Link-State Acknowledgment Packet
Link-State Acknowledgment packets are OSPF packet type 5.To make the folding of link-state advertisements reliable, flooded advertisements are explicitly
acknowledged.This acknowledgment is accomplished through the sending and receiving of Link-State Acknowledgment packets. Multiple link-state advertisements
can be acknowledged in a single Link-State Acknowledgment packet. Depending on the state of the sending interface and the source of the advertisements being
acknowledged, a Link-State Acknowledgment packet is sent either to the multicast address AllSPFRouters, to the multicast address AllDRouters, or as a unicast
packet.
The format of this packet is similar to that of the Data Description packet.The body of both packets is simply a list of link-state advertisement headers.
The format of the Link-State Acknowledgment packet is shown below:
Figure 6- 105. Link State Acknowledge Packet
Each acknowledged link-state advertisement is described by its link-state advertisement header. It contains all the information required to uniquely identify both
the advertisement and the advertisement’s current instance.
Link-State Advertisement Formats
There are five distinct types of link-state advertisements. Each link-state advertisement begins with a standard 20-byte link-state advertisement header.
Succeeding sections then diagram the separate link-state advertisement types.
Each link-state advertisement describes a piece of the OSPF routing domain. Every router originates a router links advertisement. In addition, whenever the
router is elected as the Designated Router, it originates a network links advertisement. Other types of link-state advertisements may also be originated.The
flooding algorithm is reliable, ensuring that all routers have the same collection of link-state advertisements.The collection of advertisements is called the link-
state (or topological) database.
From the link-state database, each router constructs a shortest path tree with itself as root.This yields a routing table.
There are four types of link state advertisements, each using a common link state header.These are:
•
Router Links Advertisements
•
Network Links Advertisements
•
Summary Link Advertisements
•
Autonomous System Link Advertisements
112
Allied Telesyn AT-9724TS High-Density Layer 3 Stackable Gigabit Ethernet Switch
Octets
OSPF Link-State Acknowledgement Packet
Router ID
Area ID
Checksum
Authentication Type
Authentication
Authentication
Link-State Advertisement Header
Version No.
5
Packet Length
0
1
2
3
4