Open Shortest Path First
Routing protocol for IP networks / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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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).
Communication protocol | |
Purpose | Routing protocol |
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Introduction | 1989; 35 years ago (1989) |
RFC(s) | 1131, 1247, 1583, 2178, 2328, 3101, 5709, 6549, 6845... |
Communication protocol | |
Introduction | 1999; 25 years ago (1999) |
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RFC(s) | 2740, 5340, 6845, 6860, 7503, 8362... |
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 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 version 2 is defined in 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.