Link-state routing protocol: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 05:09, 24 December 2004

Revision as of 01:23, 24 January 2005

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A '''Link-state routing protocol''' is one the two main classes of [[routing protocol]]s used in [[packet switching|packet-switched network]]s for [[computer communication]]s.

The link-state protocol is performed by every ''switching node'' in the network (i.e. nodes which are prepared to forward packets; in the [[Internet]], these are called [[router]]s). The basic concept of link-state routing is that every node receives a ''map'' of the conectivityconnectivity of the network, in the form of a [[graph theory|graph]] showing which nodes are connected to which other nodes.

Each node then independently calculates the best ''next hop'' from it for every possible destination in the network. (It does this using only its local copy of the map, and without communicating in any other way with any other node,.) The collection of best next hops forms the [[routing table]] for the node.

This contrasts with [[distance-vector routing protocol]]s, which work by having each node share its '''routing table''' with its neighbors, In a link-state protocol, the only information passed between the nodes is information used to construct the connectivity maps.