OSPF

OSPF Packet Types

Type Name Purpose
1 Hello Neighbor discovery, DR/BDR election, keepalive
2 DBD LSDB table of contents exchange
3 LSR Request specific missing LSAs
4 LSU Delivers actual LSAs
5 LSAck Confirms LSU receipt

LSA Types

Type Name Originated By Scope Blocked By
1 Router Every router Area
2 Network DR Area
3 Summary ABR Domain Totally Stubby, Totally NSSA
4 ASBR Summary ABR Domain Totally Stubby, Totally NSSA, NSSA, Stub
5 AS-External ASBR Domain All stub and NSSA areas
7 NSSA External ASBR (NSSA) NSSA only — (translated to Type 5 at ABR)

Area Types

Area Type 3 Type 4 Type 5 Type 7 Default Route
Standard Yes Yes Yes No No
Backbone Yes Yes Yes No No
Stub Yes No No No Yes (auto)
Totally Stubby No No No No Yes (auto)
NSSA Yes No No Yes No (configurable)
Totally NSSA No No No Yes Yes (auto)

Adjacency States

Down → Init → 2-Way → ExStart → Exchange → Loading → Full

IS-IS

PDU Types

PDU Type Name Sent By Network Type Purpose
IIH IS-IS Hello All Routers LAN or P2P Establishes and maintains adjacencies. P2P hellos cover both levels; LAN hellos are level-specific.
LSP Link State PDU All Routers All The IS-IS equivalent of an LSA. Carries routing info (prefixes, neighbors, metrics) in TLVs. Flooded per level.
CSNP Complete Sequence Number PDU DIS (on LAN) LAN or P2P Acts as a table of contents for the LSDB. Sent periodically on LANs (default 10s) to keep routers in sync.
PSNP Partial Sequence Number PDU Any Router LAN or P2P Requests a missing LSP or acknowledges receipt of an LSP (on P2P links only).

TLV Types

TLV Type Name Primary Usage
1 Area Addresses Adjacency formation
22 Extended IS Reachability Wide metrics for neighbors
129 Protocols Supported IPv4 / IPv6 capability
135 Extended IP Reachability Wide metrics for IPv4 prefixes
236 IPv6 Reachability IPv6 prefix advertisements
242 Router CAPABILITY Advertising SR/TE features

MPLS

Label Operations

Operation Who Does It Description
Push Ingress LSR Adds a label to the packet
Swap Transit LSR Replaces the top label
Pop Egress or penultimate hop Removes the top label

Reserved Labels

Label Name Meaning
0 IPv4 Explicit Null Signal QoS intent to egress
1 Router Alert Trap to local CPU
2 IPv6 Explicit Null Signal QoS intent for IPv6
3 Implicit Null Trigger PHP at penultimate hop

LDP vs RSVP

Feature LDP RSVP
Traffic Engineering No Yes
Explicit paths No Yes (ERO)
Bandwidth reservation No Yes
Path calculation IGP topology CSPF
LSPs created All prefixes (loopbacks by default) Manually configured
Soft-state No Yes (requires refresh)
Fast Reroute No Yes
Use case iBGP next-hop resolution TE, bandwidth guarantees

Key Junos Routing Tables

Table Contents
inet.0 Standard IP routes
inet.3 MPLS-signaled routes (BGP next-hop resolution)
mpls.0 Label forwarding entries (LFIB)

Monitoring Commands

Command Purpose
show mpls lsp Summary of all LSPs
show mpls lsp ingress extensive Detailed ingress LSP info including RRO
show rsvp session Active RSVP sessions
show rsvp interface RSVP interface state and bandwidth
show ldp neighbor LDP neighbor adjacencies
show ldp session LDP TCP sessions
show ldp database LDP label bindings
show ldp interface LDP-enabled interfaces
show route table inet.3 MPLS routes used for BGP resolution
show route table mpls.0 MPLS forwarding table
traceroute mpls ldp <prefix> Trace an LDP LSP path

Tunnels

IP-IP vs GRE

Feature IP-IP GRE
Overhead 20 bytes 24 bytes (minimum)
IP protocol number 4 47
IPv4 unicast Yes Yes
IPv6 No (use 6in4 proto 41) Yes
Multicast No Yes
MPLS No Yes
L2 frames No Yes
Keepalives No Yes
Junos interface ip-0/0/0 gr-0/0/0

MTU Impact

Tunnel Overhead Effective MTU (1500B link)
IP-IP 20B 1480
GRE 24B 1476
GRE + 1 MPLS label 28B 1472

Key Commands

Command Purpose
show interfaces gr-0/0/0 detail Tunnel state, counters
show interfaces gr-0/0/0 extensive Includes keepalive stats
ping <dest> size 1472 do-not-fragment MTU path test

High Availability

HA Technology Comparison

Feature GR GRES NSR ISSU
Protects against Control plane restart RE hardware failure RE hardware failure Software upgrade
Requires dual RE No Yes Yes Yes
Requires GRES No Yes Yes
Requires NSR No No Yes
Neighbor cooperation needed Yes No No No
Forwarding interrupted No No No No
Protocol reconvergence No (helpers hold routes) Yes No No
Transparent to neighbors No No Yes Yes

LACP Modes

Mode Behavior
Active Initiates LACP — sends PDUs unconditionally
Passive Responds only — at least one side must be active

BFD Detection Time

Detection time = negotiated-interval × multiplier
Negotiated interval = max(local min-interval, remote min-interval)

Key Commands

Command Purpose
show lacp status LAG member link states
show interfaces ae0 detail AE interface stats and member links
show system switchover GRES status
show task replication NSR sync status
show chassis routing-engine RE status and mastership
show bfd session BFD session states and timers

Protocol Independent Routing

Default Route Preferences

Protocol Preference
Direct / Local 0
Static 5
OSPF Internal 10
IS-IS L1 Internal 15
IS-IS L2 Internal 18
RIP 100
Aggregate / Generated 130
OSPF External 150
IS-IS L1 External 160
IS-IS L2 External 165
BGP 170

Static Route Next-Hop Options

Next-hop Behavior
IP address Forward to next-hop
reject Drop + ICMP unreachable
discard Silent drop
next-table Redirect to another routing table

Routing Instance Types

Type Purpose
forwarding FBF — separate forwarding table, no protocols
virtual-router Full isolated routing domain with protocols
vrf MPLS L3VPN
vpls MPLS L2VPN (multipoint)
l2vpn MPLS L2VPN (point-to-point)

Key Commands

Command Purpose
show route Show active routing table
show route hidden Show inactive / suppressed routes
show route martians table inet.0 Show martian prefix list
show route instance List all routing instances
show route <prefix> exact detail Show a specific route with contributing details
show route forwarding-table Show the forwarding table (LFIB)

Layer 2 / VLANs

802.1ad Tag Operations

Operation Where Description
Push Ingress PEB Add S-Tag to customer frame
Pop Egress PEB Remove S-Tag
Swap Inter-provider handoff Replace S-Tag value

STP Port States

State BPDUs Learn MACs Forward Data
Blocking Rx only No No
Listening Yes No No
Learning Yes Yes No
Forwarding Yes Yes Yes

RSTP Port Roles

Role Description
Root Best path to root
Designated Best port on segment toward root
Alternate Backup root port — instant failover
Backup Backup designated port (same bridge, same segment)

STP Timers

Timer Default Impact
Hello 2s BPDU send interval
Forward Delay 15s Time in Listening + Learning states
Max Age 20s BPDU expiry

Key Commands

Command Purpose
show bridge mac-table Layer 2 forwarding table
show bridge domain Bridge domain summary
show spanning-tree bridge detail STP topology and root info
show spanning-tree interface Per-port STP state and role

IPv6

Address Types

Prefix Type Routable
2000::/3 Global Unicast Yes
FC00::/7 Unique Local No (private)
FE80::/10 Link-Local No (link only)
FF00::/8 Multicast Scope-dependent
::1/128 Loopback No

NDP Message Types

Message ICMPv6 Purpose
RS 133 Host solicits router
RA 134 Router announces prefix/config
NS 135 MAC resolution / DAD
NA 136 Response to NS
Redirect 137 Better next-hop notification

Address Assignment Methods

Method RA M flag RA O flag Address Source
SLAAC 0 0 Self-generated
SLAAC + DHCPv6 0 1 Self-generated + DHCPv6 options
DHCPv6 stateful 1 DHCPv6 server

OSPFv2 vs OSPFv3

Feature OSPFv2 OSPFv3
Junos hierarchy protocols ospf protocols ospf3
Addressing in Router LSA Yes No (Type 8/9)
Router ID required Auto or manual Manual if no IPv4
Runs over IPv4 IPv6 link-local

OSPFv3 LSA Types for IPv6

Type Name Purpose
8 Link LSA Link-local address + prefixes on the link
9 Intra-Area Prefix LSA IPv6 prefix reachability within an area