User's Manual
42-33
Catalyst 3750-X and 3560-X Switch Software Configuration Guide
OL-21521-01
Chapter 42 Configuring IP Unicast Routing
Configuring OSPF
  • Administrative distance is a rating of the trustworthiness of a routing information source, an integer 
between 0 and 255, with a higher value meaning a lower trust rating. An administrative distance of 
255 means the routing information source cannot be trusted at all and should be ignored. OSPF uses 
three different administrative distances: routes within an area (interarea), routes to another area 
(interarea), and routes from another routing domain learned through redistribution (external). You 
can change any of the distance values.
  • Passive interfaces: Because interfaces between two devices on an Ethernet represent only one 
network segment, to prevent OSPF from sending hello packets for the sending interface, you must 
configure the sending device to be a passive interface. Both devices can identify each other through 
the hello packet for the receiving interface.
  • Route calculation timers: You can configure the delay time between when OSPF receives a topology 
change and when it starts the shortest path first (SPF) calculation and the hold time between two 
SPF calculations.
  • Log neighbor changes: You can configure the router to send a syslog message when an OSPF 
neighbor state changes, providing a high-level view of changes in the router.
Beginning in privileged EXEC mode, follow these steps to
 configure these OSPF parameters:
Command Purpose
Step 1
configure terminal Enter global configuration mode.
Step 2
router ospf process-id Enable OSPF routing, and enter router configuration mode. 
Step 3
summary-address address mask (Optional) Specify an address and IP subnet mask for redistributed 
routes so that only one summary route is advertised.
Step 4
area area-id virtual-link router-id 
[hello-interval seconds] 
[retransmit-interval seconds] [trans] 
[[authentication-key key] | 
message-digest-key keyid md5 key]]
(Optional) Establish a virtual link and set its parameters. See the 
“Configuring OSPF Interfaces” section on page 42-30 for parameter 
definitions and Table 42-5 on page 42-27 for virtual link defaults.
Step 5
default-information originate [always] 
[metric metric-value] [metric-type 
type-value] [route-map map-name] 
(Optional) Force the ASBR to generate a default route into the OSPF 
routing domain. Parameters are all optional. 
Step 6
ip ospf name-lookup (Optional) Configure DNS name lookup. The default is disabled.
Step 7
ip auto-cost reference-bandwidth ref-bw (Optional) Specify an address range for which a single route will be 
advertised. Use this command only with area border routers.
Step 8
distance ospf {[inter-area dist1] [inter-area 
dist2] [external dist3]}
(Optional) Change the OSPF distance values. The default distance 
for each type of route is 110. The range is 1 to 255.
Step 9
passive-interface type number (Optional) Suppress the sending of hello packets through the 
specified interface.
Step 10
timers throttle spf spf-delay spf-holdtime 
spf-wait
(Optional) Configure route calculation timers. 
  • spf-delay—Delay between receiving a change to SPF 
calculation. The range is from 1 to 600000. miliseconds.
  • spf-holdtime—Delay between first and second SPF calculation. 
The range is form 1 to 600000 in milliseconds.
  • spf-wait—Maximum wait time in milliseconds for SPF 
calculations. The range is from 1 to 600000 in milliseconds.
Step 11
ospf log-adj-changes (Optional) Send syslog message when a neighbor state changes.










