10.1. Neighbor states

The state of a neighbor (really, the state of a conversation being held with a neighboring router) is documented in the following sections. The states are listed in order of progressing functionality. For example, the inoperative state is listed first, followed by a list of intermediate states before the final, fully functional state is achieved. The specification makes use of this ordering by sometimes making references such as "those neighbors/adjacencies in state greater than X". Figures 12 and 13 show the graph of neighbor state changes. The arcs of the graphs are labelled with the event causing the state change. The neighbor events are documented in Section 10.2.

The graph in Figure 12 shows the state changes effected by the Hello Protocol. The Hello Protocol is responsible for neighbor acquisition and maintenance, and for ensuring two way communication between neighbors.

                                   +----+
                                   |Down|
                                   +----+
                                     |                               | Start
                                     |        +-------+
                             Hello   |   +---->|Attempt|
                            Received |         +-------+
                                     |             |
                             +----+<-+             |HelloReceived
                             |Init|<---------------+
                             +----+<--------+
                                |           |
                                |2-Way      |1-Way
                                |Received   |Received
                                |           |
              +-------+         |        +-----+
              |ExStart|<--------+------->|2-Way|
              +-------+                  +-----+

              Figure 12: Neighbor state changes (Hello Protocol)

                  In addition to the state transitions pictured,
                  Event KillNbr always forces Down State,
                  Event InactivityTimer always forces Down State,
                  Event LLDown always forces Down State

The graph in Figure 13 shows the forming of an adjacency. Not every two neighboring routers become adjacent (see Section 10.4). The adjacency starts to form when the neighbor is in state ExStart. After the two routers discover their master/slave status, the state transitions to Exchange. At this point the neighbor starts to be used in the flooding procedure, and the two neighboring routers begin synchronizing their databases. When this synchronization is finished, the neighbor is in state Full and we say that the two routers are fully adjacent. At this point the adjacency is listed in link state advertisements.

For a more detailed description of neighbor state changes, together with the additional actions involved in each change, see Section 10.3.

                                  +-------+
                                  |ExStart|
                                  +-------+
                                    |
                     NegotiationDone|
                                    +->+--------+
                                       |Exchange|
                                    +--+--------+
                                    |
                            Exchange|
                              Done  |
                    +----+          |      +-------+
                    |Full|<---------+----->|Loading|
                    +----+<-+              +-------+
                            |  LoadingDone     |
                            +------------------+

            Figure 13: Neighbor state changes (Database Exchange)

                In addition to the state transitions pictured,
                Event SeqNumberMismatch forces ExStart state,
                Event BadLSReq forces ExStart state,
                Event 1-Way forces Init state,
                Event KillNbr always forces Down State,
                Event InactivityTimer always forces Down State,
                Event LLDown always forces Down State,
                Event AdjOK? leads to adjacency forming/breaking

Down

This is the initial state of a neighbor conversation. It indicates that there has been no recent information received from the neighbor. On non-broadcast networks, Hello packets may still be sent to "Down" neighbors, although at a reduced frequency (see Section 9.5.1).

Attempt

This state is only valid for neighbors attached to non- broadcast networks. It indicates that no recent information has been received from the neighbor, but that a more concerted effort should be made to contact the neighbor. This is done by sending the neighbor Hello packets at intervals of HelloInterval (see Section 9.5.1).

Init

In this state, an Hello packet has recently been seen from the neighbor. However, bidirectional communication has not yet been established with the neighbor (i.e., the router itself did not appear in the neighbor's Hello packet). All neighbors in this state (or higher) are listed in the Hello packets sent from the associated interface.

2-Way

In this state, communication between the two routers is bidirectional. This has been assured by the operation of the Hello Protocol. This is the most advanced state short of beginning adjacency establishment. The (Backup) Designated Router is selected from the set of neighbors in state 2-Way or greater.

ExStart

This is the first step in creating an adjacency between the two neighboring routers. The goal of this step is to decide which router is the master, and to decide upon the initial DD sequence number. Neighbor conversations in this state or greater are called adjacencies.

Exchange

In this state the router is describing its entire link state database by sending Database Description packets to the neighbor. Each Database Description Packet has a DD sequence number, and is explicitly acknowledged. Only one Database Description Packet is allowed outstanding at any one time. In this state, Link State Request Packets may also be sent asking for the neighbor's more recent advertisements. All adjacencies in Exchange state or greater are used by the flooding procedure. In fact, these adjacencies are fully capable of transmitting and receiving all types of OSPF routing protocol packets.

Loading

In this state, Link State Request packets are sent to the neighbor asking for the more recent advertisements that have been discovered (but not yet received) in the Exchange state.

Full

In this state, the neighboring routers are fully adjacent. These adjacencies will now appear in router links and network links advertisements.