-area routing).
In intra-area routing, the packet is routed solely on information obtained within the area; that
is, routing updates are only passed within the area. In inter-area routing, routing updates are
passed between areas.

External routes refer to routing updates passed from another routing protocol into the OSPF
domain.

Routers that pass information between an OSPF routing domain and a non-OSPF network are
called autonomous system boundary routers (ASBRs).

Backbone Area

Every OSPF system requires a backbone area. The OSPF backbone area is uniquely identified
as area 0 and uses the area ID 0.0.0.0. All other areas must be connected to the backbone area,
either physically or logically. The backbone distributes routing information between areas. If
it is not practical or possible to connect an area to the backbone (see area 0.0.0.5 in Figure 3),
the ABRs (routers Y and Z in the figure) must be connected via a virtual link. The two ABRs
form a point-to-point-like adjacency across the transit area (area 0.0.0.4).

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Figure 3: Backbone Area

OSPF domain
Area 0.0.0.0

Area 0.0.0.1 Area 0.0.0.2

Y
Area 0.0.0.3 Area 0.0.0.4

Another AS
Area 0.0.0.5

20105

Stub Area

A stub area is a designated area that does not allow external route advertisements and cannot
contain ASBRs. Virtual links cannot pass through stub areas.

To route to external destinations, the ABR of the stub area advertises a single default route
into the stub area (0.0.0.0). A default route is the network route used by a router when no other
known route exists for a given IP packet’s destination address. All packets for destinations
not known by the router’s routing table are sent to the default route and thus out to the
network.

This feature reduces the size of the router’s database and reduces OSPF protocol traffic,
memory usage, and CPU route calculation time.

In Figure 3, areas 0.0.0.1, 0.0.0.2 and 0.0.0.5 could be configured as stub areas.

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Not-So-Stubby Area

Another OSPF area type is called a not-so-stubby area (NSSA). NSSAs are similar to stub
areas except that limited importing of external routes is allowed. Only routes within the AS
are advertised. External routes learned by OSPF routers in the NSSA area are advertised as
type 7 LSAs (external route advertisements only within the NSSA area) and are translated by
ABRs into type 5 external route advertisements for distribution into other areas of the OSPF
domain.

For information on LSA types, see Link-State Advertisements.

An NSSA area cannot be designated as the transit area of a virtual link.

In Figure 3, area 0.0.0.3 could be configured as an NSSA area.

Virtual Links
The backbone area in an OSPF AS must be contiguous and all other areas must be directly
connected to the backbone area via an ABR. If it is not practical or possible to physically
connect an area to the backbone, virtual links can be used to connect to the backbone through
a non-backbone area.

A virtual link functions as a point-to-point link that passes through a transit area. Figure 3
depicts routers Y and Z as the start and end points of the virtual link while area 0.0.0.4 is the
transit area. In order to configure virtual links, the router must be an ABR. Virtual links are
identified by the router ID of the other endpoint, which is another ABR.

These two endpoint routers must be attached to a common area, called the transit area. The
area through which the virtual link passes must have full routing information.

Transit areas pass traffic from an area adjacent to the backbone or to another area. The traffic
does not originate or terminate in the transit area. The transit area cannot be a stub area or an
NSSA area.

Virtual links are part of the backbone and behave as if they were unnumbered point-to-point
networks between the two routers. A virtual link uses the intra-area routing of its transit area
to forward packets. Virtual links are brought up and down through the building of the
shortest-path trees for the transit area.

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Neighbors and Adjacencies

A router uses the OSPF Hello protocol to discover neighbors. Neighbors are routers that
interface to a common network. In a broadcast-supported topology, one router sends Hello
packets to a multicast address and receives Hello packets in return. Unicast Hello packets are
used in non-broadcast topologies.

The neighbors then attempt to form adjacencies by exchanging link-state information with the
goal of having identical link-state databases. When the link-state databases of two neighbors
are synchronized, they are considered to be adjacent.

Designated Routers and Backup Designated Routers

In multi-access broadcast networks, such as Ethernet networks, with at least two attached
routers, a designated router and a backup designated router can be elected. The concept of a
designated router was developed in order to avoid the formation of adjacencies between all
attached routers. Without a designated router, the area would be flooded with LSAs – a router
would send LSAs to all its adjacent neighbors, and each in turn would send LSAs to all their
neighbors, and so on. This would create multiple copies of the same LSA on the same link.

The designated router reduces the number of adjacencies required because each router forms
an adjacency only with the designated router and backup designated router. Only the
designated router sends LSAs in multicast format to the rest of the network, reducing the
amount of routing protocol traffic and the size of the link-state database. If the designated
router fails, the backup designated router becomes active.

The designated router is automatically elected based on priority – the router with the highest
priority becomes the designated router and the router with the second-highest priority
becomes the backup. If two routers have the same priority, the one with the highest router ID
wins.

A router with a priority set to 0 can never become a designated router.

After a designated router is elected, it begins sending Hello packets to all other attached
routers in order to form adjacencies.

Note:

• In point-to-point networks, where a single pair of routers are connected, no designated

or backup designated router is elected. An adjacency must be formed with the neighbor
router.
• To significantly improve adjacency forming and network convergence, a network should
be configured as point-to-point if only two routers are connected, even if the network is
a broadcast media such as Ethernet.

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Link-State Advertisements
Link-state advertisements (LSAs) describe the state of a router or network, including router
interfaces and adjacency states. Each LSA is flooded throughout an area. The collection of
LSAs from all routers and networks form the protocol’s link-state (or topological) database.

The distribution of topology database updates takes place along adjacencies. A router sends
LSAs to advertise its state according to the configured interval and when the router’s state
changes. These packets include information about the router's adjacencies, which allows
detection of non-operational routes.

When a router discovers a routing table change or detects a change in the network, link-state
information is advertised to other routers to maintain identical routing tables. Router
adjacencies are reflected in the contents of its link-state advertisements. The relationship
between adjacencies and the link states allow the protocol to detect non-operating routers.
Link-state advertisements flood the area. The flooding mechanism ensures that all routers in
an area have the same topological database. The database consists of the collection of LSAs
received from each router belonging to the area.

OSPF sends only the changed information, not the whole topology information or whole
link-state database, when a change takes place. From the topological database, each router
constructs a tree of shortest paths with itself as root (that is, runs the Dijkstra algorithm).
OSPF distributes routing information between routers belonging to a single AS.

Table 19 lists the types of LSAs generated by routers.

Table 19: LSA Types

LSA Definition

Type 1 - Router Router link advertisements generated by each internal router for each
area it belongs to
LSAs are flooded only in the area in which they were originated
Router LSAs list all the router’s links and the state and cost of the
links
Type 2 - Network Network link advertisements generated by designated routers
describing the set of routers attached to a particular network
LSAs are flooded only in the area of the router that originated them
Network LSAs list all attached routers, including the designated
router

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Table 19: LSA Types (Continued)

LSA Definition

Type 3 - Network Summary link advertisements generated by ABRs describing

Summary inter-area routes (areas within the AS but outside the area they are sent
into)
LSAs let internal routers know which destinations can be reached by
the ABR
LSAs are sent in both directions – into a non-zero area and into the
backbone area
Type 4 - ASBR Summary link advertisements generated by ABRs indicating the
Summary location of ASBRs
An ABR generates a type 4 LSA after receiving a type 5 LSA from an
ASBR
Type 5 - AS Generated by an ASBR and describes destinations external to the AS
External or a default route external to the AS
LSAs are flooded to all areas except stub areas
Type 6 - Group Group membership link entry generated by multicast OSPF routers
membership Not applicable in this release
Type 7 - NSSA NSSA external routes generated by an ASBR and used by the NSSA
External to import external routes into a stub area
LSAs are flooded only to the NSSA
The ABR converts type 7 LSAs into type 5 LSAs before flooding
them into the backbone, where they are then flooded to all areas
except stub areas

Metrics
In OSPF, all interfaces have a cost value or routing metric used in the OSPF link-state
calculation. A metric value is configured based on hop count, bandwidth, or other parameters,
to compare different paths through an AS. OSPF uses cost values to determine the best path
to a particular destination – the lower the cost value, the more likely the interface will be used
to forward data traffic.

Costs are also associated with externally derived routing data, such as those routes learned
from an Exterior Gateway Protocol (EGP), for example, BGP, and are passed transparently
throughout the AS. This data is kept separate from the OSPF protocol’s link-state data. Each
external route can be tagged by the advertising router, enabling the passing of additional
information between routers on the boundaries of the AS.

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Authentication
All OSPF protocol exchanges can be authenticated. This guarantees that only trusted routers
can participate in autonomous system routing. Alcatel-Lucent’s implementation of OSPF
supports plain text (simple password) and Message Digest 5 (MD5) authentication.

When authentication is enabled on a link, a text string password must be configured.

Neighbor OSPF routers must supply the password in all OSPF packets they send to an
interface.

Plain text authentication includes the password in each OSPF packet sent on a link.

MD5 authentication is more secure than plain text authentication. MD5 authentication uses
the password as an encryption key. Routers in the same routing domain must be configured
with the same key. When the MD5 hashing algorithm is used for authentication, MD5 is used
to verify data integrity by creating a 128-bit message digest from the data input that is
included in each packet. The packet is transmitted to the router neighbor and can only be
decrypted if the neighbor has the correct password.

By default, authentication is not enabled on an interface.

Route Redistribution and Summarization

Route redistribution is the taking of routes from one protocol and sending them to another
protocol. The 7705 SAR supports the redistribution of static routes into OSPF. These routes
are advertised as type 5 or type 7 LSAs (external routes) and are included in each router’s
link-state database.

Route redistribution involves the use of routing policies. For information on routing policies,
refer to the 7705 SAR OS Router Configuration Guide, “Route Policies”.

Route summarization allows an ABR or ASBR to summarize routes with the same prefix into
a single route and distribute it to other areas. Routes redistributed into OSPF from static
routes can also be summarized.

Route summarization reduces the amount of routing information across areas and the size of
routing tables on the routers, thus improving the calculation speed of the routers.

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OSPF-TE Extensions
OSPF traffic engineering (TE) extensions enable the 7705 SAR to include traffic engineering
information in the algorithm in order to calculate the best route to a destination. The traffic
information includes:

• maximum reservable bandwidth

• unreserved bandwidth
• available bandwidth

IP Subnets
OSPF enables the flexible configuration of IP subnets. Each distributed OSPF route has a
destination and mask. A network mask is a 32-bit number that indicates the range of IP
addresses residing on a single IP network/subnet. This specification displays network masks
as hexadecimal numbers; for example, the network mask for a class C IP network is displayed
as 0xffffff00. This mask is often displayed as 255.255.255.0.

Two different subnets with the same IP network number might have different masks, called
variable-length subnets. A packet is routed to the longest or most specific match. Host routes
are considered to be subnets whose masks are all ones (0xffffffff).

For example, for a packet destined for IP address 10.1.1.1, 10.1.1.0/24 is a longer (better)
match than 10.1.1.0/16. If both entries are in the routing table, the route designated by
10.1.1.0/24 will be used.

OSPF Instances
A routing instance is a routing entity for a router. The 7705 SAR supports the default routing
instance only; it does not support multiple instances. The default routing instance is
associated with the global routing table.

Bidirectional Forwarding Detection (BFD) for OSPF

BFD is a simple protocol for detecting failures in a network. BFD uses a “hello” mechanism
that sends control messages periodically to the far end and receives periodic control messages
from the far end. BFD can detect device, link, and protocol failures.

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BFD can be enabled using OSPFv2 (for IPv4) or OSPFv3 (for IPv6). Additionally, a network
can be configured to use both OSPFv2 and OSPFv3.

When BFD is enabled on an OSPF interface, the state of the interface is tied to the state of
the BFD session between the local node and remote (far-end) node. BFD is implemented in
asynchronous mode only, meaning that neither end responds to control messages; rather, the
messages are sent in the time period configured at each end.

If the configured number of consecutive BFD missed messages is reached, the link is declared
down and OSPF takes the appropriate action (for example, generates an LSA update against
the failed link or reroutes around the failed link).

Due to the lightweight nature of BFD, it can detect failures faster than other detection
protocols, making it ideal for use in applications such as mobile transport.

Graceful Restart Helper

Graceful Restart and non-stop routing (NSR) both provide mechanisms that allow neighbor
routers to handle a service interruption due to a CSM switchover. Data packets continue to be
forwarded along known routes while the OSPF information is being restored or refreshed
following the switchover.

With Graceful Restart, a router undergoing a switchover informs its adjacent neighbors and
requests a grace period whereby traffic is still forwarded based on the last known good FIB
while the router restarts. The neighbor must cooperate with the requesting router in order for
the traffic to be forwarded. After the switchover, the neighbor relationships must be
re-established.

With NSR (or high-availability service), routing neighbors are unaware of any event on the
router performing a switchover. All activity switches to the inactive CSM, which maintains
up-to-date routing information, so that routing topology and reachability are not affected.
NSR is a more reliable and robust way of handling service interruptions than Graceful
Restart.

The 7705 SAR supports NSR; therefore, Graceful Restart is not implemented on the router.
However, to support neighbor routers that do not have high-availability service, the
7705 SAR supports Graceful Restart Helper. In Graceful Restart Helper mode, the 7705 SAR
never requests graceful restart support. However, if a grace LSA is received from an OSPF
neighbor, the 7705 SAR keeps the link toward that neighbor up and operational until the
specified grace period in the grace LSA expires or the graceful restart is successful,
whichever comes first.

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Preconfiguration Requirements
The router ID must be available before OSPF can be configured. The router ID is a 32-bit IP
address assigned to each router running OSPF. This number uniquely identifies the router
within an AS. OSPF routers use the router IDs of the neighbor routers to establish
adjacencies. Neighbor IDs are learned when Hello packets are received from the neighbor.

Before configuring OSPF parameters, ensure that the router ID is derived by one of the
following methods:

• define the value using the config>router>router-id ip-address

command
• define the system interface using the config>router>interface
ip-int-name command (used if the router ID is not specified with the
config>router>router-id ip-address command)
A system interface must have an IP address with a 32-bit subnet mask. The system
interface is assigned during the primary router configuration process when the
interface is created in the logical IP interface context.
• if you do not specify a router ID, the last 4 bytes of the MAC address are used

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OSPF Configuration Process Overview

Figure 4 displays the process to provision basic OSPF parameters.

Figure 4: OSPF Configuration Process

START

CONFIGURE THE ROUTER ID

DEFINE ONE OR MORE AREAS

DEFINE INTERFACES

DEFINE STUB AREA

OPTIONAL DEFINE NSSA

CONFIGUREEND
VIRTUAL LINKS

TURN UP

21825

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Configuration Notes

General
• Before OSPF can be configured, the router ID must be configured.
• The basic OSPF configuration includes at least one area and an associated interface.
• All default and command parameters can be modified.
• By default, a router has no configured areas.
• The base OSPF instance is created in the administratively enabled state.

Reference Sources
For information on supported IETF drafts and standards, as well as standard and proprietary
MIBs, refer to Standards and Protocol Support.

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