Network Working Group                                          R. Coltun
Internet Draft                                              FORE Systems
Expiration Date: September 1997                              D. Ferguson
File name: draft-ietf-ospf-ospfv6-04.txt                Juniper Networks
Network Working Group                                             J. Moy
Internet Draft                              Cascade Communications Corp.
                                                              March 1997


                             OSPF for IPv6



Status of this Memo

    This document is an Internet-Draft.  Internet-Drafts are working
    documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), its areas,
    and its working groups.  Note that other groups may also distribute
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    ftp.isi.edu (US West Coast).

Abstract

    This document describes the modifications to OSPF to support version
    6 of the Internet Protocol (IPv6).  The fundamental mechanisms of
    OSPF (flooding, DR election, area support, SPF calculations, etc.)
    remain unchanged. However, some changes have been necessary, either
    due to changes in protocol semantics between IPv4 and IPv6, or
    simply to handle the increased address size of IPv6.

    Changes between OSPF for IPv4 and this document include the
    following. Addressing semantics have been removed from OSPF packets
    and the basic LSAs. New LSAs have been created to carry IPv6
    addresses and prefixes. OSPF now runs on a per-link basis, instead
    of on a per-IP-subnet basis. Flooding scope for LSAs has been
    generalized. Authentication has been removed from the OSPF protocol
    itself, instead relying on IPv6's Authentication Header and
    Encapsulating Security Payload.



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    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.
    In addition, option handling has been made more flexible.

    All of OSPF for IPv4's optional capabilities, including on-demand
    circuit support, NSSA areas, and the multicast extensions to OSPF
    (MOSPF) are also supported in OSPF for IPv6.

    Please send comments to ospf@gated.cornell.edu.









































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Table of Contents

    1        Introduction ........................................... 5
    1.1      Terminology ............................................ 5
    2        Differences from OSPF for IPv4 ......................... 5
    2.1      Protocol processing per-link, not per-subnet ........... 5
    2.2      Removal of addressing semantics ........................ 6
    2.3      Addition of Flooding scope ............................. 6
    2.4      Explicit support for multiple instances per link ....... 7
    2.5      Use of link-local addresses ............................ 7
    2.6      Authentication changes ................................. 8
    2.7      Packet format changes .................................. 8
    2.8      LSA format changes ..................................... 9
    2.9      Handling unknown LSA types ............................ 11
    2.10     Stub area support ..................................... 11
    2.11     Identifying neighbors by Router ID .................... 12
    2.12     Removal of TOS ........................................ 12
    3        Implementation details ................................ 12
    3.1      Protocol data structures .............................. 14
    3.1.1    The Area Data structure ............................... 14
    3.1.2    The Interface Data structure .......................... 14
    3.1.3    The Neighbor Data Structure ........................... 16
    3.2      Protocol Packet Processing ............................ 17
    3.2.1    Sending protocol packets .............................. 17
    3.2.1.1  Sending Hello packets ................................. 18
    3.2.1.2  Sending Database Description Packets .................. 19
    3.2.2    Receiving protocol packets ............................ 19
    3.2.2.1  Receiving Hello Packets ............................... 21
    3.3      The Routing table Structure ........................... 22
    3.3.1    Routing table lookup .................................. 23
    3.4      Link State Advertisements ............................. 23
    3.4.1    The LSA Header ........................................ 23
    3.4.2    The link-state database ............................... 24
    3.4.3    Originating LSAs ...................................... 25
    3.4.3.1  Router-LSAs ........................................... 27
    3.4.3.2  Network-LSAs .......................................... 29
    3.4.3.3  Inter-Area-Prefix-LSAs ................................ 30
    3.4.3.4  Inter-Area-Router-LSAs ................................ 31
    3.4.3.5  AS-external-LSAs ...................................... 32
    3.4.3.6  Link-LSAs ............................................. 34
    3.4.3.7  Intra-Area-Prefix-LSAs ................................ 35
    3.5      Flooding .............................................. 38
    3.5.1    Receiving Link State Update packets ................... 39
    3.5.2    Sending Link State Update packets ..................... 39
    3.5.3    Installing LSAs in the database ....................... 41
    3.6      Definition of self-originated LSAs .................... 42
    3.7      Virtual links ......................................... 42
    3.8      Routing table calculation ............................. 43



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    3.8.1    Calculating the shortest path tree for an area ........ 44
    3.8.1.1  The next hop calculation .............................. 45
    3.8.2    Calculating the inter-area routes ..................... 46
    3.8.3    Examining transit areas' summary-LSAs ................. 46
    3.8.4    Calculating AS external routes ........................ 46
             References ............................................ 48
    A        OSPF data formats ..................................... 50
    A.1      Encapsulation of OSPF packets ......................... 50
    A.2      The Options field ..................................... 52
    A.3      OSPF Packet Formats ................................... 54
    A.3.1    The OSPF packet header ................................ 55
    A.3.2    The Hello packet ...................................... 57
    A.3.3    The Database Description packet ....................... 59
    A.3.4    The Link State Request packet ......................... 61
    A.3.5    The Link State Update packet .......................... 62
    A.3.6    The Link State Acknowledgment packet .................. 63
    A.4      LSA formats ........................................... 65
    A.4.1    IPv6 Prefix Representation ............................ 66
    A.4.1.1  Prefix Options ........................................ 67
    A.4.2    The LSA header ........................................ 68
    A.4.2.1  LS type ............................................... 70
    A.4.3    Router-LSAs ........................................... 72
    A.4.4    Network-LSAs .......................................... 75
    A.4.5    Inter-Area-Prefix-LSAs ................................ 76
    A.4.6    Inter-Area-Router-LSAs ................................ 78
    A.4.7    AS-external-LSAs ...................................... 79
    A.4.8    Link-LSAs ............................................. 82
    A.4.9    Intra-Area-Prefix-LSAs ................................ 84
    B        Architectural Constants ............................... 86
    C        Configurable Constants ................................ 86
    C.1      Global parameters ..................................... 86
    C.2      Area parameters ....................................... 87
    C.3      Router interface parameters ........................... 88
    C.4      Virtual link parameters ............................... 89
    C.5      NBMA network parameters ............................... 90
    C.6      Point-to-MultiPoint network parameters ................ 91
    C.7      Host route parameters ................................. 91
             Security Considerations ............................... 92
             Authors' Addresses .................................... 92












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1.  Introduction

    This document describes the modifications to OSPF to support version
    6 of the Internet Protocol (IPv6).  The fundamental mechanisms of
    OSPF (flooding, DR election, area support, SPF calculations, etc.)
    remain unchanged. However, some changes have been necessary, either
    due to changes in protocol semantics between IPv4 and IPv6, or
    simply to handle the increased address size of IPv6.

    This document is organized as follows. Section 2 describes the
    differences between OSPF for IPv4 and OSPF for IPv6 in detail.
    Section 3 provides implementation details for the changes. Appendix
    A gives the OSPF for IPv6 packet and LSA formats. Appendix B lists
    the OSPF architectural constants. Appendix C describes configuration
    parameters.

    1.1.  Terminology

        This document attempts to use terms from both the OSPF for IPv4
        specification ([Ref1]) and the IPv6 protocol specifications
        ([Ref14]). This has produced a mixed result. Most of the terms
        used both by OSPF and IPv6 have roughly the same meaning (e.g.,
        interfaces). However, there are a few conflicts. IPv6 uses
        "link" similarly to IPv4 OSPF's "subnet" or "network". In this
        case, we have chosen to use IPv6's "link" terminology. "Link"
        replaces OSPF's "subnet" and "network" in most places in this
        document, although OSPF's Network-LSA remains unchanged (and
        possibly unfortunately, a new Link-LSA has also been created).

        The names of some of the OSPF LSAs have also changed. See
        Section 2.8 for details.

2.  Differences from OSPF for IPv4

    Most of the algorithms from OSPF for IPv4 [Ref1] have preserved in
    OSPF for IPv6. However, some changes have been necessary, either due
    to changes in protocol semantics between IPv4 and IPv6, or simply to
    handle the increased address size of IPv6.

    The following subsections describe the differences between this
    document and [Ref1].

    2.1.  Protocol processing per-link, not per-subnet

        IPv6 uses the term "link" to indicate "a communication facility
        or medium over which nodes can communicate at the link layer"
        ([Ref14]).  "Interfaces" connect to links. Multiple IP subnets
        can be assigned to a single link, and two nodes can talk



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        directly over a single link, even if they do not share a common
        IP subnet (IPv6 prefix).

        For this reason, OSPF for IPv6 runs per-link instead of the IPv4
        behavior of per-IP-subnet. The terms "network" and "subnet" used
        in the IPv4 OSPF specification ([Ref1]) should generally be
        relaced by link. Likewise, an OSPF interface now connects to a
        link instead of an IP subnet, etc.

        This change affects the receiving of OSPF protocol packets, and
        the contents of Hello Packets and Network-LSAs.

    2.2.  Removal of addressing semantics

        In OSPF for IPv6, addressing semantics have been removed from
        the OSPF protocol packets and the main LSA types, leaving a
        network-protocol-independent core. In particular:

        o   IPv6 Addresses are not present in OSPF packets, except for
            in LSA payloads carried by the Link State Update Packets.
            See Section 2.7 for details.

        o   Router-LSAs and Network-LSAs no longer contain network
            addresses, but simply express topology information. See
            Section 2.8 for details.

        o   OSPF Router IDs, Area IDs and LSA Link State IDs remain at
            the IPv4 size of 32-bits. They can no longer be assigned as
            (IPv6) addresses.

        o   Neighboring routers are now always identified by Router ID,
            where previously they had been identified by IP address on
            broadcast and NBMA "networks".

    2.3.  Addition of Flooding scope

        Flooding scope for LSAs has been generalized and is now
        explicitly coded in the LSA's LS type field. There are now three
        separate flooding scopes for LSAs:

        o   Link-local scope. LSA is flooded only on the local link, and
            no further. Used for the new Link-LSA (see Section A.4.8).

        o   Area scope. LSA is flooded throughout a single OSPF area
            only. Used for Router-LSAs, Network-LSAs, Inter-Area-
            Prefix-LSAs, Inter-Area-Router-LSAs and Intra-Area-Prefix-
            LSAs.




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        o   AS scope. LSA is flooded throughout the routing domain. Used
            for AS-external-LSAs.

    2.4.  Explicit support for multiple instances per link

        OSPF now supports the ability to run multiple OSPF protocol
        instances on a single link. For example, this may be required on
        a NAP segment shared between several providers -- providers may
        be running a separate OSPF routing domains that want to remain
        separate even though they have one or more physical network
        segments (i.e., links) in common. In OSPF for IPv4 this was
        supported in a haphazard fashion using the authentication fields
        in the OSPF for IPv4 header.

        Another use for running multiple OSPF instances is if you want,
        for one reason or another, to have a single link belong to two
        or more OSPF areas.

        Support for multiple protocol instances on a link is
        accomplished via an "Instance ID" contained in the OSPF packet
        header and OSPF interface structures. Instance ID solely affects
        the reception of OSPF packets.

    2.5.  Use of link-local addresses

        IPv6 link-local addresses are for use on a single link, for
        purposes of neighbor discovery, auto-configuration, etc. IPv6
        routers do not forward IPv6 datagrams having link-local source
        addresses [Ref15]. Link-local unicast addresses are assigned
        from the IPv6 address range FF80/10.

        OSPF for IPv6 assumes that each router has been assigned link-
        local unicast addresses on each of the router's attached
        physical segments. On all OSPF interfaces except virtual links,
        OSPF packets are sent using the interface's associated link-
        local unicast address as source. A router learns the link-local
        addresses of all other routers attached to its links, and uses
        these addresses as next hop information during packet
        forwarding.

        On virtual links, global scope or site-local IP addresses must
        be used as the source for OSPF protocol packets.

        Link-local addresses appear in OSPF Link-LSAs (see Section
        3.4.3.6). However, link-local addresses are not allowed in other
        OSPF LSA types. In particular, link-local addresses cannot be
        advertised in inter-area-prefix-LSAs (Section 3.4.3.3), AS-
        external-LSAs (Section 3.4.3.5) or intra-area-prefix-LSAs



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        (Section 3.4.3.7).

    2.6.  Authentication changes

        In OSPF for IPv6, authentication has been removed from OSPF
        itself. The "AuType" and "Authentication" fields have been
        removed from the OSPF packet header, and all authentication
        related fields have been removed from the OSPF area and
        interface structures.

        When running over IPv6, OSPF relies on the IP Authentication
        Header (see [Ref19]) and the IP Encapsulating Security Payload
        (see [Ref20]) to ensure integrity and
        authentication/confidentiality of routing exchanges.

        Protection of OSPF packet exchanges against accidental data
        corruption is provided by the standard IPv6 16-bit one's
        complement checksum, covering the entire OSPF packet and
        prepended IPv6 pseudo-header (see Section A.3.1).

    2.7.  Packet format changes

        OSPF for IPv6 runs directly over IPv6. Aside from this, all
        addressing semantics have been removed from the OSPF packet
        headers, making it essentially "network-protocol independent".
        All addressing information is now contained in the various LSA
        types only.

        In detail, changes in OSPF packet format consist of the
        following:

        o   The OSPF version number has been increased from 2 to 3.

        o   The Options field in Hello Packets and Database description
            Packets has been expanded to 24-bits.

        o   The Authentication and AuType fields have been removed from
            the OSPF packet header (see Section 2.6).

        o   The Hello packet now contains no address information at all,
            and includes a Interface ID which the originating router has
            assigned to uniquely identify (among its own interfaces) its
            interface to the link.  This Interface ID becomes the
            Network-LSA's Link State ID, should the router become
            Designated Router on the link.

        o   Two options bits, the "R-bit" and the "V6-bit", have been
            added to the Options field for processing Router-LSAs during



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            the SPF calculation (see Section A.2).  If the "R-bit" is
            clear an OSPF speaker can participate in OSPF topology
            distribution without being used to forward transit traffic;
            this can be used in multi-homed hosts that want to
            participate in the routing protocol. The V6-bit specializes
            the R-bit; if the V6-bit is clear an OSPF speaker can
            participate in OSPF topology distribution without being used
            to forward IPv6 datagrams. If the R-bit is set and the V6-
            bit is clear, IPv6 datagrams are not forwarded but datagrams
            belonging to another protocol family may be forwarded.

        o   The OSPF packet header now includes an "Instance ID" which
            allows multiple OSPF protocol instances to be run on a
            single link (see Section 2.4).

    2.8.  LSA format changes

        All addressing semantics have been removed from the LSA header,
        and from Router-LSAs and Network-LSAs. These two LSAs now
        describe the routing domain's topology in a network-protocol
        independent manner. New LSAs have been added to distribute IPv6
        address information, and data required for next hop resolution.
        The names of some of IPv4's LSAs have been changed to be more
        consistent with each other.

        In detail, changes in LSA format consist of the following:

        o   The Options field has been removed from the LSA header,
            expanded to 24 bits, and moved into the body of Router-LSAs,
            Network-LSAs, Inter-Area-Router-LSAs and Link-LSAs. See
            Section A.2 for details.

        o   The LSA Type field has been expanded (into the former
            Options space) to 16 bits, with the upper three bits
            encoding flooding scope and the handling of unknown LSA
            types (see Section 2.9).

        o   Addresses in LSAs are now expressed as [prefix, prefix
            length] instead of [address, mask] (see Section A.4.1). The
            default route is expressed as a prefix with length 0.

        o   The Router and Network LSAs now have no address information,
            and are network-protocol-independent.

        o   Router interface information may be spread across multiple
            Router LSAs. Receivers must concatenate all the Router-LSAs
            originated by a given router when running the SPF
            calculation.



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        o   A new LSA called the Link-LSA has been introduced. The LSAs
            have local-link flooding scope; they are never flooded
            beyond the link that they are associated with. Link-LSAs
            have three purposes: 1) they provide the router's link-local
            address to all other routers attached to the link and 2)
            they inform other routers attached to the link of a list of
            IPv6 prefixes to associate with the link and 3) they allow
            the router to assert a collection of Options bits to
            associate with the Network-LSA that will be originated for
            the link. See Section A.4.8 for details.

            In IPv4, the router-LSA carries a router's IPv4 interface
            addresses, the IPv4 equivalent of link-local addresses.
            These are only used when calculating next hops during the
            OSPF routing calculation (see Section 16.1.1 of [Ref1]), so
            they do not need to be flooded past the local link; hence
            using link-LSAs to distribute these addresses is more
            efficient. Note that link-local addresses cannot be learned
            through the reception of Hellos in all cases: on NBMA links
            next hop routers do not necessarily exchange hellos, but
            rather learn of each other's existence by way of the
            Designated Router.

        o   The Options field in the Network LSA is set to the logical
            OR of the Options that each router on the link advertises in
            its Link-LSA.

        o   Type-3 summary-LSAs have been renamed "Inter-Area-Prefix-
            LSAs". Type-4 summary LSAs have been renamed "Inter-Area-
            Router-LSAs".

        o   The Link State ID in Inter-Area-Prefix-LSAs, Inter-Area-
            Router-LSAs and AS-external-LSAs has lost its addressing
            semantics, and now serves solely to identify individual
            pieces of the Link State Database. All addresses or Router
            IDs that formerly were expressed by the Link State ID are
            now carried in the LSA bodies.

        o   Network-LSAs and Link-LSAs are the only LSAs whose Link
            State ID carries additional meaning. For these LSAs, the
            Link State ID is always the Interface ID of the originating
            router on the link being described. For this reason,
            Network-LSAs and Link-LSAs are now the only LSAs that cannot
            be broken into arbitrarily small pieces.

        o   A new LSA called the Intra-Area-Prefix-LSA has been
            introduced. This LSA carries all IPv6 prefix information
            that in IPv4 is included in Router-LSAs and Network-LSAs.



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            See Section A.4.9 for details.

        o   Inclusion of a forwarding address in AS-external-LSAs is now
            optional, as is the inclusion of an external route tag (see
            [Ref5]). In addition, AS-external-LSAs can now reference
            another LSA, for inclusion of additional route attributes
            that are outside the scope of the OSPF protocol itself. For
            example, this can be used to attach BGP path attributes to
            external routes as proposed in [Ref10].

    2.9.  Handling unknown LSA types

        Handling of unknown LSA types has been made more flexible so
        that, based on LS type, unknown LSA types are either treated as
        having link-local flooding scope, or are stored and flooded as
        if they were understood (desirable for things like the proposed
        External Attributes LSA in [Ref10]). This behavior is explicitly
        coded in the LSA Handling bit of the link state header's LS type
        field (see Section A.4.2.1).

        The IPv4 OSPF behavior of simply discarding unknown types is
        unsupported due to the desire to mix router capabilities on a
        single link. Discarding unknown types causes problems when the
        Designated Router supports fewer options than the other routers
        on the link.

    2.10.  Stub area support

        In OSPF for IPv4, stub areas were designed to minimize link-
        state database and routing table sizes for the areas' internal
        routers. This allows routers with minimal resources to
        participate in even very large OSPF routing domains.

        In OSPF for IPv6, the concept of stub areas is retained. In
        IPv6, of the mandatory LSA types, stub areas carry only router-
        LSAs, network-LSAs, Inter-Area-Prefix-LSAs, Link-LSAs, and
        Intra-Area-Prefix-LSAs. This is the IPv6 equivalent of the LSA
        types carried in IPv4 stub areas: router-LSAs, network-LSAs and
        type 3 summary-LSAs.

        However, unlike in IPv4, IPv6 allows LSAs with unrecognized LS
        types to be labeled "Store and flood the LSA, as if type
        understood" (see the U-bit in Section A.4.2.1). Uncontrolled
        introduction of such LSAs could cause a stub area's link-state
        database to grow larger than it's component routers' capacities.
        To guard against this, the following rule regarding stub areas
        has been established: an LSA whose LS type is unrecognized is
        not flooded into/throughout stub areas if either a) the unknown



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        LSA has AS flooding scope or b) the unknown LSA has U-bit set to
        1 (flood even when LS type unrecognized). See Section 3.5 for
        details.

    2.11.  Identifying neighbors by Router ID

        In OSPF for IPv6, neighboring routers on a given link are always
        identified by their OSPF Router ID. This contrasts with the IPv4
        behavior where neighbors on point-to-point networks and virtual
        links are identified by their Router IDs, and neighbors on
        broadcast, NBMA and Point-to-MultiPoint links are identified by
        their IPv4 interface addresses.

        This change affects the reception of OSPF packets (see Section
        8.2 of [Ref1]), the lookup of neighbors (Section 10 of [Ref1])
        and the reception of Hello Packets in particular (Section 10.5
        of [Ref1]).

        The Router ID of 0.0.0.0 is reserved, and should not be used.

    2.12.  Removal of TOS

        The semantics of IPv4 TOS have not been moved forward to IPv6.
        Therefore, support for TOS in OSPF for IPv6 has been removed.
        This affects both LSA formats and routing calculations.

        The IPv6 header does have a 24-bit Flow Label field which may be
        used by a source to label those packets for which it requests
        special handling by IPv6 routers, such as non-default quality of
        service or "real-time" service. The OSPF LSAs for IPv6 have been
        organized so that future extensions to support routing based on
        Flow Label are possible.

3.  Implementation details

    When going from IPv4 to IPv6, the basic OSPF mechanisms remain
    unchanged from those documented in [Ref1]. These mechanisms are
    briefly outlined in Section 4 of [Ref1]. Both IPv6 and IPv4 have a
    link-state database composed of LSAs and synchronized between
    adjacent routers. Initial synchronization is performed through the
    Database Exchange process, through the exchange of Database
    Description, Link State Request and Link State Update packets.
    Thereafter database synchronization is maintained via flooding,
    utilizing Link State Update and Link State Acknowledgment packets.
    Both IPv6 and IPv4 use OSPF Hello Packets to disover and maintain
    neighbor relationships, and to elect Designated Routers and Backup
    Designated Routers on broadcast and NBMA links. The decision as to
    which neighbor relationships become adjacencies, along with the



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    basic ideas behind inter-area routing, importing external
    information in AS-external-LSAs and the various routing calculations
    are also the same.

    In particular, the following IPv4 OSPF functionality described in
    [Ref1] remains completely unchanged for IPv6:

    o   Both IPv4 and IPv6 use OSPF packet types described in Section
        4.3 of [Ref1], namely: Hello, Database Description, Link State
        Request, Link State Update and Link State Acknowledgment
        packets. While in some cases (e.g., Hello packets) their format
        has changed somewhat, the functions of the various packet types
        remains the same.

    o   The system requirements for an OSPF implementation remain
        unchanged, although OSPF for IPv6 requires an IPv6 protocol
        stack (from the network layer on down) since it runs directly
        over the IPv6 network layer.

    o   The discovery and maintenance of neighbor relationships, and the
        selection and establishment of adjacencies remain the same. This
        includes election of the Designated Router and Backup Designated
        Router on broadcast and NBMA links. These mechanisms are
        described in Sections 7, 7.1, 7.2, 7.3, 7.4 and 7.5 of [Ref1].

    o   The link types (or equivalently, interface types) supported by
        OSPF remain unchanged, namely: point-to-point, broadcast, NBMA,
        Point-to-MultiPoint and virtual links.

    o   The interface state machine, including the list of OSPF
        interface states and events, and the Designated Router and
        Backup Designated Router election algorithm, remain unchanged.
        These are described in Sections 9.1, 9.2, 9.3 and 9.4 of [Ref1].

    o   The neighbor state machine, including the list of OSPF neighbor
        states and events, remain unchanged. These are described in
        Sections 10.1, 10.2, 10.3 and 10.4 of [Ref1].

    o   Aging of the link-state database, as well as flushing LSAs from
        the routing domain through the premature aging process, remains
        unchanged from the description in Sections 14 and 14.1 of
        [Ref1].

    However, some OSPF protocol mechanisms have changed, as outlined in
    Section 2 above. These changes are explained in detail in the
    following subsections, making references to the appropriate sections
    of [Ref1].




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    The following subsections provide a recipe for turning an IPv4 OSPF
    implementation into an IPv6 OSPF implementation.

    3.1.  Protocol data structures

        The major OSPF data structures are the same for both IPv4 and
        IPv6:  areas, interfaces, neighbors, the link-state database and
        the routing table. The top-level data structures for IPv6 remain
        those listed in Section 5 of [Ref1], with the following
        modifications:

        o   All LSAs with known LS type and AS flooding scope appear in
            the top-level data structure, instead of belonging to a
            specific area or link. AS-external-LSAs are the only LSAs
            defined by this specification which have AS flooding scope.
            LSAs with unknown LS type, U-bit set to 1 (flood even when
            unrecognized) and AS flooding scope also appear in the top-
            level data structure.

        o   Since IPv6 does not have the concept of TOS, "TOS
            capability" is not a part of the OSPF fro IPv6
            specification.

        3.1.1.  The Area Data structure

            The IPv6 area data structure contains all elements defined
            for IPv4 areas in Section 6 of [Ref1]. In addition, all LSAs
            of known type which have area flooding scope are contained
            in the IPv6 area data structure. This always includes the
            following LSA types: router-LSAs, network-LSAs, inter-area-
            prefix-LSAs, inter-area-router-LSAs and intra-area-prefix-
            LSAs. LSAs with unknown LS type, U-bit set to 1 (flood even
            when unrecognized) and area scope also appear in the area
            data structure. IPv6 routers implementing MOSPF add group-
            membership-LSAs to the area data structure. Type-7-LSAs
            belong to an NSSA area's data structure.

        3.1.2.  The Interface Data structure

            In OSPF for IPv6, an interface connects a router to a link.
            The IPv6 interface structure modifies the IPv4 interface
            structure (as defined in Section 9 of [Ref1]) as follows:

            Interface ID
                Every interface is assigned an Interface ID, which
                uniquely identifies the interface with the router. For
                example, some implementations may be able to use the
                MIB-II IfIndex as Interface ID. The Interface ID appears



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                in Hello packets sent out the interface, the link-
                local-LSA originated by router for the attached link,
                and the router-LSA originated by the router-LSA for the
                associated area. It will also serve as the Link State ID
                for the network-LSA that the router will originate for
                the link if the router is elected Designated Router.

            Instance ID
                Every interface is assigned an Instance ID. This should
                default to 0, and is only necessary to assign
                differently on those links that will contain multiple
                separate communities of OSPF Routers. For example,
                suppose that there are two communities of routers on a
                given ethernet segment that you wish to keep separate.
                The first community is given an Instance ID of 0, by
                assigning 0 as the Instance ID of all its routers'
                interfaces to the ethernet. An Instance ID of 1 is
                assigned to the other routers' interface to the
                ethernet. The OSPF transmit and receive processing (see
                Section 3.2) will then keep the two communities
                separate.

            List of LSAs with link-local scope
                All LSAs with link-local scope and which were
                originated/flooded on the link belong to the interface
                structure which connects to the link. This includes the
                collection of the link's link-LSAs.

            List of LSAs with unknown LS type
                All LSAs with unknown LS type and U-bit set to 0 (if
                unrecognized, treat the LSA as if it had link-local
                flooding scope) are kept in data structure for the
                interface that received the LSA.

            IP interface address
                For IPv6, the IPv6 address appearing in the source of
                OSPF packets sent out the interface is almost always a
                link-local address. The one exception is for virtual
                links, which must use one of the router's own site-local
                or global IPv6 addresses as IP interface address.

            List of link prefixes
                A list of IPv6 prefixes can be configured for the
                attached link. These will be advertised by the router in
                link-LSAs, so that they can be advertised by the link's
                Designated Router in intra-area-prefix-LSAs.





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            There is only a single interface output cost, as IPv6 has no
            concept of TOS. In addition, OSPF for IPv6 relies on the IP
            Authentication Header (see [Ref19]) and the IP Encapsulating
            Security Payload (see [Ref20]) to ensure integrity and
            authentication/confidentiality of routing exchanges.  For
            that reason, AuType and Authentication key are not
            associated with IPv6 OSPF interfaces.

            Interface states, events, and the interface state machine
            remain unchanged from IPv4, and are documented in Sections
            9.1, 9.2 and 9.3 of [Ref1] respectively. The Designated
            Router and Backup Designated Router election algorithm also
            remains unchanged from the IPv4 election in Section 9.4 of
            [Ref1].

        3.1.3.  The Neighbor Data Structure

            The neighbor structure performs the same function in both
            IPv6 and IPv4. Namely, it collects all information required
            to form an adjacency between two routers, if an adjacency
            becomes necessary. Each neighbor structure is bound to a
            single OSPF interface. The differences between the IPv6
            neighbor structure and the neighbor structure defined for
            IPv4 in Section 10 of [Ref1] are:

            Neighbor's Interface ID
                The Interface ID that the neighbor advertises in its
                Hello Packets must be recorded in the neighbor
                structure. The router will include the neighbor's
                Interface ID in the router's router-LSA when either a)
                advertising a point-to-point link to the neighbor or b)
                advertising a link to a network where the neighbor has
                become Designated Router.

            Neighbor IP address
                Except on virtual links, the neighbor's IP address will
                be an IPv6 link-local address.

            Neighbor's Designated Router
                The neighbor's choice of Designated Router is now
                encoded as Router ID, instead of as an IP address.

            Neighbor's Backup Designated Router
                The neighbor's choice of Designated Router is now
                encoded as Router ID, instead of as an IP address.

            Neighbor states, events, and the neighbor state machine
            remain unchanged from IPv4, and are documented in Sections



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            10.1, 10.2 and 10.3 of [Ref1] respectively. The decision as
            to which adjacencies to form also remains unchanged from the
            IPv4 logic documented in Section 10.4 of [Ref1].

    3.2.  Protocol Packet Processing

        OSPF for IPv6 runs directly over IPv6's network layer. As such,
        it is encapsulated in one or more IPv6 headers, with the Next
        Header field of the immediately encapsulating IPv6 header set to
        the value 89. OSPF protocol packets should be given precedence
        over regular IPv6 data traffic, in both sending and receiving.
        as an aid towards accomplishing this precedence, OSPF routing
        protocol packets are sent with IPv6 Priority field set to 7
        (internet control traffic).

        As for IPv4, in IPv6 OSPF routing protocol packets are sent
        along adjacencies only (with the exception of Hello packets,
        which are used to discover the adjacencies). OSPF packet types
        and functions are the same in both IPv4 and IPv4, encoded by the
        Type field of the standard OSPF packet header.

        3.2.1.  Sending protocol packets

            When an IPv6 router sends an OSPF routing protocol packet,
            it fills in the fields of the standard OSPF for IPv6 packet
            header (see Section A.3.1) as follows:

            Version #
                Set to 3, the version number of the protocol as
                documented in this specification.

            Type
                The type of OSPF packet, such as Link state Update or
                Hello Packet.

            Packet length
                The length of the entire OSPF packet in bytes, including
                the standard OSPF packet header.

            Router ID
                The identity of the router itself (who is originating
                the packet).

            Area ID
                The OSPF area that the packet is being sent into.

            Instance ID
                The OSPF Instance ID associated with the interface that



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                the packet is being sent out of.

            Checksum
                The standard IPv6 16-bit one's complement checksum,
                covering the entire OSPF packet and prepended IPv6
                pseudo-header (see Section A.3.1).

            Selection of OSPF routing protocol packets' IPv6 source and
            destination addresses is performed identically to the IPv4
            logic in Section 8.1 of [Ref1]. The IPv6 destination address
            is chosen from among the addresses AllSPFRouters,
            AllDRouters and the Neighbor IP address associated with the
            other end of the adjacency (which in IPv6, for all links
            except virtual links, is an IPv6 link-local address).

            The sending of Link State Request Packets and Link State
            Acknowledgment Packets remains unchanged from the IPv4
            procedures documented in Sections 10.9 and 13.5 of [Ref1]
            respectively. Sending Hello Packets is documented in Section
            3.2.1.1, and the sending of Database Description Packets in
            Section 3.2.1.2. The sending of Link State Update Packets is
            documented in Section 3.5.2.

            3.2.1.1.  Sending Hello packets

                IPv6 changes the way OSPF Hello packets are sent in the
                following ways (compare to Section 9.5 of [Ref1]):

                o   Before the Hello Packet is sent out an interface,
                    the interface's Interface ID must be copied into the
                    Hello Packet.

                o   The Hello Packet no longer contains an IP network
                    mask, as OSPF for IPv6 runs per-link instead of
                    per-subnet.

                o   The choice of Designated Router and Backup
                    Designated Router are now indicated within Hellos by
                    their Router IDs, instead of by their IP interface
                    addresses.  Advertising the Designated Router (or
                    Backup Designated Router) as 0.0.0.0 indicates that
                    the Designated Router (or Backup Designated Router)
                    has not yet been chosen.

                o   The Options field within Hello packets has moved
                    around, getting larger in the process. More options
                    bits are now possible. Those that must be set
                    correctly in Hello packets are: The E-bit is set if



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                    and only if the interface attaches to a non-stub
                    area, the N-bit is set if and only if the interface
                    attaches to an NSSA area (see [Ref9]), and the DC-
                    bit is set if and only if the router wishes to
                    suppress the sending of future Hellos over the
                    interface (see [Ref11]). Unrecognized bits in the
                    Hello Packet's Options field should be cleared.

                Sending Hello packets on NBMA networks proceeds for IPv6
                in exactly the same way as for IPv4, as documented in
                Section 9.5.1 of [Ref1].

            3.2.1.2.  Sending Database Description Packets

                The sending of Database Description packets differs from
                Section 10.8 of [Ref1] in the following ways:

                o   The Options field within Database Description
                    packets has moved around, getting larger in the
                    process. More options bits are now possible. Those
                    that must be set correctly in Database Description
                    packets are: The MC-bit is set if and only if the
                    router is forwarding multicast datagrams according
                    to the MOSPF specification in [Ref7].  Unrecognized
                    bits in the Database Description Packet's Options
                    field should be cleared.

        3.2.2.  Receiving protocol packets

            Whenever an OSPF protocol packet is received by the router
            it is marked with the interface it was received on.  For
            routers that have virtual links configured, it may not be
            immediately obvious which interface to associate the packet
            with.  For example, consider the Router RT11 depicted in
            Figure 6 of [Ref1].  If RT11 receives an OSPF protocol
            packet on its interface to Network N8, it may want to
            associate the packet with the interface to Area 2, or with
            the virtual link to Router RT10 (which is part of the
            backbone).  In the following, we assume that the packet is
            initially associated with the non-virtual link.

            In order for the packet to be passed to OSPF for processing,
            the following tests must be performed on the encapsulating
            IPv6 headers:

            o   The packet's IP destination address must be one of the
                IPv6 unicast addresses associated with the receiving
                interface (this includes link-local addresses), or one



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                of the IP multicast addresses AllSPFRouters or
                AllDRouters.

            o   The Next Header field of the immediately encapsulating
                IPv6 header must specify the OSPF protocol (89).

            o   Any encapsulating IP Authentication Headers (see
                [Ref19]) and the IP Encapsulating Security Payloads (see
                [Ref20]) must be processed and/or verified to ensure
                integrity and authentication/confidentiality of OSPF
                routing exchanges.

            o   Locally originated packets should not be passed on to
                OSPF.  That is, the source IPv6 address should be
                examined to make sure this is not a multicast packet
                that the router itself generated.

            After processing the encapsulating IPv6 headers, the OSPF
            packet header is processed.  The fields specified in the
            header must match those configured for the receiving
            interface.  If they do not, the packet should be discarded:

            o   The version number field must specify protocol version
                3.

            o   The standard IPv6 16-bit one's complement checksum,
                covering the entire OSPF packet and prepended IPv6
                pseudo-header, must be verified (see Section A.3.1).

            o   The Area ID found in the OSPF header must be verified.
                If both of the following cases fail, the packet should
                be discarded.  The Area ID specified in the header must
                either:

                (1) Match the Area ID of the receiving interface. In
                    this case, unlike for IPv4, the IPv6 source address
                    is not restricted to lie on the same IP subnet as
                    the receiving interface. IPv6 OSPF runs per-link,
                    instead of per-IP-subnet.

                (2) Indicate the backbone.  In this case, the packet has
                    been sent over a virtual link.  The receiving router
                    must be an area border router, and the Router ID
                    specified in the packet (the source router) must be
                    the other end of a configured virtual link.  The
                    receiving interface must also attach to the virtual
                    link's configured Transit area.  If all of these
                    checks succeed, the packet is accepted and is from



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                    now on associated with the virtual link (and the
                    backbone area).

            o   The Instance ID specified in the OSPF header must match
                the receiving interface's Instance ID.

            o   Packets whose IP destination is AllDRouters should only
                be accepted if the state of the receiving interface is
                DR or Backup (see Section 9.1).

            After header processing, the packet is further processed
            according to it OSPF packet type. OSPF packet types and
            functions are the same for both IPv4 and IPv6.

            If the packet type is Hello, it should then be further
            processed by the Hello Protocol.  All other packet types are
            sent/received only on adjacencies.  This means that the
            packet must have been sent by one of the router's active
            neighbors. The neighbor is identified by the Router ID
            appearing the the received packet's OSPF header. Packets not
            matching any active neighbor are discarded.

            The receive processing of Database Description Packets, Link
            State Request Packets and Link State Acknowledgment Packets
            remains unchanged from the IPv4 procedures documented in
            Sections 10.6, 10.7 and 13.7 of [Ref1] respectively. The
            receiving of Hello Packets is documented in Section 3.2.2.1,
            and the receiving of Link State Update Packets is documented
            in Section 3.5.1.

            3.2.2.1.  Receiving Hello Packets

                The receive processing of Hello Packets differs from
                Section 10.5 of [Ref1] in the following ways:

                o   On all link types (e.g., broadcast, NBMA, point-to-
                    point, etc), neighbors are identified solely by
                    their OSPF Router ID. For all link types except
                    virtual links, the Neighbor IP address is set to the
                    IPv6 source address in the IPv6 header of the
                    received OSPF Hello packet.

                o   There is no longer a Network Mask field in the Hello
                    Packet.

                o   The neighbor's choice of Designated Router and
                    Backup Designated Router is now encoded as an OSPF
                    Router ID instead of an IP interface address.



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    3.3.  The Routing table Structure

        The routing table used by OSPF for IPv4 is defined in Section 11
        of [Ref1]. For IPv6 there are analogous routing table entries:
        there are routing table entries for IPv6 address prefixes, and
        also for AS boundary routers. The latter routing table entries
        are only used to hold intermediate results during the routing
        table build process (see Section 3.8).

        Also, to hold the intermediate results during the shortest-path
        calculation for each area, there is a separate routing table for
        each area holding the following entries:

        o   An entry for each router in the area. Routers are identified
            by their OSPF router ID. These routing table entries hold
            the set of shortest paths through a given area to a given
            router, which in turn allows calculation of paths to the
            IPv6 prefixes advertised by that router in Intra-area-
            prefix-LSAs. If the router is also an area-border router,
            these entries are also used to calculate paths for inter-
            area address prefixes. If in addition the router is the
            other endpoint of a virtual link, the routing table entry
            describes the cost and viability of the virtual link.

        o   An entry for each transit link in the area. Transit links
            have associated network-LSAs. Both the transit link and the
            network-LSA are identified by a combination of the
            Designated Router's Interface ID on the link and the
            Designated Router's OSPF Router ID. These routing table
            entries allow later calculation of paths to IP prefixes
            advertised for the transit link in intra-area-prefix-LSAs.

        Since IPv6 does not support the concept of Type of Service
        (TOS), there are no longer separate sets of paths for each TOS.
        The rest of the fields in the IPv4 OSPF routing table (see
        Section 11 of [Ref1]) remain valid for IPv6: Optional
        capabilities (routers only), path type, cost, type 2 cost, link
        state origin, and for each of the equal cost paths to the
        destination, the next hop and advertising router (inter-area and
        AS external paths only).

        For IPv6, the link-state origin field in the routing table entry
        is the router-LSA or network-LSA that has directly or indirectly
        produced the routing table entry. For example, if the routing
        table entry describes a route to an IPv6 prefix, the link state
        origin is the router-LSA or network-LSA that is listed in the
        body of the intra-area-prefix-LSA that has produced the route
        (see Section A.4.9).



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        3.3.1.  Routing table lookup

            Routing table lookup (i.e., determining the best matching
            routing table entry during IP forwarding) is the same for
            IPv6 as for IPv4, except that Type of Service is not taken
            into account. The lookup consists of the first three steps
            of Section 11.1 in [Ref1], ignoring the last step that
            concerns only TOS.

    3.4.  Link State Advertisements

        For IPv6, the OSPF LSA header has changed slightly, with the LS
        type field expanding and the Options field being moved into the
        body of appropriate LSAs. Also, the formats of some LSAs have
        changed somewhat (namely router-LSAs, network-LSAs and AS-
        external-LSAs), while the names of other LSAs have been changed
        (type 3 and 4 summary-LSAs are now inter-area-prefix-LSAs and
        inter-area-router-LSAs respectively) and additional LSAs have
        been added (Link-LSAs and Intra-Area-Prefix-LSAs). Since IPv6
        does not support TOS, TOS is no longer encoded within LSAs.

        These changes will be described in detail in the following
        subsections.

        3.4.1.  The LSA Header

            In both IPv4 and IPv6, all OSPF LSAs begin with a standard
            20 byte LSA header. However, the contents of this 20 byte
            header have changed in IPv6. The LS age, Advertising Router,
            LS Sequence Number, LS checksum and length fields within the
            LSA header remain unchanged, as documented in Sections
            12.1.1, 12.1.5, 12.1.6, 12.1.7 and A.4.1 of [Ref1]
            respectively.  However, the following fields have changed
            for IPv6:

            Options
                The Options field has been removed from the standard 20
                byte LSA header, and into the body of router-LSAs,
                network-LSAs, inter-area-router-LSAs and link-LSAs. The
                size of the Options field has increased from 8 to 24
                bits, and some of the bit definitions have changed (see
                Section A.2). In addition a separate PrefixOptions
                field, 8 bits in length, is attached to each prefix
                advertised within the body of an LSA.

            LS type
                The size of the LS type field has increased from 8 to 16
                bits, with the top two bits encoding flooding scope and



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                the next bit encoding the handling of unknown LS types.
                See Section A.4.2.1 for the current coding of the LS
                type field.

            Link State ID
                Link State ID remains at 32 bits in length, but except
                for network-LSAs and link-LSAs, Link State ID has shed
                any addressing semantics. For example, an IPv6 router
                originating multiple AS-external-LSAs could start by
                assigning the first a Link State ID of 0.0.0.1, the
                second a Link State ID of 0.0.0.2, and so on. Instead of
                the IPv4 behavior of encoding the network number within
                the AS-external-LSA's Link State ID, the IPv6 Link State
                ID simply serves as a way to differentiate multiple LSAs
                originated by the same router.

                For network-LSAs, the Link State ID is set to the
                Designated Router's Interface ID on the link. When a
                router originates a Link-LSA for a given link, its Link
                State ID is set equal to the router's Interface ID on
                the link.

        3.4.2.  The link-state database

            In IPv6, as in IPv4, individual LSAs are identified by a
            combination of their LS type, Link State ID and Advertising
            Router fields. Given two instances of an LSA, the most
            recent instance is determined by examining the LSAs' LS
            Sequence Number, using LS checksum and LS age as tiebreakers
            (see Section 13.1 of [Ref1]).

            In IPv6, the link-state database is split across three
            separate data structures. LSAs with AS flooding scope are
            contained within the top-level OSPF data structure (see
            Section 3.1) as long as either their LS type is known or
            their U-bit is 1 (flood even when unrecognized); this
            includes the AS-external-LSAs. LSAs with area flooding scope
            are contained within the appropriate area structure (see
            Section 3.1.1) as long as either their LS type is known or
            their U-bit is 1 (flood even when unrecognized); this
            includes router-LSAs, network-LSAs, inter-area-prefix-LSAs,
            inter-area-router-LSAs, and intra-area-prefix-LSAs. LSAs
            with unknown LS type and U-bit set to 0 and/or link-local
            flooding scope are contained within the appropriate
            interface structure (see Section 3.1.2); this includes
            link-LSAs.





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            To lookup or install an LSA in the database, you first
            examine the LS type and the LSA's context (i.e., to which
            area or link does the LSA belong). This information allows
            you to find the correct list of LSAs, all of the same LS
            type, where you then search based on the LSA's Link State ID
            and Advertising Router.

        3.4.3.  Originating LSAs

            The process of reoriginating an LSA in IPv6 is the same as
            in IPv4:  the LSA's LS sequence number is incremented, its
            LS age is set to 0, its LS checksum is calculated, and the
            LSA is added to the link state database and flooded out the
            appropriate interfaces.

            To the list of events causing LSAs to be reoriginated, which
            for IPv4 is given in Section 12.4 of [Ref1], the following
            events are added for IPv6:

            o   The Interface ID of a neighbor changes. This may cause a
                new instance of a router-LSA to be originated for the
                associated area.

            o   A new prefix is added to an attached link, or a prefix
                is deleted (both through configuration). This causes the
                router to reoriginate its link-LSA for the link, or, if
                it is the only router attached to the link, causes the
                router to reoriginate an intra-area-prefix-LSA.

            o   A new link-LSA is received, causing the link's
                collection of prefixes to change. If the router is
                Designated Router for the link, it originates a new
                intra-area-prefix-LSA.

            Detailed construction of the seven required IPv6 LSA types
            is supplied by the following subsections. In order to
            display example LSAs, the network map in Figure 15 of [Ref1]
            has been reworked to show IPv6 addressing, resulting in
            Figure 1. The OSPF cost of each interface is has been
            displayed in Figure 1. The assignment of IPv6 prefixes to
            network links is shown in Table 1. A single area address
            range has been configured for Area 1, so that outside of
            Area 1 all of its prefixes are covered by a single route to
            5f00:0000:c001::/48. The OSPF interface IDs and the link-
            local addresses for the router interfaces in Figure 1 are
            given in Table 2.





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                  ..........................................
                  .                                  Area 1.
                  .     +                                  .
                  .     |                                  .
                  .     | 3+---+1                          .
                  .  N1 |--|RT1|-----+                     .
                  .     |  +---+      \                    .
                  .     |              \  ______           .
                  .     +               \/       \      1+---+
                  .                     *    N3   *------|RT4|------
                  .     +               /\_______/       +---+
                  .     |              /     |             .
                  .     | 3+---+1     /      |             .
                  .  N2 |--|RT2|-----+      1|             .
                  .     |  +---+           +---+           .
                  .     |                  |RT3|----------------
                  .     +                  +---+           .
                  .                          |2            .
                  .                          |             .
                  .                   +------------+       .
                  .                          N4            .
                  ..........................................


                    Figure 1: Area 1 with IP addresses shown


                           Network   IPv6 prefix
                           __________________________________
                           N1        5f00:0000:0c01:0200::/56
                           N2        5f00:0000:0c01:0300::/56
                           N3        5f00:0000:0c01:0100::/56
                           N4        5f00:0000:0c01:0400::/56


                     Table 1: IPv6 link prefixes for sample network














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                 Router   interface   Interface ID   link-local address
                 ______________________________________________________
                 RT1      to N1       1              fe80:0001::RT1
                          to N3       2              fe80:0002::RT1
                 RT2      to N2       1              fe80:0001::RT2
                          to N3       2              fe80:0002::RT2
                 RT3      to N3       1              fe80:0001::RT3
                          to N4       2              fe80:0002::RT3
                 RT4      to N3       1              fe80:0001::RT4


                  Table 2: OSPF Interface IDs and link-local addresses


            3.4.3.1.  Router-LSAs

                The LS type of a router-LSA is set to the value 0x2001.
                Router-LSAs have area flooding scope. A router may
                originate one or more router-LSAs for a given area.
                Taken together, the collection of router-LSAs originated
                by the router for an area describes the collected states
                of all the router's interface to the area. When multiple
                router-LSAs are used, they are distinguished by their
                Link State ID fields.

                The Options field in the router-LSA should be coded as
                follows. The V6-bit should be set. The E-bit should be
                clear if and only if the area is an OSPF stub area. The
                MC-bit should be set if and only if the router is
                running MOSPF (see [Ref8]). The N-bit should be set if
                and only if the area is an OSPF NSSA area. The R-bit
                should be set. The DC-bit should be set if and only if
                the router can correctly process the DoNotAge bit when
                it appears in the LS age field of LSAs (see [Ref11]).
                All unrecognized bits in the Options field should be
                cleared

                To the left of the Options field, the router capability
                bits V, E and B should be coded according to Section
                12.4.1 of [Ref1]. Bit W should be coded according to
                [Ref8].

                Each of the router's interfaces to the area are then
                described by appending "link descriptions" to the
                router-LSA. Each link description is 16 bytes long,
                consisting of 5 fields: (link) Type, Metric, Interface
                ID, Neighbor Interface ID and Neighbor Router ID (see



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                Section A.4.3). Interfaces in state "Down" or "Loopback"
                are not described (although looped back interfaces can
                contribute prefixes to Intra-Area-Prefix-LSAs). Nor are
                interfaces without any full adjacencies described. All
                other interfaces to the area add zero, one or more link
                descriptions, the number and content of which depend on
                the interface type. Within each link description, the
                Metric field is always set the interface's output cost
                and the Interface ID field is set to the interface's
                OSPF Interface ID.

                Point-to-point interfaces
                    If the neighboring router is fully adjacent, add a
                    Type 1 link description (point-to-point). The
                    Neighbor Interface ID field is set to the Interface
                    ID advertised by the neighbor in its Hello packets,
                    and the Neighbor Router ID field is set to the
                    neighbor's Router ID.

                Broadcast and NBMA interfaces
                    If the router is fully adjacent to the link's
                    Designated Router, or if the router itself is
                    Designated Router and is fully adjacent to at least
                    one other router, add a single Type 2 link
                    description (transit network). The Neighbor
                    Interface ID field is set to the Interface ID
                    advertised by the Designated Router in its Hello
                    packets, and the Neighbor Router ID field is set to
                    the Designated Router's Router ID.

                Virtual links
                    If the neighboring router is fully adjacent, add a
                    Type 4 link description (virtual). The Neighbor
                    Interface ID field is set to the Interface ID
                    advertised by the neighbor in its Hello packets, and
                    the Neighbor Router ID field is set to the
                    neighbor's Router ID. Note that the output cost of a
                    virtual link is calculated during the routing table
                    calculation (see Section 3.7).

                Point-to-MultiPoint interfaces
                    For each fully adjacent neighbor associated with the
                    interface, add a separate Type 1 link description
                    (point-to-point) with Neighbor Interface ID field
                    set to the Interface ID advertised by the neighbor
                    in its Hello packets, and Neighbor Router ID field
                    set to the neighbor's Router ID.




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                As an example, consider the router-LSA that router RT3
                would originate for Area 1 in Figure 1. Only a single
                interface must be described, namely that which connects
                to the transit network N3. It assumes that RT4 has bee
                elected Designated Router of Network N3.

                  ; RT3's router-LSA for Area 1

                  LS age = 0                     ;newly (re)originated
                  LS type = 0x2001               ;router-LSA
                  Link State ID = 0              ;first fragment
                  Advertising Router = 192.1.1.3 ;RT3's Router ID
                  bit E = 0                      ;not an AS boundary router
                  bit B = 1                      ;area border router
                  Options = (V6-bit|E-bit|R-bit)
                      Type = 2                     ;connects to N3
                      Metric = 1                   ;cost to N3
                      Interface ID = 1             ;RT3's Interface ID on N3
                      Neighbor Interface ID = 1    ;RT4's Interface ID on N3
                      Neighbor Router ID = 192.1.1.4 ; RT4's Router ID

                If for example another router was added to Network N4,
                RT3 would have to advertise a second link description
                for its connection to (the now transit) network N4. This
                could be accomplished by reoriginating the above
                router-LSA, this time with two link descriptions. Or, a
                separate router-LSA could be originated with a separate
                Link State ID (e.g., using a Link State ID of 1) to
                describe the connection to N4.

                Host routes no longer appear in the router-LSA, but are
                instead included in intra-area-prefix-LSAs.

            3.4.3.2.  Network-LSAs

                The LS type of a network-LSA is set to the value 0x2002.
                Network-LSAs have area flooding scope. A network-LSA is
                originated for every transit broadcast or NBMA link, by
                the link's Designated Router. Transit links are those
                that have two or more attached routers. The network-LSA
                lists all routers attached to the link.

                The procedure for originating network-LSAs in IPv6 is
                the same as the IPv4 procedure documented in Section
                12.4.2 of [Ref1], with the following exceptions:

                o   An IPv6 network-LSA's Link State ID is set to the
                    Interface ID of the Designated Router on the link.



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                o   IPv6 network-LSAs do not contain a Network Mask. All
                    addressing information formerly contained in the
                    IPv4 network-LSA has now been consigned to intra-
                    Area-Prefix-LSAs.

                o   The Options field in the network-LSA is set to the
                    logical OR of the Options fields contained within
                    the link's associated link-LSAs.  In this way, the
                    network link exhibits a capability when at least one
                    of the link's routers requests that the capability
                    be asserted.

                As an example, assuming that Router RT4 has been elected
                Designated Router of Network N3 in Figure 1, the
                following network-LSA is originated:

                  ; Network-LSA for Network N3

                  LS age = 0                     ;newly (re)originated
                  LS type = 0x2002               ;network-LSA
                  Link State ID = 1              ;RT4's Interface ID on N3
                  Advertising Router = 192.1.1.4 ;RT4's Router ID
                  Options = (V6-bit|E-bit|R-bit)
                         Attached Router = 192.1.1.4    ;Router ID
                         Attached Router = 192.1.1.1    ;Router ID
                         Attached Router = 192.1.1.2    ;Router ID
                         Attached Router = 192.1.1.3    ;Router ID

            3.4.3.3.  Inter-Area-Prefix-LSAs

                The LS type of an inter-area-prefix-LSA is set to the
                value 0x2003. Inter-area-prefix-LSAs have area flooding
                scope. In IPv4, inter-area-prefix-LSAs were called type
                3 summary-LSAs. Each inter-area-prefix-LSA describes a
                prefix external to the area, yet internal to the
                Autonomous System.

                The procedure for originating inter-area-prefix-LSAs in
                IPv6 is the same as the IPv4 procedure documented in
                Sections 12.4.3 and 12.4.3.1 of [Ref1], with the
                following exceptions:

                o   The Link State ID of an inter-area-prefix-LSA has
                    lost all of its addressing semantics, and instead
                    simply serves to distinguish multiple inter-area-
                    prefix-LSAs that are originated by the same router.





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                o   The prefix is described by the PrefixLength,
                    PrefixOptions and Address Prefix fields embedded
                    within the LSA body. Network Mask is no longer
                    specified.

                o   The NU-bit in the PrefixOptions field should be
                    clear. The coding of the MC-bit depends upon
                    whether, and if so how, MOSPF is operating in the
                    routing domain (see [Ref8]).

                o   Link-local addresses can never be advertised in
                    inter-area-prefix-LSAs.

                As an example, the following shows the inter-area-
                prefix-LSA that Router RT4 originates into the OSPF
                backbone area, condensing all of Area 1's prefixes into
                the single prefix 5f00:0000:c001::/48. The cost is set
                to 4, which is the maximum cost to all of the prefix'
                individual components. The prefix is padded out to an
                even number of 32-bit words, so that it consumes 64-bits
                of space instead of 48 bits.

                  ; Inter-area-prefix-LSA for Area 1 addresses
                  ; originated by Router RT4 into the backbone

                  LS age = 0                  ;newly (re)originated
                  LS type = 0x2003            ;inter-area-prefix-LSA
                  Advertising Router = 192.1.1.4       ;RT4's ID
                  Metric = 4                  ;maximum to components
                  PrefixLength = 48
                  PrefixOptions = 0
                  Address Prefix = 5f00:0000:c001 ;padded to 64-bits

            3.4.3.4.  Inter-Area-Router-LSAs

                The LS type of an inter-area-router-LSA is set to the
                value 0x2004. Inter-area-router-LSAs have area flooding
                scope. In IPv4, inter-area-router-LSAs were called type
                4 summary-LSAs. Each inter-area-router-LSA describes a
                path to a destination OSPF router (an ASBR) that is
                external to the area, yet internal to the Autonomous
                System.

                The procedure for originating inter-area-router-LSAs in
                IPv6 is the same as the IPv4 procedure documented in
                Section 12.4.3 of [Ref1], with the following exceptions:





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                o   The Link State ID of an inter-area-router-LSA is no
                    longer the destination router's OSPF Router ID, but
                    instead simply serves to distinguish multiple
                    inter-area-router-LSAs that are originated by the
                    same router. The destination router's Router ID is
                    now found in the body of the LSA.

                o   The Options field in an inter-area-router-LSA should
                    be set equal to the Options field contained in the
                    destination router's own router-LSA. The Options
                    field thus describes the capabilities supported by
                    the destination router.

                As an example, consider the OSPF Autonomous System
                depicted in Figure 6 of [Ref1]. Router RT4 would
                originate into Area 1 the following inter-area-router-
                LSA for destination router RT7.

                  ; inter-area-router-LSA for AS boundary router RT7
                  ; originated by Router RT4 into Area 1

                  LS age = 0                  ;newly (re)originated
                  LS type = 0x2004            ;inter-area-router-LSA
                  Advertising Router = 192.1.1.4  ;RT4's ID
                  Options = (V6-bit|E-bit|R-bit)  ;RT7's capabilities
                  Metric = 14                     ;cost to RT7
                  Destination Router ID = Router RT7's ID

            3.4.3.5.  AS-external-LSAs

                The LS type of an AS-external-LSA is set to the value
                0x4005. AS-external-LSAs have AS flooding scope. Each
                AS-external-LSA describes a path to a prefix external to
                the Autonomous System.

                The procedure for originating AS-external-LSAs in IPv6
                is the same as the IPv4 procedure documented in Section
                12.4.4 of [Ref1], with the following exceptions:

                o   The Link State ID of an AS-external-LSA has lost all
                    of its addressing semantics, and instead simply
                    serves to distinguish multiple AS-external-LSAs that
                    are originated by the same router.

                o   The prefix is described by the PrefixLength,
                    PrefixOptions and Address Prefix fields embedded
                    within the LSA body. Network Mask is no longer
                    specified.



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                o   The NU-bit in the PrefixOptions field should be
                    clear. The coding of the MC-bit depends upon
                    whether, and if so how, MOSPF is operating in the
                    routing domain (see [Ref8]).

                o   Link-local addresses can never be advertised in AS-
                    external-LSAs.

                o   The forwarding address is present in the AS-
                    external-LSA if and only if the AS-external-LSA's
                    bit F is set.

                o   The external route tag is present in the AS-
                    external-LSA if and only if the AS-external-LSA's
                    bit T is set.

                o   The capability for an AS-external-LSA to reference
                    another LSA has been included, by inclusion of the
                    Referenced LS Type field and the optional Referenced
                    Link State ID field (the latter present if and only
                    if Referenced LS Type is non-zero). This capability
                    is for future use; for now Referenced LS Type should
                    be set to 0.

                As an example, consider the OSPF Autonomous System
                depicted in Figure 6 of [Ref1]. Assume that RT7 has
                learned its route to N12 via BGP, and that it wishes to
                advertise a Type 2 metric into the AS.  Further assume
                the the IPv6 prefix for N12 is the value
                5f00:0000:0a00::/40.  RT7 would then originate the
                following AS-external-LSA for the external network N12.
                Note that within the AS-external-LSA, N12's prefix
                occupies 64 bits of space, to maintain 32-bit alignment.

                  ; AS-external-LSA for Network N12,
                  ; originated by Router RT7

                  LS age = 0                  ;newly (re)originated
                  LS type = 0x4005            ;AS-external-LSA
                  Link State ID = 123         ;or something else
                  Advertising Router = Router RT7's ID
                  bit E = 1                   ;Type 2 metric
                  bit F = 0                   ;no forwarding address
                  bit T = 1                   ;external route tag included
                  Metric = 2
                  PrefixLength = 40
                  PrefixOptions = 0
                  Referenced LS Type = 0      ;no Referenced Link State ID



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                  Address Prefix = 5f00:0000:0a00 ;padded to 64-bits
                  External Route Tag = as per BGP/OSPF interaction

            3.4.3.6.  Link-LSAs

                The LS type of a Link-LSA is set to the value 0x0008.
                Link-LSAs have link-local flooding scope. A router
                originates a separate Link-LSA for each attached link
                that supports 2 or more (including the originating
                router itself) routers.

                Link-LSAs have three purposes: 1) they provide the
                router's link-local address to all other routers
                attached to the link and 2) they inform other routers
                attached to the link of a list of IPv6 prefixes to
                associate with the link and 3) they allow the router to
                assert a collection of Options bits in the Network-LSA
                that will be originated for the link.

                A Link-LSA for a given Link L is built in the following
                fashion:

                o   The Link State ID is set to the router's Interface
                    ID on Link L.

                o   The Router Priority of the router's interface to
                    Link L is inserted into the Link-LSA.

                o   The Link-LSA's Options field is set to those bits
                    that the router wishes set in Link L's Network LSA.

                o   The router inserts its link-local address on Link L
                    into the Link-LSA. This information will be used
                    when the other routers on Link L do their next hop
                    calculations (see Section 3.8.1.1).

                o   Each IPv6 address prefix that has been configured
                    into the router for Link L is added to the Link-LSA,
                    by specifying values for PrefixLength,
                    PrefixOptions, and Address Prefix fields.

                After building a Link-LSA for a given link, the router
                installs the link-LSA into the associate interface data
                structure and floods the Link-LSA onto the link. All
                other routers on the link will receive the Link-LSA, but
                it will go no further.





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                As an example, consider the Link-LSA that RT3 will build
                for N3 in Figure 1. Suppose that the prefix
                5f00:0000:0c01:0100::/56 has been configured within RT3
                for N3. This will give rise to the following Link-LSA,
                which RT3 will flood onto N3, but nowhere else. Note
                that not all routers on N3 need be configured with the
                prefix; those not configured will learn the prefix when
                receiving RT3's Link-LSA.

                  ; RT3's Link-LSA for N3

                  LS age = 0                  ;newly (re)originated
                  LS type = 0x0008            ;Link-LSA
                  Link State ID = 1           ;RT3's Interface ID on N3
                  Advertising Router = 192.1.1.3 ;RT3's Router ID
                  Rtr Pri = 1                 ;RT3's N3 Router Priority
                  Options = (V6-bit|E-bit|R-bit)
                  Link-local Interface Address = fe80:0001::RT3
                  # prefixes = 1
                  PrefixLength = 56
                  PrefixOptions = 0
                  Address Prefix = 5f00:0000:c001:0100 ;pad to 64-bits

            3.4.3.7.  Intra-Area-Prefix-LSAs

                The LS type of an intra-area-prefix-LSA is set to the
                value 0x2009. Intra-area-prefix-LSAs have area flooding
                scope. An intra-area-prefix-LSA has one of two
                functions. It associates a list of IPv6 address prefixes
                with a transit network link by referencing a network-
                LSA, or associates a list of IPv6 address prefixes with
                a router by referencing a router-LSA. A sub network
                link's prefixes are associated with its attached router.

                A router may originate multiple intra-area-prefix-LSAs
                for a given area, distinguished by their Link State ID
                fields.

                A network link's Designated Router originates an intra-
                area-prefix-LSA to advertise the link's prefixes
                throughout the area. For a link L, L's Designated Router
                builds an intra-area-prefix-LSA in the following
                fashion:

                o   In order to indicate that the prefixes are to be
                    associated with the Link L, the fields Referenced LS
                    type, Referenced Link State ID, and Referenced
                    Advertising Router are set to the corresponding



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                    fields in Link L's Network LSA (namely LS type, Link
                    State ID, and Advertising Router respectively). This
                    means that Referenced LS Type is set to 0x2002,
                    Referenced Link State ID is set to the Designated
                    Router's Interface ID on Link L, and Referenced
                    Advertising Router is set to the Designated Router's
                    Router ID.

                o   Each Link-LSA associated with Link L is examined
                    (these are in the Designated Router's interface
                    structure for Link L). If the Link-LSA's Advertising
                    Router is fully adjacent to the Designated Router,
                    the list of prefixes in the Link-LSA is copied into
                    the intra-area-prefix-LSA that is being built.
                    Prefixes having the NU-bit and/or LA-bit set in
                    their Options field should not be copied, nor should
                    link-local addresses be copied.  Each prefix is
                    described by the PrefixLength, PrefixOptions, and
                    Address Prefix fields. Multiple prefixes having the
                    same PrefixLength and Address Prefix are considered
                    to be duplicates; in this case their Prefix Options
                    fields should be merged by logically OR'ing the
                    fields together, and a single resulting prefix
                    should be copied into the intra-area-prefix-LSA. The
                    Metric field for all prefixes is set to 0.

                o   The "# prefixes" field is set to the number of
                    prefixes that the router has copied into the LSA. If
                    necessary, the list of prefixes can be spread across
                    multiple intra-area-prefix-LSAs in order to keep the
                    LSA size small.

                A router builds an intra-area-prefix-LSA to advertise
                its own prefixes, and those of its attached stub network
                links. A Router RTX would build its intra-area-prefix-
                LSA in the following fashion:

                o   In order to indicate that the prefixes are to be
                    associated with the Router RTX itself, RTX sets
                    Referenced LS type to 0x2001, Referenced Link State
                    ID to 0, and Referenced Advertising Router to RTX's
                    own Router ID.

                o   Router RTX examines its list of interfaces to the
                    area. If the interface is in state Down, its
                    prefixes are not included. If the interface has been
                    reported in RTX's router-LSA as a Type 2 link
                    description (link to transit network), its prefixes



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                    are not included (they will be included in the
                    intra-area-prefix-LSA for the link instead). If the
                    interface type is point-to-point or Point-to-
                    MultiPoint, or the interface is in state Loopback,
                    the site-local and global scope IPv6 addresses
                    associated with the interface (if any) are copied
                    into the intra-area-prefix-LSA, setting the LA-bit
                    in the PrefixOptions field, and setting the
                    PrefixLength to 128 and the Metric to 0.  Otherwise,
                    the list of site-local and global prefixes
                    configured in RTX for the link are copied into the
                    intra-area-prefix-LSA by specifying the
                    PrefixLength, PrefixOptions, and Address Prefix
                    fields. The Metric field for each of these prefixes
                    is set to the interface's output cost.

                o   RTX adds the IPv6 prefixes for any directly attached
                    hosts (see Section C.7) to the intra-area-prefix-
                    LSA.

                o   If RTX has one or more virtual links configured
                    through the area, it includes one of its site-local
                    or global scope IPv6 interface addresses in the LSA
                    (if it hasn't already), setting the LA-bit in the
                    PrefixOptions field, and setting the PrefixLength to
                    128 and the Metric to 0. This information will be
                    used later in the routing calculation so that the
                    two ends of the virtual link can discover each
                    other's IPv6 addresses.

                o   The "# prefixes" field is set to the number of
                    prefixes that the router has copied into the LSA. If
                    necessary, the list of prefixes can be spread across
                    multiple intra-area-prefix-LSAs in order to keep the
                    LSA size small.

                For example, the intra-area-prefix-LSA originated by RT4
                for Network N3 (assuming that RT4 is N3's Designated
                Router), and the intra-area-prefix-LSA originated into
                Area 1 by Router RT3 for its own prefixes, are pictured
                below.

                  ; Intra-area-prefix-LSA
                  ; for network link N3

                  LS age = 0                  ;newly (re)originated
                  LS type = 0x2009            ;Link-LSA
                  Link State ID = 5           ;or something



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                  Advertising Router = 192.1.1.4 ;RT4's Router ID
                  # prefixes = 1
                  Referenced LS type = 0x2002 ;network-LSA reference
                  Referenced Link State ID = 1
                  Referenced Advertising Router = 192.1.1.4
                  PrefixLength = 56           ;N3's prefix
                  PrefixOptions = 0
                  Metric = 0
                  Address Prefix = 5f00:0000:c001:0100 ;pad

                  ; RT3's Intra-area-prefix-LSA
                  ; for its own prefixes

                  LS age = 0                  ;newly (re)originated
                  LS type = 0x2009            ;Link-LSA
                  Link State ID = 177         ;or something
                  Advertising Router = 192.1.1.3 ;RT3's Router ID
                  # prefixes = 1
                  Referenced LS type = 0x2001 ;router-LSA reference
                  Referenced Link State ID = 0
                  Referenced Advertising Router = 192.1.1.3
                  PrefixLength = 56           ;N4's prefix
                  PrefixOptions = 0
                  Metric = 2                  ;N4 interface cost
                  Address Prefix = 5f00:0000:c001:0400 ;pad

    3.5.  Flooding

        Most of the flooding algorithm remains unchanged from the IPv4
        flooding mechanisms described in Section 13 of [Ref1]. In
        particular, the processes for determining which LSA instance is
        newer (Section 13.1 of [Ref1]), responding to updates of self-
        originated LSAs (Section 13.4 of [Ref1]), sending Link State
        Acknowledgment packets (Section 13.5 of [Ref1]), retransmitting
        LSAs (Section 13.6 of [Ref1]) and receiving Link State
        Acknowledgment packets (Section 13.7 of [Ref1]) are exactly the
        same for IPv6 and IPv4.

        However, the addition of flooding scope and handling options for
        unrecognized LSA types (see Section A.4.2.1) has caused some
        changes in the OSPF flooding algorithm: the reception of Link
        State Updates (Section 13 in [Ref1]) and the sending of Link
        State Updates (Section 13.3 of [Ref1]) must take into account
        the LSA's scope and U-bit setting. Also, installation of LSAs
        into the OSPF database (Section 13.2 of [Ref1]) causes different
        events in IPv6, due to the reorganization of LSA types and
        contents in IPv6. These changes are described in detail below.




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        3.5.1.  Receiving Link State Update packets

            The encoding of flooding scope in the LS type and the need
            to process unknown LS types causes modifications to the
            processing of received Link State Update packets. As in
            IPv4, each LSA in a received Link State Update packet is
            examined. In IPv4, eight steps are executed for each LSA, as
            described in Section 13 of [Ref1]. For IPv6, all the steps
            are the same, except that Steps 2 and 3 are modified as
            follows:

            (2) Examine the LSA's LS type.  If the LS type is unknown,
                the area has been configured as a stub area, and either
                the LSA's flooding scope is set to "AS flooding scope"
                or the U-bit of the LS type is set to 1 (flood even when
                unrecognized), then discard the LSA and get the next one
                from the Link State Update Packet. This generalizes the
                IPv4 behavior where AS-external-LSAs are not flooded
                into/throughout stub areas.

            (3) Else if the flooding scope of the LSA is set to
                "reserved", discard the LSA and get the next one from
                the Link State Update Packet.

            Steps 5b (sending Link State Update packets) and 5d
            (installing LSAs in the link state database) in Section 13
            of [Ref1] are also somewhat different for IPv6, as described
            in Sections 3.5.2 and 3.5.3 below.

        3.5.2.  Sending Link State Update packets

            The sending of Link State Update packets is described in
            Section 13.3 of [Ref1]. For IPv4 and IPv6, the steps for
            sending a Link State Update packet are the same (steps 1
            through 5 of Section 13.3 in [Ref1]). However, the list of
            eligible interfaces out which to flood the LSA is different.
            For IPv6, the eligible interfaces are selected based on the
            following factors:

            o   The LSA's flooding scope.

            o   For LSAs with area or link-local flooding scoping, the
                particular area or interface that the LSA is associated
                with.

            o   Whether the LSA has a recognized LS type.





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            o   The setting of the U-bit in the LS type. If the U-bit is
                set to 0, unrecognized LS types are treated as having
                link-local scope. If set to 1, unrecognized LS types are
                stored and flooded as if they were recognized.

            Choosing the set of eligible interfaces then breaks into the
            following cases:

            Case 1
                The LSA's LS type is recognized. In this case, the set
                of eligible interfaces is set depending on the flooding
                scope encoded in the LS type. If the flooding scope is
                "AS flooding scope", the eligible interfaces are all
                router interfaces excepting virtual links. In addition,
                AS-external-LSAs are not flooded out interfaces
                connecting to stub areas. If the flooding scope is "area
                flooding scope", the set of eligible interfaces are
                those interfaces connecting to the LSA's associated
                area. If the flooding scope is "link-local flooding
                scope", then there is a single eligible interface, the
                one connecting to the LSA's associated link (which, when
                the LSA is received in a Link State Update packet, is
                also the interface the LSA was received on).

            Case 2
                The LS type is unrecognized, and the U-bit in the LS
                Type is set to 0 (treat the LSA as if it had link-local
                flooding scope). In this case there is a single eligible
                interface, namely, the interface on which the LSA was
                received.

            Case 3
                The LS type is unrecognized, and the U-bit in the LS
                Type is set to 1 (store and flood the LSA, as if type
                understood). In this case, select the eligible
                interfaces based on the encoded flooding scope as in
                Case 1 above. However, in this case interfaces attached
                to stub areas are always excluded.

            A further decision must sometimes be made before adding an
            LSA to a given neighbor's link-state retransmission list
            (Step 1d in Section 13.3 of [Ref1]). If the LS type is
            recognized by the router, but not by the neighbor (as can be
            determined by examining the Options field that the neighbor
            advertised in its Database Description packet) and the LSA's
            U-bit is set to 0, then the LSA should be added to the
            neighbor's link-state retransmission list if and only if
            that neighbor is the Designated Router or Backup Designated



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            Router for the attached link. The LS types described in
            detail by this memo, namely router-LSAs (LS type 0x2001),
            network-LSAs (0x2002), Inter-Area-Prefix-LSAs (0x2003),
            Inter-Area-Router-LSAs (0x2004), AS-External-LSAs (0x4005),
            Link-LSAs (0x0008) and Intra-Area-Prefix-LSAs (0x2009) are
            assumed to be understood by all routers. However, as an
            example the group-membership-LSA (0x2006) is understood only
            by MOSPF routers and since it has its U-bit set to 0, it
            should only be forwarded to a non-MOSPF neighbor (determined
            by examining the MC-bit in the neighbor's Database
            Description packets' Options field) when the neighbor is
            Designated Router or Backup Designated Router for the
            attached link.

            The previous paragraph solves a problem in IPv4 OSPF
            extensions such as MOSPF, which require that the Designated
            Router support the extension in order to have the new LSA
            types flooded across broadcast and NBMA networks (see
            Section 10.2 of [Ref8]).

        3.5.3.  Installing LSAs in the database

            There are three separate places to store LSAs, depending on
            their flooding scope. LSAs with AS flooding scope are stored
            in the global OSPF data structure (see Section 3.1) as long
            as their LS type is known or their U-bit is 1. LSAs with
            area flooding scope are stored in the appropriate area data
            structure (see Section 3.1.1) as long as their LS type is
            known or their U-bit is 1. LSAs with link-local flooding
            scope, and those LSAs with unknown LS type and U-bit set to
            0 (treat the LSA as if it had link-local flooding scope) are
            stored in the appropriate interface structure.

            When storing the LSA into the link-state database, a check
            must be made to see whether the LSA's contents have changed.
            Changes in contents are indicated exactly as in Section 13.2
            of [Ref1]. When an LSA's contents have been changed, the
            following parts of the routing table must be recalculated,
            based on the LSA's LS type:

            Router-LSAs, Network-LSAs and Intra-Area-Prefix-LSAs
                The entire routing table is recalculated, starting with
                the shortest path calculation for each area (see Section
                3.8).

            Link-LSAs
                The next hop of some of the routing table's entries,
                which is always an IPv6 link-local address, may need to



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                be recalculated. Link-local LSAs provide the OSPF Router
                ID to link-local address mapping used in the next hop
                calculation. See Section 3.8.1.1 for details.

            Inter-Area-Prefix-LSAs and Inter-Area-Router-LSAs
                The best route to the destination described by the LSA
                must be recalculated (see Section 16.5 in [Ref1]).  If
                this destination is an AS boundary router, it may also
                be necessary to re-examine all the AS-external-LSAs.

            AS-external-LSAs
                The best route to the destination described by the AS-
                external-LSA must be recalculated (see Section 16.6 in
                [Ref1]).

            As in IPv4, any old instance of the LSA must be removed from
            the database when the new LSA is installed.  This old
            instance must also be removed from all neighbors' Link state
            retransmission lists.

    3.6.  Definition of self-originated LSAs

        In IPv6 the definition of a self-originated LSA has been
        simplified from the IPv4 definition appearing in Sections 13.4
        and 14.1 of [Ref1]. For IPv6, self-originated LSAs are those
        LSAs whose Advertising Router is equal to the router's own
        Router ID.

    3.7.  Virtual links

        OSPF virtual links for IPv4 are described in Section 15 of
        [Ref1]. Virtual links are the same in IPv6, with the following
        exceptions:

        o   LSAs having AS flooding scope are never flooded over virtual
            adjacencies, nor are LSAs with AS flooding scope summarized
            over virtual adjacencies during the Database Exchange
            process. This is a generalization of the IPv4 treatment of
            AS-external-LSAs.

        o   The IPv6 interface address of a virtual link must be an IPv6
            address having site-local or global scope, instead of the
            link-local addresses used by other interface types. This
            address is used as the IPv6 source for OSPF protocol packets
            sent over the virtual link.

        o   Likewise, the virtual neighbor's IPv6 address is an IPv6
            address with site-local or global scope. To enable the



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            discovery of a virtual neighbor's IPv6 address during the
            routing calculation, the neighbor advertises its virtual
            link's IPv6 interface address in an Intra-Area-Prefix-LSA
            originated for the virtual link's transit area (see Sections
            3.4.3.7 and 3.8.1).

        o   Like all other IPv6 OSPF interfaces, virtual links are
            assigned unique (within the router) Interface IDs. These are
            advertised in Hellos sent over the virtual link, and in the
            router's router-LSAs.

        o   IPv6 has no concept of TOS, so all discussions of TOS in
            Section 15 of [Ref1] are not applicable to OSPF for IPv6.

    3.8.  Routing table calculation

        The IPv6 OSPF routing calculation proceeds along the same lines
        as the IPv4 OSPF routing calculation, following the five steps
        specified by Section 16 of [Ref1]. High level differences
        between the IPv6 and IPv4 calculations include:

        o   Prefix information has been removed from router-LSAs, and
            now is advertised in intra-area-prefix-LSAs. Whenever [Ref1]
            specifies that stub networks within router-LSAs be examined,
            IPv6 will instead examine prefixes within intra-area-
            prefix-LSAs.

        o   Type 3 and 4 summary-LSAs have been renamed inter-area-
            prefix-LSAs and inter-area-router-LSAs (respectively).

        o   Addressing information is no longer encoded in Link State
            IDs, and must instead be found within the body of LSAs.

        o   In IPv6, a router can originate multiple router-LSAs within
            a single area, distinguished by Link State ID. These
            router-LSAs must be treated as a single aggregate by the
            area's shortest path calculation (see Section 3.8.1).

        o   IPv6 has no concept of TOS; all TOS routing calculations in
            [Ref1] are inapplicable to OSPF for IPv6. In particular,
            Section 16.9 of [Ref1] can be ignored for IPv6.

        For each area, routing table entries have been created for the
        area's routers and transit links, in order to store the results
        of the area's shortest-path tree calculation (see Section
        3.8.1). These entries are then used when processing intra-area-
        prefix-LSAs, inter-area-prefix-LSAs and inter-area-router-LSAs,
        as described in Section 3.8.2.



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        Events generated as a result of routing table changes (Section
        16.7 of [Ref1]), and the equal-cost multipath logic (Section
        16.8 of [Ref1]) are identical for both IPv4 and IPv6.

        3.8.1.  Calculating the shortest path tree for an area

            The IPv4 shortest path calculation is contained in Section
            16.1 of [Ref1].  The graph used by the shortest-path tree
            calculation is identical for both IPv4 and IPv6. The graph's
            vertices are routers and transit links, represented by
            router-LSAs and network-LSAs respectively. A router is
            identified by its OSPF Router ID, while a transit link is
            identified by its Designated Router's Interface ID and OSPF
            Router ID. Both routers and transit links have associated
            routing table entries within the area (see Section 3.3).

            Section 16.1 of [Ref1] splits up the shortest path
            calculations into two stages. First the Dijkstra calculation
            is performed, and then the stub links are added onto the
            tree as leaves. The IPv6 calculation maintains this split.

            The Dijkstra calculation for IPv6 is identical to that
            specified for IPv4, with the following exceptions
            (referencing the steps from the Dijkstra calculation as
            described in Section 16.1 of [Ref1]):

            o   The Vertex ID for a router is the OSPF Router ID. The
                Vertex ID for a transit network is a combination of the
                Interface ID and OSPF Router ID of the network's
                Designated Router.

            o   In Step 2, when a router Vertex V has just been added to
                the shortest path tree, there may be multiple LSAs
                associated with the router. All Router-LSAs with
                Advertising Router set to V's OSPF Router ID must
                processed as an aggregate, treating them as fragments of
                a single large router-LSA. The Options field and the
                router type bits (bits W, V, E and B) should always be
                taken from "fragment" with the smallest Link State ID.

            o   Step 2a is not needed in IPv6, as there are no longer
                stub network links in router-LSAs.

            o   In Step 2b, if W is a router, there may again be
                multiple LSAs associated with the router. All Router-
                LSAs with Advertising Router set to W's OSPF Router ID
                must processed as an aggregate, treating them as
                fragments of a single large router-LSA.



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            o   In Step 4, there are now per-area routing table entries
                for each of an area's routers, instead of just the area
                border routers. These entries subsume all the
                functionality of IPv4's area border router routing table
                entries, including the maintenance of virtual links.
                When the router added to the area routing table in this
                step is the other end of a virtual link, the virtual
                neighbor's IP address is set as follows: The collection
                of intra-area-prefix-LSAs originated by the virtual
                neighbor is examined, with the virtual neighbor's IP
                address being set to the first prefix encountered having
                the "LA-bit" set.

            o   Routing table entries for transit networks, which are no
                longer associated with IP networks, are also modified in
                Step 4.

            The next stage of the shortest path calculation proceeds
            similarly to the two steps of the second stage of Section
            16.1 in [Ref1]. However, instead of examining the stub links
            within router-LSAs, the list of the area's intra-area-
            prefix-LSAs is examined. A prefix advertisement whose "NU-
            bit" is set should not be included in the routing
            calculation. The cost of any advertised prefix is the sum of
            the prefix' advertised metric plus the cost to the transit
            vertex (either router or transit network) identified by
            intra-area-prefix-LSA's Referenced LS type, Referenced Link
            State ID and Referenced Advertising Router fields. This
            latter cost is stored in the transit vertex' routing table
            entry for the area.

            3.8.1.1.  The next hop calculation

                In IPv6, the calculation of the next hop's IPv6 address
                (which will be a link-local address) proceeds along the
                same lines as the IPv4 next hop calculation (see Section
                16.1.1 of [Ref1]). The only difference is in calculating
                the next hop IPv6 address for a router (call it Router
                X) which shares a link with the calculating router. In
                this case the calculating router assigns the next hop
                IPv6 address to be the link-local interface address
                contained in Router X's Link-LSA (see Section A.4.8) for
                the link. This procedure is necessary since on some
                links, such as NBMA links, the two routers need not be
                neighbors, and therefore might not be exchanging OSPF
                Hellos.





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        3.8.2.  Calculating the inter-area routes

            Calculation of inter-area routes for IPv6 proceeds along the
            same lines as the IPv4 calculation in Section 16.2 of
            [Ref1], with the following modifications:

            o   The names of the Type 3 summary-LSAs and Type 4
                summary-LSAs have been changed to inter-area-prefix-LSAs
                and inter-area-router-LSAs respectively.

            o   The Link State ID of the above LSA types no longer
                encodes the network or router described by the LSA.
                Instead, an address prefix is contained in the body of
                an inter-area-prefix-LSA, and a described router's OSPF
                Router ID is carried in the body of an inter-area-
                router-LSA.

            o   Prefixes having the "NU-bit" set in their Prefix Options
                field should be ignored by the inter-area route
                calculation.

            When a single inter-area-prefix-LSA or inter-area-router-LSA
            has changed, the incremental calculations outlined in
            Section 16.5 of [Ref1] can be performed instead of
            recalculating the entire routing table.

        3.8.3.  Examining transit areas' summary-LSAs

            Examination of transit areas' summary-LSAs in IPv6 proceeds
            along the same lines as the IPv4 calculation in Section 16.3
            of [Ref1], modified in the same way as the IPv6 inter-area
            route calculation in Section 3.8.2.

        3.8.4.  Calculating AS external routes

            The IPv6 AS external route calculation proceeds along the
            same lines as the IPv4 calculation in Section 16.4 of
            [Ref1], with the following exceptions:

            o   The Link State ID of the AS-external-LSA types no longer
                encodes the network described by the LSA. Instead, an
                address prefix is contained in the body of an AS-
                external-LSA.

            o   The default route is described by AS-external-LSAs which
                advertise zero length prefixes.





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            o   Instead of comparing the AS-external-LSA's Forwarding
                address field to 0.0.0.0 to see whether a forwarding
                address has been used, bit F of the external-LSA is
                examined. A forwarding address is in use if and only if
                bit F is set.

            o   Prefixes having the "NU-bit" set in their Prefix Options
                field should be ignored by the inter-area route
                calculation.

            When a single AS-external-LSA has changed, the incremental
            calculations outlined in Section 16.6 of [Ref1] can be
            performed instead of recalculating the entire routing table.






































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References

    [Ref1]  Moy, J., "OSPF Version 2", Internet Draft, <draft-ietf-
            ospf-version2-10.txt>, Cascade, February 1997.

    [Ref2]  McKenzie, A., "ISO Transport Protocol specification ISO DP
            8073", RFC 905, ISO, April 1984.

    [Ref3]  McCloghrie, K., and M. Rose, "Management Information Base
            for network management of TCP/IP-based internets: MIB-II",
            STD 17, RFC 1213, Hughes LAN Systems, Performance Systems
            International, March 1991.

    [Ref4]  Fuller, V., T. Li, J. Yu, and K. Varadhan, "Classless
            Inter-Domain Routing (CIDR): an Address Assignment and
            Aggregation Strategy", RFC1519, BARRNet, cisco, MERIT,
            OARnet, September 1993.

    [Ref5]  Varadhan, K., S. Hares and Y. Rekhter, "BGP4/IDRP for IP---
            OSPF Interaction", RFC1745, December 1994

    [Ref6]  Reynolds, J., and J. Postel, "Assigned Numbers", STD 2, RFC
            1700, USC/Information Sciences Institute, October 1994.

    [Ref7]  deSouza, O., and M. Rodrigues, "Guidelines for Running OSPF
            Over Frame Relay Networks", RFC 1586, March 1994.

    [Ref8]  Moy, J., "Multicast Extensions to OSPF", RFC 1584, Proteon,
            Inc., March 1994.

    [Ref9]  Coltun, R. and V. Fuller, "The OSPF NSSA Option", RFC 1587,
            RainbowBridge Communications, Stanford University, March
            1994.

    [Ref10] Ferguson, D., "The OSPF External Attributes LSA",
            unpublished.

    [Ref11] Moy, J., "Extending OSPF to Support Demand Circuits", RFC
            1793, Cascade, April 1995.

    [Ref12] Mogul, J. and S. Deering, "Path MTU Discovery", RFC 1191,
            DECWRL, Stanford University, November 1990.

    [Ref13] Rekhter, Y. and T. Li, "A Border Gateway Protocol 4 (BGP-
            4)", RFC 1771, T.J. Watson Research Center, IBM Corp., cisco
            Systems, March 1995.





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    [Ref14] Deering, S. and R. Hinden, "Internet Protocol, Version 6
            (IPv6) Specification", RFC 1883, Xerox PARC, Ipsilon
            Networks, December 1995.

    [Ref15] Deering, S. and R. Hinden, "IP Version 6 Addressing
            Architecture", RFC 1884, Xerox PARC, Ipsilon Networks,
            December 1995.

    [Ref16] Conta, A. and S. Deering, "Internet Control Message Protocol
            (ICMPv6) for the Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6)
            Specification" RFC 1885, Digital Equipment Corporation,
            Xerox PARC, December 1995.

    [Ref17] Narten, T., E. Nordmark and W. Simpson, "Neighbor Discovery
            for IP Version 6 (IPv6)", RFC 1970, August 1996.

    [Ref18] McCann, J., S. Deering and J. Mogul, "Path MTU Discovery for
            IP version 6", RFC 1981, August 1996.

    [Ref19] Atkinson, R., "IP Authentication Header", RFC 1826, Naval
            Research Laboratory, August 1995.

    [Ref20] Atkinson, R., "IP Encapsulating Security Payload (ESP)", RFC
            1827, Naval Research Laboratory, August 1995.



























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A. OSPF data formats

    This appendix describes the format of OSPF protocol packets and OSPF
    LSAs.  The OSPF protocol runs directly over the IPv6 network layer.
    Before any data formats are described, the details of the OSPF
    encapsulation are explained.

    Next the OSPF Options field is described.  This field describes
    various capabilities that may or may not be supported by pieces of
    the OSPF routing domain. The OSPF Options field is contained in OSPF
    Hello packets, Database Description packets and in OSPF LSAs.

    OSPF packet formats are detailed in Section A.3.

    A description of OSPF LSAs appears in Section A.4. This section
    describes how IPv6 address prefixes are represented within LSAs,
    details the standard LSA header, and then provides formats for each
    of the specific LSA types.

A.1 Encapsulation of OSPF packets

    OSPF runs directly over the IPv6's network layer.  OSPF packets are
    therefore encapsulated solely by IPv6 and local data-link headers.

    OSPF does not define a way to fragment its protocol packets, and
    depends on IPv6 fragmentation when transmitting packets larger than
    the link MTU. If necessary, the length of OSPF packets can be up to
    65,535 bytes.  The OSPF packet types that are likely to be large
    (Database Description Packets, Link State Request, Link State
    Update, and Link State Acknowledgment packets) can usually be split
    into several separate protocol packets, without loss of
    functionality.  This is recommended; IPv6 fragmentation should be
    avoided whenever possible.  Using this reasoning, an attempt should
    be made to limit the sizes of OSPF packets sent over virtual links
    to 576 bytes unless Path MTU Discovery is being performed.

    The other important features of OSPF's IPv6 encapsulation are:

    o   Use of IPv6 multicast.  Some OSPF messages are multicast, when
        sent over broadcast networks.  Two distinct IP multicast
        addresses are used.  Packets sent to these multicast addresses
        should never be forwarded; they are meant to travel a single hop
        only. As such, the multicast addresses have been chosen with
        link-local scope, and packets sent to these addresses should
        have their IPv6 Hop Limit set to 1.

        AllSPFRouters
            This multicast address has been assigned the value FF02::5.



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            All routers running OSPF should be prepared to receive
            packets sent to this address.  Hello packets are always sent
            to this destination.  Also, certain OSPF protocol packets
            are sent to this address during the flooding procedure.

        AllDRouters
            This multicast address has been assigned the value FF02::6.
            Both the Designated Router and Backup Designated Router must
            be prepared to receive packets destined to this address.
            Certain OSPF protocol packets are sent to this address
            during the flooding procedure.

    o   OSPF is IP protocol 89.  This number should be inserted in the
        Next Header field of the encapsulating IPv6 header.

    o   Routing protocol packets are sent with IPv6 Priority field set
        to 7 (internet control traffic).  OSPF protocol packets should
        be given precedence over regular IPv6 data traffic, in both
        sending and receiving.
































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A.2 The Options field

    The 24-bit OSPF Options field is present in OSPF Hello packets,
    Database Description packets and certain LSAs (router-LSAs,
    network-LSAs, inter-area-router-LSAs and link-LSAs). The Options
    field enables OSPF routers to support (or not support) optional
    capabilities, and to communicate their capability level to other
    OSPF routers.  Through this mechanism routers of differing
    capabilities can be mixed within an OSPF routing domain.

    An option mismatch between routers can cause a variety of behaviors,
    depending on the particular option. Some option mismatches prevent
    neighbor relationships from forming (e.g., the E-bit below); these
    mismatches are discovered through the sending and receiving of Hello
    packets. Some option mismatches prevent particular LSA types from
    being flooded across adjacencies (e.g., the MC-bit below); these are
    discovered through the sending and receiving of Database Description
    packets. Some option mismatches prevent routers from being included
    in one or more of the various routing calculations because of their
    reduced functionality (again the MC-bit is an example); these
    mismatches are discovered by examining LSAs.

    Six bits of the OSPF Options field have been assigned. Each bit is
    described briefly below. Routers should reset (i.e.  clear)
    unrecognized bits in the Options field when sending Hello packets or
    Database Description packets and when originating LSAs. Conversely,
    routers encountering unrecognized Option bits in received Hello
    Packets, Database Description packets or LSAs should ignore the
    capability and process the packet/LSA normally.

                            1                     2
        0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8  9  0  1  2  3
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+--+--+--+--+--+--+
       | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |DC| R| N|MC| E|V6|
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+--+--+--+--+--+--+

                             The Options field


    V6-bit
        If this bit is clear, the router/link should be excluded from
        IPv6 routing calculations. See Section 3.8 of this memo.

    E-bit
        This bit describes the way AS-external-LSAs are flooded, as
        described in Sections 3.6, 9.5, 10.8 and 12.1.2 of [Ref1].





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    MC-bit
        This bit describes whether IP multicast datagrams are forwarded
        according to the specifications in [Ref7].

    N-bit
        This bit describes the handling of Type-7 LSAs, as specified in
        [Ref8].

    R-bit
        This bit (the `Router' bit) indicates whether the originator is
        an active router.  If the router bit is clear routes which
        transit the advertising node cannot be computed. Clearing the
        router bit would be appropriate for a multi-homed host that
        wants to participate in routing, but does not want to forward
        non-locally addressed packets.

    DC-bit
        This bit describes the router's handling of demand circuits, as
        specified in [Ref10].
































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A.3 OSPF Packet Formats

    There are five distinct OSPF packet types.  All OSPF packet types
    begin with a standard 16 byte header.  This header is described
    first.  Each packet type is then described in a succeeding section.
    In these sections each packet's division into fields is displayed,
    and then the field definitions are enumerated.

    All OSPF packet types (other than the OSPF Hello packets) deal with
    lists of LSAs.  For example, Link State Update packets implement the
    flooding of LSAs throughout the OSPF routing domain. The format of
    LSAs is described in Section A.4.

    The receive processing of OSPF packets is detailed in Section 3.2.2.
    The sending of OSPF packets is explained in Section 3.2.1.




































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A.3.1 The OSPF packet header

    Every OSPF packet starts with a standard 16 byte header. Together
    with the encapsulating IPv6 headers, the OSPF header contains all
    the information necessary to determine whether the packet should be
    accepted for further processing.  This determination is described in
    Section 3.2.2 of this memo.


        0                   1                   2                   3
        0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |   Version #   |     Type      |         Packet length         |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |                          Router ID                            |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |                           Area ID                             |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |           Checksum            |  Instance ID  |      0        |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+



    Version #
        The OSPF version number.  This specification documents version 3
        of the OSPF protocol.

    Type
        The OSPF packet types are as follows. See Sections A.3.2 through
        A.3.6 for details.



                          Type   Description
                          ________________________________
                          1      Hello
                          2      Database Description
                          3      Link State Request
                          4      Link State Update
                          5      Link State Acknowledgment




    Packet length
        The length of the OSPF protocol packet in bytes.  This length
        includes the standard OSPF header.




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    Router ID
        The Router ID of the packet's source.

    Area ID
        A 32 bit number identifying the area that this packet belongs
        to.  All OSPF packets are associated with a single area.  Most
        travel a single hop only.  Packets travelling over a virtual
        link are labelled with the backbone Area ID of 0.

    Checksum
        OSPF uses the standard checksum calculation for IPv6
        applications:  The 16-bit one's complement of the one's
        complement sum of the entire contents of the packet, starting
        with the OSPF packet header, and prepending a "pseudo-header" of
        IPv6 header fields, as specified in [Ref14, section 8.1].  The
        Next Header value used in the pseudo-header is 89. If the
        packet's length is not an integral number of 16-bit words, the
        packet is padded with a byte of zero before checksumming. Before
        computing the checksum, the checksum field in the OSPF packet
        header is set to 0.

    Instance ID
        Enables multiple instances of OSPF to be run over a single link.
        Each protocol instance would be assigned a separate Instance ID;
        the Instance ID has local link significance only. Received
        packets whose Instance ID is not equal to the receiving
        interface's Instance ID are discarded.

    0   These fields are reserved.  They must be 0.






















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A.3.2 The Hello packet

    Hello packets are OSPF packet type 1.  These packets are sent
    periodically on all interfaces (including virtual links) in order to
    establish and maintain neighbor relationships.  In addition, Hello
    Packets are multicast on those links having a multicast or broadcast
    capability, enabling dynamic discovery of neighboring routers.

    All routers connected to a common link must agree on certain
    parameters (HelloInterval and RouterDeadInterval).  These parameters
    are included in Hello packets, so that differences can inhibit the
    forming of neighbor relationships. The Hello packet also contains
    fields used in Designated Router election (Designated Router ID and
    Backup Designated Router ID), and fields used to detect bi-
    directionality (the Router IDs of all neighbors whose Hellos have
    been recently received).


        0                   1                   2                   3
        0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |      3        |       1       |         Packet length         |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |                          Router ID                            |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |                           Area ID                             |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |           Checksum            |  Instance ID  |      0        |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |                         Interface ID                          |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |    Rtr Pri    |              Options                          |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |         HelloInterval         |        RouterDeadInterval     |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |                    Designated Router ID                       |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |                 Backup Designated Router ID                   |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |                          Neighbor ID                          |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |                              ...                              |



    Interface ID
        32-bit number uniquely identifying this interface among the
        collection of this router's interfaces. For example, in some



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        implementations it may be possible to use the MIB-II IfIndex.

    Rtr Pri
        This router's Router Priority.  Used in (Backup) Designated
        Router election.  If set to 0, the router will be ineligible to
        become (Backup) Designated Router.

    Options
        The optional capabilities supported by the router, as documented
        in Section A.2.

    HelloInterval
        The number of seconds between this router's Hello packets.

    RouterDeadInterval
        The number of seconds before declaring a silent router down.

    Designated Router ID
        The identity of the Designated Router for this network, in the
        view of the sending router.  The Designated Router is identified
        by its Router ID. Set to 0.0.0.0 if there is no Designated
        Router.

    Backup Designated Router ID
        The identity of the Backup Designated Router for this network,
        in the view of the sending router.  The Backup Designated Router
        is identified by its IP Router ID.  Set to 0.0.0.0 if there is
        no Backup Designated Router.

    Neighbor ID
        The Router IDs of each router from whom valid Hello packets have
        been seen recently on the network.  Recently means in the last
        RouterDeadInterval seconds.


















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A.3.3 The Database Description packet

    Database Description packets are OSPF packet type 2.  These packets
    are exchanged when an adjacency is being initialized.  They describe
    the contents of the link-state database.  Multiple packets may be
    used to describe the database.  For this purpose a poll-response
    procedure is used.  One of the routers is designated to be the
    master, the other the slave.  The master sends Database Description
    packets (polls) which are acknowledged by Database Description
    packets sent by the slave (responses).  The responses are linked to
    the polls via the packets' DD sequence numbers.


        0                   1                   2                   3
        0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |      3        |       2       |         Packet length         |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |                          Router ID                            |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |                           Area ID                             |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |           Checksum            |  Instance ID  |      0        |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |       0       |              Options                          |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |         Interface MTU         |       0       |0|0|0|0|0|I|M|MS
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |                     DD sequence number                        |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |                                                               |
       +-                                                             -+
       |                                                               |
       +-                      An LSA Header                          -+
       |                                                               |
       +-                                                             -+
       |                                                               |
       +-                                                             -+
       |                                                               |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |                              ...                              |


    The format of the Database Description packet is very similar to
    both the Link State Request and Link State Acknowledgment packets.
    The main part of all three is a list of items, each item describing
    a piece of the link-state database.  The sending of Database
    Description Packets is documented in Section 10.8 of [Ref1].  The



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    reception of Database Description packets is documented in Section
    10.6 of [Ref1].

    Options
        The optional capabilities supported by the router, as documented
        in Section A.2.

    Interface MTU
        The size in bytes of the largest IPv6 datagram that can be sent
        out the associated interface, without fragmentation.  The MTUs
        of common Internet link types can be found in Table 7-1 of
        [Ref12]. Interface MTU should be set to 0 in Database
        Description packets sent over virtual links.

    I-bit
        The Init bit.  When set to 1, this packet is the first in the
        sequence of Database Description Packets.

    M-bit
        The More bit.  When set to 1, it indicates that more Database
        Description Packets are to follow.

    MS-bit
        The Master/Slave bit.  When set to 1, it indicates that the
        router is the master during the Database Exchange process.
        Otherwise, the router is the slave.

    DD sequence number
        Used to sequence the collection of Database Description Packets.
        The initial value (indicated by the Init bit being set) should
        be unique.  The DD sequence number then increments until the
        complete database description has been sent.


    The rest of the packet consists of a (possibly partial) list of the
    link-state database's pieces.  Each LSA in the database is described
    by its LSA header.  The LSA header is documented in Section A.4.1.
    It contains all the information required to uniquely identify both
    the LSA and the LSA's current instance.












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A.3.4 The Link State Request packet

    Link State Request packets are OSPF packet type 3.  After exchanging
    Database Description packets with a neighboring router, a router may
    find that parts of its link-state database are out-of-date.  The
    Link State Request packet is used to request the pieces of the
    neighbor's database that are more up-to-date.  Multiple Link State
    Request packets may need to be used.

    A router that sends a Link State Request packet has in mind the
    precise instance of the database pieces it is requesting. Each
    instance is defined by its LS sequence number, LS checksum, and LS
    age, although these fields are not specified in the Link State
    Request Packet itself.  The router may receive even more recent
    instances in response.

    The sending of Link State Request packets is documented in Section
    10.9 of [Ref1].  The reception of Link State Request packets is
    documented in Section 10.7 of [Ref1].


        0                   1                   2                   3
        0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |      3        |       3       |         Packet length         |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |                          Router ID                            |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |                           Area ID                             |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |           Checksum            |  Instance ID  |      0        |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |               0               |           LS type             |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |                       Link State ID                           |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |                     Advertising Router                        |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |                              ...                              |


    Each LSA requested is specified by its LS type, Link State ID, and
    Advertising Router.  This uniquely identifies the LSA, but not its
    instance.  Link State Request packets are understood to be requests
    for the most recent instance (whatever that might be).






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A.3.5 The Link State Update packet

    Link State Update packets are OSPF packet type 4.  These packets
    implement the flooding of LSAs.  Each Link State Update packet
    carries a collection of LSAs one hop further from their origin.
    Several LSAs may be included in a single packet.

    Link State Update packets are multicast on those physical networks
    that support multicast/broadcast.  In order to make the flooding
    procedure reliable, flooded LSAs are acknowledged in Link State
    Acknowledgment packets.  If retransmission of certain LSAs is
    necessary, the retransmitted LSAs are always carried by unicast Link
    State Update packets. For more information on the reliable flooding
    of LSAs, consult Section 3.5.


        0                   1                   2                   3
        0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |      3        |       4       |         Packet length         |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |                          Router ID                            |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |                           Area ID                             |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |           Checksum            |  Instance ID  |      0        |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |                            # LSAs                             |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |                                                               |
       +-                                                            +-+
       |                             LSAs                              |
       +-                                                            +-+
       |                              ...                              |



    # LSAs
        The number of LSAs included in this update.


    The body of the Link State Update packet consists of a list of LSAs.
    Each LSA begins with a common 20 byte header, described in Section
    A.4.2. Detailed formats of the different types of LSAs are described
    in Section A.4.






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A.3.6 The Link State Acknowledgment packet

    Link State Acknowledgment Packets are OSPF packet type 5.  To make
    the flooding of LSAs reliable, flooded LSAs are explicitly
    acknowledged.  This acknowledgment is accomplished through the
    sending and receiving of Link State Acknowledgment packets. The
    sending of Link State Acknowledgement packets is documented in
    Section 13.5 of [Ref1].  The reception of Link State Acknowledgement
    packets is documented in Section 13.7 of [Ref1].

    Multiple LSAs can be acknowledged in a single Link State
    Acknowledgment packet.  Depending on the state of the sending
    interface and the sender of the corresponding Link State Update
    packet, a Link State Acknowledgment packet is sent either to the
    multicast address AllSPFRouters, to the multicast address
    AllDRouters, or as a unicast (see Section 13.5 of [Ref1] for
    details).

    The format of this packet is similar to that of the Data Description
    packet.  The body of both packets is simply a list of LSA headers.


        0                   1                   2                   3
        0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |      3        |       5       |         Packet length         |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |                          Router ID                            |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |                           Area ID                             |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |           Checksum            |  Instance ID  |      0        |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |                                                               |
       +-                                                             -+
       |                                                               |
       +-                         An LSA Header                       -+
       |                                                               |
       +-                                                             -+
       |                                                               |
       +-                                                             -+
       |                                                               |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |                              ...                              |


    Each acknowledged LSA is described by its LSA header.  The LSA
    header is documented in Section A.4.2.  It contains all the



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    information required to uniquely identify both the LSA and the LSA's
    current instance.

















































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A.4 LSA formats

    This memo defines seven distinct types of LSAs.  Each LSA begins
    with a standard 20 byte LSA header.  This header is explained in
    Section A.4.2.  Succeeding sections then diagram the separate LSA
    types.

    Each LSA describes a piece of the OSPF routing domain.  Every router
    originates a router-LSA. A network-LSA is advertised for each link
    by its Designated Router. A router's link-local addresses are
    advertised to its neighbors in link-LSAs. IPv6 prefixes are
    advertised in intra-area-prefix-LSAs, inter-area-prefix-LSAs and
    AS-external-LSAs.  Location of specific routers can be advertised
    across area boundaries in inter-area-router-LSAs. All LSAs are then
    flooded throughout the OSPF routing domain.  The flooding algorithm
    is reliable, ensuring that all routers have the same collection of
    LSAs.  (See Section 3.5 for more information concerning the flooding
    algorithm).  This collection of LSAs is called the link-state
    database.

    From the link state database, each router constructs a shortest path
    tree with itself as root.  This yields a routing table (see Section
    11 of [Ref1]).  For the details of the routing table build process,
    see Section 3.8.



























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A.4.1 IPv6 Prefix Representation

    IPv6 addresses are bit strings of length 128. IPv6 routing
    algorithms, and OSPF for IPv6 in particular, advertise IPv6 address
    prefixes. IPv6 address prefixes are bit strings whose length ranges
    between 0 and 128 bits (inclusive).

    Within OSPF, IPv6 address prefixes are always represented by a
    combination of three fields: PrefixLength, PrefixOptions, and
    Address Prefix. PrefixLength is the length in bits of the prefix.
    PrefixOptions is an 8-bit field describing various capabilities
    associated with the prefix (see Section A.4.2). Address Prefix is an
    encoding of the prefix itself as an even multiple of 32-bit words,
    padding with zero bits as necessary; this encoding consumes
    (PrefixLength + 31) / 32) 32-bit words.

    The default route is represented by a prefix of length 0.

    Examples of IPv6 Prefix representation in OSPF can be found in
    Sections A.4.5, A.4.7, A.4.8 and A.4.9.































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A.4.1.1 Prefix Options

    Each prefix is advertised along with an 8-bit field of capabilities.
    These serve as input to the various routing calculations, allowing,
    for example, certain prefixes to be ignored in some cases, or to be
    marked as not readvertisable in others.

                       0  1  2  3  4  5  6  7
                      +--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+
                      |  |  |  |  | P|MC|LA|NU|
                      +--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+

                          The Prefix Options field


    NU-bit
        The "no unicast" capability bit. If set, the prefix should be
        excluded from IPv6 unicast calculations, otherwise it should be
        included.

    LA-bit
        The "local address" capability bit. If set, the prefix is
        actually an IPv6 interface address of the advertising router.

    MC-bit
        The "multicast" capability bit. If set, the prefix should be
        included in IPv6 multicast routing calculations, otherwise it
        should be excluded.

    P-bit
        The "propagate" bit. Set on NSSA area prefixes that should be
        readvertised at the NSSA area border.



















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A.4.2 The LSA header

    All LSAs begin with a common 20 byte header.  This header contains
    enough information to uniquely identify the LSA (LS type, Link State
    ID, and Advertising Router).  Multiple instances of the LSA may
    exist in the routing domain at the same time.  It is then necessary
    to determine which instance is more recent.  This is accomplished by
    examining the LS age, LS sequence number and LS checksum fields that
    are also contained in the LSA header.


        0                   1                   2                   3
        0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |            LS age             |           LS type             |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |                        Link State ID                          |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |                     Advertising Router                        |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |                     LS sequence number                        |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |         LS checksum           |             length            |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+



    LS age
        The time in seconds since the LSA was originated.

    LS type
        The LS type field indicates the function performed by the LSA.
        The high-order three bits of LS type encode generic properties
        of the LSA, while the remainder (called LSA function code)
        indicate the LSA's specific functionality. See Section A.4.2.1
        for a detailed description of LS type.

    Link State ID
        Together with LS type and Advertising Router, uniquely
        identifies the LSA in the link-state database.

    Advertising Router
        The Router ID of the router that originated the LSA.  For
        example, in network-LSAs this field is equal to the Router ID of
        the network's Designated Router.

    LS sequence number
        Detects old or duplicate LSAs.  Successive instances of an LSA



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        are given successive LS sequence numbers.  See Section 12.1.6 in
        [Ref1] for more details.

    LS checksum
        The Fletcher checksum of the complete contents of the LSA,
        including the LSA header but excluding the LS age field. See
        Section 12.1.7 in [Ref1] for more details.

    length
        The length in bytes of the LSA.  This includes the 20 byte LSA
        header.








































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A.4.2.1 LS type

    The LS type field indicates the function performed by the LSA.  The
    high-order three bits of LS type encode generic properties of the
    LSA, while the remainder (called LSA function code) indicate the
    LSA's specific functionality. The format of the LS type is as
    follows:

                                      1
        0  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  0  1  2  3  4  5
      +--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+
      |U |S2|S1|           LSA Function Code          |
      +--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+

    The U bit indicates how the LSA should be handled by a router which
    does not recognize the LSA's function code.  Its values are:



          U-bit   LSA Handling
          ____________________________________________________________
          0       Treat the LSA as if it had link-local flooding scope
          1       Store and flood the LSA, as if type understood



    The S1 and S2 bits indicate the flooding scope of the LSA.  The
    values are:



    S2   S1   Flooding Scope
    _______________________________________________________________________
    0    0    Link-Local Scoping. Flooded only on link it is originated on.
    0    1    Area Scoping. Flooded to all routers in the originating area
    1    0    AS Scoping. Flooded to all routers in the AS
    1    1    Reserved




    The LSA function codes are defined as follows. The origination and
    processing of these LSA function codes are defined elsewhere in this
    memo, except for the group-membership-LSA (see [Ref7]) and the
    Type-7-LSA (see [Ref8]). Each LSA function code also implies a
    specific setting for the U, S1 and S2 bits, as shown below.





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              LSA function code   LS Type   Description
              ___________________________________________________
              1                   0x2001    Router-LSA
              2                   0x2002    Network-LSA
              3                   0x2003    Inter-Area-Prefix-LSA
              4                   0x2004    Inter-Area-Router-LSA
              5                   0x4005    AS-External-LSA
              6                   0x2006    Group-membership-LSA
              7                   0x2007    Type-7-LSA
              8                   0x0008    Link-LSA
              9                   0x2009    Intra-Area-Prefix-LSA







































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A.4.3 Router-LSAs

    Router-LSAs have LS type equal to 0x2001.  Each router in an area
    originates one or more router-LSAs.  The complete collection of
    router-LSAs originated by the router describe the state and cost of
    the router's interfaces to the area. For details concerning the
    construction of router-LSAs, see Section 3.4.3.1. Router-LSAs are
    flooded throughout a single area only.


        0                   1                   2                   3
        0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |            LS age             |0|0|1|          1              |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |                        Link State ID                          |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |                     Advertising Router                        |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |                     LS sequence number                        |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |         LS checksum           |             length            |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |    0  |W|V|E|B|             Options                           |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |     Type      |       0       |           Metric              |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |                       Interface ID                            |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |                    Neighbor Interface ID                      |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |                     Neighbor Router ID                        |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |                              ...                              |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |     Type      |       0       |           Metric              |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |                       Interface ID                            |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |                    Neighbor Interface ID                      |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |                     Neighbor Router ID                        |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |                              ...                              |


    A single router may originate one or more Router LSAs, distinguished
    by their Link-State IDs (which are chosen arbitrarily by the



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    originating router).  The Options field and V, E and B bits should
    be the same in all Router LSAs from a single originator.  However,
    in the case of a mismatch the values in the LSA with the lowest Link
    State ID take precedence. When more than one Router LSA is received
    from a single router, the links are processed as if concatenated
    into a single LSA.


    bit V
        When set, the router is an endpoint of one or more fully
        adjacent virtual links having the described area as Transit area
        (V is for virtual link endpoint).

    bit E
        When set, the router is an AS boundary router (E is for
        external).

    bit B
        When set, the router is an area border router (B is for border).

    bit W
        When set, the router is a wild-card multicast receiver.  When
        running MOSPF, these routers receive all multicast datagrams,
        regardless of destination. See Sections 3, 4 and A.2 of [Ref8]
        for details.

    Options
        The optional capabilities supported by the router, as documented
        in Section A.2.


    The following fields are used to describe each router interface.
    The Type field indicates the kind of interface being described.  It
    may be an interface to a transit network, a point-to-point
    connection to another router or a virtual link.  The values of all
    the other fields describing a router interface depend on the
    interface's Type field.


    Type
        The kind of interface being described.  One of the following:










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                 Type   Description
                 __________________________________________________
                 1      Point-to-point connection to another router
                 2      Connection to a transit network
                 3      Reserved
                 4      Virtual link




    Metric
        The cost of using this router interface, for outbound traffic.

    Interface ID
        The Interface ID assigned to the interface being described. See
        Sections 3.1.2 and C.3.

    Neighbor Interface ID
        The Interface ID the neighbor router (or the attached link's
        Designated Router, for Type 2 interfaces) has been advertising
        in hello packets sent on the attached link.

    Neighbor Router ID
        The Router ID the neighbor router (or the attached link's
        Designated Router, for Type 2 interfaces).

        For Type 2 links, the combination of Neighbor Interface ID and
        Neighbor Router ID allows the network-LSA for the attached link
        to be found in the link-state database.





















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A.4.4 Network-LSAs

    Network-LSAs have LS type equal to 0x2002.  A network-LSA is
    originated for each broadcast and NBMA link in the area which
    supports two or more routers.  The network-LSA is originated by the
    link's Designated Router.  The LSA describes all routers attached to
    the link, including the Designated Router itself.  The LSA's Link
    State ID field is set to the Interface ID that the Designated Router
    has been advertising in Hello packets on the link.

    The distance from the network to all attached routers is zero.  This
    is why the metric fields need not be specified in the network-LSA.
    For details concerning the construction of network-LSAs, see Section
    3.4.3.2.


        0                   1                   2                   3
        0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |            LS age             |0|0|1|          2              |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |                        Link State ID                          |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |                     Advertising Router                        |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |                     LS sequence number                        |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |         LS checksum           |             length            |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |      0        |              Options                          |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |                        Attached Router                        |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |                              ...                              |



    Attached Router
        The Router IDs of each of the routers attached to the link.
        Actually, only those routers that are fully adjacent to the
        Designated Router are listed.  The Designated Router includes
        itself in this list.  The number of routers included can be
        deduced from the LSA header's length field.








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A.4.5 Inter-Area-Prefix-LSAs

    Inter-Area-Prefix-LSAs have LS type equal to 0x2003.  These LSAs are
    are the IPv6 equivalent of OSPF for IPv4's type 3 summary-LSAs (see
    Section 12.4.3 of [Ref1]).  Originated by area border routers, they
    describe routes to IPv6 address prefixes that belong to other areas.
    A separate Inter-Area-Prefix-LSA is originated for each IPv6 address
    prefix. For details concerning the construction of Inter-Area-
    Prefix-LSAs, see Section 3.4.3.3.

    For stub areas, Inter-Area-Prefix-LSAs can also be used to describe
    a (per-area) default route.  Default summary routes are used in stub
    areas instead of flooding a complete set of external routes.  When
    describing a default summary route, the Inter-Area-Prefix-LSA's
    PrefixLength is set to 0.


        0                   1                   2                   3
        0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |            LS age             |0|0|1|          3              |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |                        Link State ID                          |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |                     Advertising Router                        |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |                     LS sequence number                        |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |         LS checksum           |             length            |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |      0        |                  Metric                       |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       | PrefixLength  | PrefixOptions |              (0)              |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |                         Address Prefix                        |
       |                              ...                              |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+


    Metric
        The cost of this route.  Expressed in the same units as the
        interface costs in the router-LSAs. When the Inter-Area-Prefix-
        LSA is describing a route to a range of addresses (see Section
        C.2) the cost is set to the maximum cost to any reachable
        component of the address range.

    PrefixLength, PrefixOptions and Address Prefix
        Representation of the IPv6 address prefix, as described in



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        Section A.4.1.


















































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A.4.6 Inter-Area-Router-LSAs

    Inter-Area-Router-LSAs have LS type equal to 0x2004.  These LSAs are
    are the IPv6 equivalent of OSPF for IPv4's type 4 summary-LSAs (see
    Section 12.4.3 of [Ref1]).  Originated by area border routers, they
    describe routes to routers in other areas.  (To see why it is
    necessary to advertise the location of each ASBR, consult Section
    16.4 in [Ref1].)  Each LSA describes a route to a single router. For
    details concerning the construction of Inter-Area-Router-LSAs, see
    Section 3.4.3.4.


        0                   1                   2                   3
        0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |            LS age             |0|0|1|        4                |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |                        Link State ID                          |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |                     Advertising Router                        |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |                     LS sequence number                        |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |         LS checksum           |             length            |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |      0        |                  Options                      |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |      0        |                  Metric                       |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |                     Destination Router ID                     |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+


    Options
        The optional capabilities supported by the router, as documented
        in Section A.2.

    Metric
        The cost of this route.  Expressed in the same units as the
        interface costs in the router-LSAs.

    Destination Router ID
        The Router ID of the router being described by the LSA.








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A.4.7 AS-external-LSAs

    AS-external-LSAs have LS type equal to 0x4005.  These LSAs are
    originated by AS boundary routers, and describe destinations
    external to the AS. Each LSA describes a route to a single IPv6
    address prefix. For details concerning the construction of AS-
    external-LSAs, see Section 3.4.3.5.

    AS-external-LSAs can be used to describe a default route.  Default
    routes are used when no specific route exists to the destination.
    When describing a default route, the AS-external-LSA's PrefixLength
    is set to 0.


        0                   1                   2                   3
        0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |            LS age             |0|1|0|          5              |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |                        Link State ID                          |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |                     Advertising Router                        |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |                     LS sequence number                        |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |         LS checksum           |             length            |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |         |E|F|T|                 Metric                        |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       | PrefixLength  | PrefixOptions |     Referenced LS Type        |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |                         Address Prefix                        |
       |                              ...                              |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |                                                               |
       +-                                                             -+
       |                                                               |
       +-                 Forwarding Address (Optional)               -+
       |                                                               |
       +-                                                             -+
       |                                                               |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |                  External Route Tag (Optional)                |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |                Referenced Link State ID (Optional)            |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+





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    bit E
        The type of external metric.  If bit E is set, the metric
        specified is a Type 2 external metric.  This means the metric is
        considered larger than any intra-AS path.  If bit E is zero, the
        specified metric is a Type 1 external metric.  This means that
        it is expressed in the same units as the link state metric
        (i.e., the same units as interface cost).

    bit F
        If set, a Forwarding Address has been included in the LSA.

    bit T
        If set, an External Route Tag has been included in the LSA.

    Metric
        The cost of this route.  Interpretation depends on the external
        type indication (bit E above).

    PrefixLength, PrefixOptions and Address Prefix
        Representation of the IPv6 address prefix, as described in
        Section A.4.1.

    Referenced LS type
        If non-zero, an LSA with this LS type is to be associated with
        this LSA (see Referenced Link State ID below).

    Forwarding address
        A fully qualified IPv6 address (128 bits).  Included in the LSA
        if and only if bit F has been set.  If included, Data traffic
        for the advertised destination and TOS will be forwarded to this
        address. Must not be set to the IPv6 Unspecified Address
        (0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0).

    External Route Tag
        A 32-bit field which may be used to communicate additional
        information between AS boundary routers; see [Ref5] for example
        usage. Included in the LSA if and only if bit T has been set.

    Referenced Link State ID
        Included if and only if Reference LS Type is non-zero.  If
        included, additional information concerning the advertised
        external route can be found in the LSA having LS type equal to
        "Referenced LS Type", Link State ID equal to "Referenced Link
        State ID" and Advertising Router the same as that specified in
        the AS-external-LSA's link state header. This additional
        information is not used by the OSPF protocol itself.  It may be
        used to communicate information between AS boundary routers; the
        precise nature of such information is outside the scope of this



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        specification.

    All, none or some of the fields labeled Forwarding address, External
    Route Tag and Referenced Link State ID may be present in the AS-
    external-LSA (as indicated by the setting of bit F, bit T and
    Referenced LS type respectively). However, when present Forwarding
    Address always comes first, with External Route Tag always preceding
    Referenced Link State ID.











































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A.4.8 Link-LSAs

    Link-LSAs have LS type equal to 0x0008.  A router originates a
    separate Link-LSA for each link it is attached to. These LSAs have
    local-link flooding scope; they are never flooded beyond the link
    that they are associated with. Link-LSAs have three purposes: 1)
    they provide the router's link-local address to all other routers
    attached to the link and 2) they inform other routers attached to
    the link of a list of IPv6 prefixes to associate with the link and
    3) they allow the router to assert a collection of Options bits to
    associate with the Network-LSA that will be originated for the link.

    A link-LSA's Link State ID is set equal to the originating router's
    Interface ID on the link.
        0                   1                   2                   3
        0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |            LS age             |0|0|0|           8             |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |                        Link State ID                          |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |                      Advertising Router                       |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |                      LS sequence number                       |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |         LS checksum           |             length            |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |    Rtr Pri    |                 Options                       |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |                                                               |
       +-                                                             -+
       |                                                               |
       +-                 Link-local Interface Address                -+
       |                                                               |
       +-                                                             -+
       |                                                               |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |                          # prefixes                           |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |  PrefixLength | PrefixOptions |              (0)              |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |                         Address Prefix                        |
       |                              ...                              |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |                              ...                              |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |  PrefixLength | PrefixOptions |              (0)              |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+



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       |                         Address Prefix                        |
       |                              ...                              |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

    Rtr Pri
        The Router Priority of the interface attaching the originating
        router to the link.

    Options
        The set of Options bits that the router would like set in the
        Network-LSA that will be originated for the link.

    Link-local Interface Address
        The originating router's link-local interface address on the
        link.

    # prefixes
        The number of IPv6 address prefixes contained in the LSA.

    The rest of the link-LSA contains a list of IPv6 prefixes to be
    associated with the link.

    PrefixLength, PrefixOptions and Address Prefix
        Representation of an IPv6 address prefix, as described in
        Section A.4.1.


























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A.4.9 Intra-Area-Prefix-LSAs

    Intra-Area-Prefix-LSAs have LS type equal to 0x2009. A router uses
    Intra-Area-Prefix-LSAs to advertise one or more IPv6 address
    prefixes that are associated with a) the router itself, b) an
    attached stub network segment or c) an attached transit network
    segment. In IPv4, a) and b) were accomplished via the router's
    router-LSA, and c) via a network-LSA. However, in OSPF for IPv6 all
    addressing information has been removed from router-LSAs and
    network-LSAs, leading to the introduction of the Intra-Area-Prefix-
    LSA.

    A router can originate multiple Intra-Area-Prefix-LSAs for each
    router or transit network; each such LSA is distinguished by its
    Link State ID.

        0                   1                   2                   3
        0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |            LS age             |0|0|1|            9            |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |                        Link State ID                          |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |                     Advertising Router                        |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |                     LS sequence number                        |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |         LS checksum           |             length            |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |          # prefixes           |     Referenced LS type        |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |                   Referenced Link State ID                    |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |                Referenced Advertising Router                  |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |  PrefixLength | PrefixOptions |           Metric              |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |                        Address Prefix                         |
       |                              ...                              |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |                              ...                              |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |  PrefixLength | PrefixOptions |           Metric              |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |                        Address Prefix                         |
       |                              ...                              |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+




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    # prefixes
        The number of IPv6 address prefixes contained in the LSA.

    Referenced LS type, Referenced Link State ID and Referenced
        Advertising Router
        Identifies the router-LSA or network-LSA with which the IPv6
        address prefixes should be associated. If Referenced LS type is
        1, the prefixes are associated with a router-LSA, Referenced
        Link State ID should be 0 and Referenced Advertising Router
        should be the originating router's Router ID. If Referenced LS
        type is 2, the prefixes are associated with a network-LSA,
        Referenced Link State ID should be the Interface ID of the
        link's Designated Router and Referenced Advertising Router
        should be the Designated Router's Router ID.

    The rest of the Intra-Area-Prefix-LSA contains a list of IPv6
    prefixes to be associated with the router or transit link, together
    with the cost of each prefix.

    PrefixLength, PrefixOptions and Address Prefix
        Representation of an IPv6 address prefix, as described in
        Section A.4.1.

    Metric
        The cost of this prefix.  Expressed in the same units as the
        interface costs in the router-LSAs.

























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B. Architectural Constants

    Architectural constants for the OSPF protocol are defined in
    Appendix C of [Ref1]. The only difference for OSPF for IPv6 is that
    DefaultDestination is encoded as a prefix of length 0 (see Section
    A.4.1).

C. Configurable Constants

    The OSPF protocol has quite a few configurable parameters.  These
    parameters are listed below.  They are grouped into general
    functional categories (area parameters, interface parameters, etc.).
    Sample values are given for some of the parameters.

    Some parameter settings need to be consistent among groups of
    routers.  For example, all routers in an area must agree on that
    area's parameters, and all routers attached to a network must agree
    on that network's HelloInterval and RouterDeadInterval.

    Some parameters may be determined by router algorithms outside of
    this specification (e.g., the address of a host connected to the
    router via a SLIP line).  From OSPF's point of view, these items are
    still configurable.

    C.1 Global parameters

        In general, a separate copy of the OSPF protocol is run for each
        area.  Because of this, most configuration parameters are
        defined on a per-area basis.  The few global configuration
        parameters are listed below.


        Router ID
            This is a 32-bit number that uniquely identifies the router
            in the Autonomous System. If a router's OSPF Router ID is
            changed, the router's OSPF software should be restarted
            before the new Router ID takes effect. Before restarting in
            order to change its Router ID, the router should flush its
            self-originated LSAs from the routing domain (see Section
            14.1 of [Ref1]), or they will persist for up to MaxAge
            minutes.

            Because the size of the Router ID is smaller than an IPv6
            address, it cannot be set to one of the router's IPv6
            addresses (as is commonly done for IPv4). Possible Router ID
            assignment procedures for IPv6 include: a) assign the IPv6
            Router ID as one of the router's IPv4 addresses or b) assign
            IPv6 Router IDs through some local administrative procedure



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            (similar to procedures used by manufacturers to assign
            product serial numbers).

            The Router ID of 0.0.0.0 is reserved, and should not be
            used.

    C.2 Area parameters

        All routers belonging to an area must agree on that area's
        configuration.  Disagreements between two routers will lead to
        an inability for adjacencies to form between them, with a
        resulting hindrance to the flow of routing protocol and data
        traffic.  The following items must be configured for an area:


        Area ID
            This is a 32-bit number that identifies the area.  The Area
            ID of 0 is reserved for the backbone.

        List of address ranges
            Address ranges control the advertisement of routes across
            area boundaries. Each address range consists of the
            following items:

            [IPv6 prefix, prefix length]
                    Describes the collection of IPv6 addresses contained
                    in the address range.

            Status  Set to either Advertise or DoNotAdvertise.  Routing
                    information is condensed at area boundaries.
                    External to the area, at most a single route is
                    advertised (via a inter-area-prefix-LSA) for each
                    address range. The route is advertised if and only
                    if the address range's Status is set to Advertise.
                    Unadvertised ranges allow the existence of certain
                    networks to be intentionally hidden from other
                    areas. Status is set to Advertise by default.

        ExternalRoutingCapability
            Whether AS-external-LSAs will be flooded into/throughout the
            area.  If AS-external-LSAs are excluded from the area, the
            area is called a "stub".  Internal to stub areas, routing to
            external destinations will be based solely on a default
            inter-area route.  The backbone cannot be configured as a
            stub area.  Also, virtual links cannot be configured through
            stub areas.  For more information, see Section 3.6 of
            [Ref1].




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        StubDefaultCost
            If the area has been configured as a stub area, and the
            router itself is an area border router, then the
            StubDefaultCost indicates the cost of the default inter-
            area-prefix-LSA that the router should advertise into the
            area. See Section 12.4.3.1 of [Ref1] for more information.

    C.3 Router interface parameters

        Some of the configurable router interface parameters (such as
        Area ID, HelloInterval and RouterDeadInterval) actually imply
        properties of the attached links, and therefore must be
        consistent across all the routers attached to that link.  The
        parameters that must be configured for a router interface are:


        IPv6 link-local address
            The IPv6 link-local address associated with this interface.
            May be learned through auto-configuration.

        Area ID
            The OSPF area to which the attached link belongs.

        Instance ID
            The OSPF protocol instance associated with this OSPF
            interface. Defaults to 0.

        Interface ID
            32-bit number uniquely identifying this interface among the
            collection of this router's interfaces. For example, in some
            implementations it may be possible to use the MIB-II
            IfIndex.

        IPv6 prefixes
            The list of IPv6 prefixes to associate with the link. These
            will be advertised in intra-area-prefix-LSAs.

        Interface output cost(s)
            The cost of sending a packet on the interface, expressed in
            the link state metric.  This is advertised as the link cost
            for this interface in the router's router-LSA. The interface
            output cost must always be greater than 0.

        RxmtInterval
            The number of seconds between LSA retransmissions, for
            adjacencies belonging to this interface.  Also used when
            retransmitting Database Description and Link State Request
            Packets.  This should be well over the expected round-trip



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            delay between any two routers on the attached link.  The
            setting of this value should be conservative or needless
            retransmissions will result.  Sample value for a local area
            network: 5 seconds.

        InfTransDelay
            The estimated number of seconds it takes to transmit a Link
            State Update Packet over this interface.  LSAs contained in
            the update packet must have their age incremented by this
            amount before transmission.  This value should take into
            account the transmission and propagation delays of the
            interface.  It must be greater than 0.  Sample value for a
            local area network: 1 second.

        Router Priority
            An 8-bit unsigned integer.  When two routers attached to a
            network both attempt to become Designated Router, the one
            with the highest Router Priority takes precedence.  If there
            is still a tie, the router with the highest Router ID takes
            precedence.  A router whose Router Priority is set to 0 is
            ineligible to become Designated Router on the attached link.
            Router Priority is only configured for interfaces to
            broadcast and NBMA networks.

        HelloInterval
            The length of time, in seconds, between the Hello Packets
            that the router sends on the interface.  This value is
            advertised in the router's Hello Packets.  It must be the
            same for all routers attached to a common link.  The smaller
            the HelloInterval, the faster topological changes will be
            detected; however, more OSPF routing protocol traffic will
            ensue.  Sample value for a X.25 PDN: 30 seconds.  Sample
            value for a local area network (LAN): 10 seconds.

        RouterDeadInterval
            After ceasing to hear a router's Hello Packets, the number
            of seconds before its neighbors declare the router down.
            This is also advertised in the router's Hello Packets in
            their RouterDeadInterval field.  This should be some
            multiple of the HelloInterval (say 4).  This value again
            must be the same for all routers attached to a common link.

    C.4 Virtual link parameters

        Virtual links are used to restore/increase connectivity of the
        backbone.  Virtual links may be configured between any pair of
        area border routers having interfaces to a common (non-backbone)
        area.  The virtual link appears as an unnumbered point-to-point



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        link in the graph for the backbone.  The virtual link must be
        configured in both of the area border routers.

        A virtual link appears in router-LSAs (for the backbone) as if
        it were a separate router interface to the backbone.  As such,
        it has most of the parameters associated with a router interface
        (see Section C.3).  Virtual links do not have link-local
        addresses, but instead use one of the router's global-scope or
        site-local IPv6 addresses as the IP source in OSPF protocol
        packets it sends along the virtual link.  Router Priority is not
        used on virtual links. Interface output cost is not configured
        on virtual links, but is dynamically set to be the cost of the
        intra-area path between the two endpoint routers.  The parameter
        RxmtInterval must be configured, and should be well over the
        expected round-trip delay between the two routers.  This may be
        hard to estimate for a virtual link; it is better to err on the
        side of making it too large.

        A virtual link is defined by the following two configurable
        parameters: the Router ID of the virtual link's other endpoint,
        and the (non-backbone) area through which the virtual link runs
        (referred to as the virtual link's Transit area).  Virtual links
        cannot be configured through stub areas.

    C.5 NBMA network parameters

        OSPF treats an NBMA network much like it treats a broadcast
        network.  Since there may be many routers attached to the
        network, a Designated Router is selected for the network.  This
        Designated Router then originates a network-LSA, which lists all
        routers attached to the NBMA network.

        However, due to the lack of broadcast capabilities, it may be
        necessary to use configuration parameters in the Designated
        Router selection.  These parameters will only need to be
        configured in those routers that are themselves eligible to
        become Designated Router (i.e., those router's whose Router
        Priority for the network is non-zero), and then only if no
        automatic procedure for discovering neighbors exists:


        List of all other attached routers
            The list of all other routers attached to the NBMA network.
            Each router is configured with its Router ID and IPv6 link-
            local address on the network.  Also, for each router listed,
            that router's eligibility to become Designated Router must
            be defined.  When an interface to a NBMA network comes up,
            the router sends Hello Packets only to those neighbors



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            eligible to become Designated Router, until the identity of
            the Designated Router is discovered.

        PollInterval
            If a neighboring router has become inactive (Hello Packets
            have not been seen for RouterDeadInterval seconds), it may
            still be necessary to send Hello Packets to the dead
            neighbor.  These Hello Packets will be sent at the reduced
            rate PollInterval, which should be much larger than
            HelloInterval.  Sample value for a PDN X.25 network: 2
            minutes.

    C.6 Point-to-MultiPoint network parameters

        On Point-to-MultiPoint networks, it may be necessary to
        configure the set of neighbors that are directly reachable over
        the Point-to-MultiPoint network. Each neighbor is configured
        with its Router ID and IPv6 link-local address on the network.
        Designated Routers are not elected on Point-to-MultiPoint
        networks, so the Designated Router eligibility of configured
        neighbors is undefined.

    C.7 Host route parameters

        Host routes are advertised in intra-area-prefix-LSAs as fully
        qualified IPv6 prefixes (i.e., prefix length set equal to 128
        bits).  They indicate either router interfaces to point-to-point
        networks, looped router interfaces, or IPv6 hosts that are
        directly connected to the router (e.g., via a PPP connection).
        For each host directly connected to the router, the following
        items must be configured:


        Host IPv6 address
            The IPv6 address of the host.

        Cost of link to host
            The cost of sending a packet to the host, in terms of the
            link state metric. However, since the host probably has only
            a single connection to the internet, the actual configured
            cost(s) in many cases is unimportant (i.e., will have no
            effect on routing).

        Area ID
            The OSPF area to which the host belongs.






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Security Considerations

    When running over IPv6, OSPF relies on the IP Authentication Header
    (see [Ref19]) and the IP Encapsulating Security Payload (see
    [Ref20]) to ensure integrity and authentication/confidentiality of
    routing exchanges.

Authors Addresses

    Rob Coltun
    FORE Systems
    Phone: (301) 571-2521
    Email: rcoltun@fore.com

    Dennis Ferguson
    Juniper Networks
    101 University Avenue, Suite 240
    Palo Alto, CA  94301
    Phone: (415) 614-4143
    Email: dennis@jnx.com

    John Moy
    Cascade Communications Corp.
    5 Carlisle Road
    Westford, MA 01886
    Phone: (508) 952-1367
    Fax:   (508) 392-9250
    Email: jmoy@casc.com

    This document expires in September 1997.





















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