The OSPF Opaque LSA Option
RFC 2370
| Document | Type |
RFC - Proposed Standard
(July 1998; No errata)
Obsoleted by RFC 5250
Updated by RFC 3630
|
|
|---|---|---|---|
| Last updated | 2013-03-02 | ||
| Stream | IETF | ||
| Formats | plain text pdf html bibtex | ||
| Stream | WG state | (None) | |
| Document shepherd | No shepherd assigned | ||
| IESG | IESG state | RFC 2370 (Proposed Standard) | |
| Consensus Boilerplate | Unknown | ||
| Telechat date | |||
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| Send notices to | (None) | ||
Network Working Group R. Coltun
Request for Comments: 2370 FORE Systems
See Also: 2328 July 1998
Category: Standards Track
The OSPF Opaque LSA Option
Status of this Memo
This document specifies an Internet standards track protocol for the
Internet community, and requests discussion and suggestions for
improvements. Please refer to the current edition of the "Internet
Official Protocol Standards" (STD 1) for the standardization state
and status of this protocol. Distribution of this memo is unlimited.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (C) The Internet Society (1998). All Rights Reserved.
Table Of Contents
1.0 Abstract ................................................. 1
2.0 Overview ................................................. 2
2.1 Organization Of This Document ............................ 2
2.2 Acknowledgments .......................................... 3
3.0 The Opaque LSA ........................................... 3
3.1 Flooding Opaque LSAs ..................................... 4
3.2 Modifications To The Neighbor State Machine .............. 5
4.0 Protocol Data Structures ................................. 6
4.1 Additions To The OSPF Neighbor Structure ................. 6
5.0 Management Considerations ................................ 7
6.0 Security Considerations .................................. 9
7.0 IANA Considerations ...................................... 10
8.0 References ............................................... 10
9.0 Author's Information ..................................... 11
Appendix A: OSPF Data Formats ................................ 12
A.1 The Options Field ........................................ 12
A.2 The Opaque LSA ........................................... 13
Appendix B: Full Copyright Statment .......................... 15
1.0 Abstract
This memo defines enhancements to the OSPF protocol to support a new
class of link-state advertisements (LSA) called Opaque LSAs. Opaque
LSAs provide a generalized mechanism to allow for the future
extensibility of OSPF. Opaque LSAs consist of a standard LSA header
followed by application-specific information. The information field
Coltun Standards Track [Page 1]
RFC 2370 The OSPF Opaque LSA Option July 1998
may be used directly by OSPF or by other applications. Standard OSPF
link-state database flooding mechanisms are used to distribute Opaque
LSAs to all or some limited portion of the OSPF topology.
2.0 Overview
Over the last several years the OSPF routing protocol [OSPF] has been
widely deployed throughout the Internet. As a result of this
deployment and the evolution of networking technology, OSPF has been
extended to support many options; this evolution will obviously
continue.
This memo defines enhancements to the OSPF protocol to support a new
class of link-state advertisements (LSA) called Opaque LSAs. Opaque
LSAs provide a generalized mechanism to allow for the future
extensibility of OSPF. The information contained in Opaque LSAs may
be used directly by OSPF or indirectly by some application wishing to
distribute information throughout the OSPF domain. For example, the
OSPF LSA may be used by routers to distribute IP to link-layer
address resolution information (see [ARA] for more information). The
exact use of Opaque LSAs is beyond the scope of this memo.
Opaque LSAs consist of a standard LSA header followed by a 32-bit
qaligned application-specific information field. Like any other LSA,
the Opaque LSA uses the link-state database distribution mechanism
for flooding this information throughout the topology. The link-
state type field of the Opaque LSA identifies the LSA's range of
topological distribution. This range is referred to as the Flooding
Scope.
It is envisioned that an implementation of the Opaque option provides
an application interface for 1) encapsulating application-specific
information in a specific Opaque type, 2) sending and receiving
application-specific information, and 3) if required, informing the
application of the change in validity of previously received
information when topological changes are detected.
2.1 Organization Of This Document
This document first defines the three types of Opaque LSAs followed
by a description of OSPF packet processing. The packet processing
sections include modifications to the flooding procedure and to the
neighbor state machine. Appendix A then gives the packet formats.
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