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OSPF LSA Types

LSA Type to Route Type

NumberRouteRFC NamePurposeDescription
1ORouter-LSAinterfaces on a routerFlooded, Single Area, never crosses area boundary
2ONetwork-LSArouters on a networkFlooded, Single area, only sent by the DR
3O IASummary-LSAnetworks in other areasABRs send these, to describe, routes to networks
4E1, E2Summary-LSAnext-hop to a ASBRABRs send these, to provide reachability for ASBRs
5E1, E2AS-external-LSAroutes to E1 or E2 networksASBRs send these, to describe, routes to an AS
7N1, N2NSSA Summariesroutes to N1 or N2 networksNSSA ASBRs send these, to describe, routes to an AS

Format

The Router ID is what is used to build the SPT. It’s very important it’s both

  • Correct
  • Easy to identify the router
  +-------------------------+ Three fields to differentiate LSAs
  |         LS Age          |     - LS Type
  +-------------------------+     - Link State ID
  |  Options      LS Type   |     - Advertising Router
  +-------------------------+
  |     Link State ID       |  < -- Unique number from the Advertising Router for Each LSA
  +-------------------------+
  |   Advertising Router    |  < -- Router ID
  +-------------------------+
  |    LS Sequence Number   |  < -- How old the LSA is. LSAs with higher numbers are updates to older LSAs
  +-------------------------+
  |      LS Checksum        |
  +-------------------------+
  |        Length           |
  +-------------------------+
Last Modified • Tuesday, June 9, 2026. 5:49 am UTC+00:00 • Commit: 0ad72df