A brief flashback of IS-IS – Part II

Hello PDU’s of IS-IS: IS-IS has three types of Hello PDUs: i. ESH (ES Hello – sent by ES to an IS) ii. ISH (IS Hello – sent by IS to an ES) iii. IIH (IS-IS Hello – sent between two ISs)     Routing Levels Level0: Used to locate end systems Level1: Routing within an area Level2: Backbone between areas Level3: Inter-AS routing     NSAP Addressing IS-IS uses the NSAP address for communication. Each router in IS-IS is identified with an ID called NET (Network Entity Title) same as Router ID which is NSAP address. Below is the NSAP addressing format: Read More …

Adjacencies in IS-IS

IS-IS Protocol has two types of nodes (since the roots of IS-IS are based on ISO Connectionless Network Protocol) i.e. IS & ES. ES (End System): A workstation or network host (limited routing capability) IS (Intermediate Systems): Network devices such as routers with full packet-forwarding capabilities. The word intermediate refers to the capabilities of routers as intermediate forwarding or relay devices. These are also referred to as gateway in some older networking literature of ISO   *If these terms are new to you, I would recommend to review the IS-IS terminology & basics at ATech before proceeding further at: A brief flashback of IS-IS – Part I Read More …

OSPF Virtual Links

Virtual Link is a non-Physical connectivity or link. As we know OPSF must be connected with Backbone Area0 but sometime it becomes difficult due to some reasons. So there we required Virtual Links for logical connection to Backbone. Also known as logical link which uses in least cost path connectivity between routers or ABR or backbone/Non-backbone. A virtual link does not have ABR physical Connectivity to Backbone till to configure virtual link between non-backbone area and Backbone. In between two routers, a virtual link can be configured, that have an interface to a single common Transit/Non-backbone area but it can’t Read More …

Jumbo, MTU and MFL

 is short for maximum transmit unit, which represents the length of an L3 packet or IP data packet. is short for Maximum Received Unit, which represents the maximum frame which can be received on the link.  is short for maximum frame length, which represents the length of an L2 packet or Ethernet MAC frame. To better explain, let’s look at the structure of an Ethernet frame:   From the diagram, we can see that: – The IP data packet ranges from 46 bytes to 1500 bytes. So the MTU is 1500 bytes. – The Ethernet MAC frame ranges from 64 Read More …

OSPF Authentication

What is Authentication: Authentication is the mechanism of recognizing the identity of a user. Associating an incoming request with a set of identifying credentials is called Authentication.    The credentials provided are compared to those in the database of the authorized user’s information register on a local operating system or somewhere remote. If the user is on white-list then he/she is allowed the access, otherwise the access is rejected simply.     Types of OSPF Authentication OSPF supports two types of authentication i.e. Plain Text authentication and Message Digest 5 (MD5) authentication. As a message/packet required authentication for both destinations.   Read More …