Talk:Open Shortest Path First

Transit area

I suggest adding a "transit" area description. Actually the OSPF areas are either transit or stubby (not mentioning the fancy types building on these elementary types). A backbone is a special case of a transit area. Other areas may be transit as well and they can also import external routes via LSA-5. Also I think it would be nice to describe the basic LSA types and the states of routers when creating neighborhood/adjacencies. I can try to provide this content it the maintainer agrees to :) Paluchpeter 00:18, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

I have reordered Open Shortest Path First#OSPF areas and mentioned that the backbone area is a special type of transit area. ~Kvng (talk) 17:00, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

Designated Router section

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The line that read "All routers in an area will form a slave/master relationship with the DR." is incorrect. Should read "All routers in a multi-access network segment will form a slave/master relationship with the DR.". Adjacencies between DR/BDR and other routers is within a local link, within a single broadcast or NBMA segment, not within an entire OSPF area. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Russell DeLong (talk • contribs) 04:24, 11 September 2011

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Routing metrics, add N1 & N2 types?

From what I heard, there are also the two types N1 & N2. If the area the router is located in is a not so stubby area or a totally not so stubby area, having a ASBR, those external routes have a different precedens from external routes through ASBRs in other areas. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 123.255.103.210 (talk) 10:26, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

OSPFv3 Authentication

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The article currently states "OSPFv3, running on IPv6, does not support protocol-internal authentication. Instead, it relies on IPv6 protocol security (IPsec)" however RFC7166 (March 2014) adds support for an authentication system analogous to that on OSPFv2. The RFC as a justification states that IPsec is difficult to configure and maintain in some environments which it later refers to as Mobile Ad Hoc Networks.

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

ABR and LSDB

Is the following sentence correct: "An ABR keeps multiple copies of the link-state database in memory, one for each area to which that router is connected."?

I'd rather say: "An ABR maintains multiple link-state databases in memory, one for each area to which that router is connected."

Using the term "copies" implies similar or identical databases, which is IMHO not the case.

I'm no OSPF expert, though. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lamusiqueduhasard (talk • contribs) 09:02, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

I've changed "copies" to "instances" as that is the intention. Thx! --Zac67 (talk) 10:42, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

Router relationships

The second paragraph contains two consecutive sentences with seemingly contradictory statements: "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." (emphasis by me)

So, do they or do they not exchange routing information? In case both is true depending on state, can someone knowledgable clarify? ~2026-19966-93 (talk) 08:49, 1 April 2026 (UTC)

The second point (when routing information is exchanged) refers to OSPF adjacencies which are slightly different. Questions can also be asked at Wikipedia:Reference desk/Science. Johnuniq (talk) 09:26, 1 April 2026 (UTC)