RFC 2329 (rfc2329) - Page 2 of 9
OSPF Standardization Report
Alternative Format: Original Text Document
RFC 2329 OSPF Standardization Report April 1998 1. Introduction OSPFv2, herein abbreviated simply as OSPF, is an IPv4 routing protocol documented in [Ref8]. OSPF is a link-state routing protocol. It is designed to be run internal to a single Autonomous System. Each OSPF router maintains an identical database describing the Autonomous System's topology. From this database, a routing table is calculated by constructing a shortest-path tree. OSPF features include the following: o OSPF responds quickly to topology changes, expending a minimum of network bandwidth in the process. o Support for CIDR addressing. o OSPF routing exchanges can be authenticated, providing routing security. o Equal-cost multipath. o An area routing capability is provided, enabling an Autonomous system to be split into a two level hierarchy to further reduce the amount of routing protocol traffic. o OSPF allows import of external routing information into the Autonomous System, including a tagging feature that can be exploited to exchange extra information at the AS boundary (see [Ref7]). An analysis of OSPF together with a more detailed description of OSPF features was originally provided in [Ref6], as a part of promoting OSPF to Draft Standard status. The analysis of OSPF remains unchanged. Two additional major features have been developed for OSPF since the protocol achieved Draft Standard status: the Point-to-MultiPoint interface and Cryptographic Authentication. These features are described in Sections 2.1 and 2.2 respectively of this memo. The OSPF MIB is documented in [Ref4]. It is currently at Draft Standard status. Moy Informational
