ISIS - Intermediate System to Intermediate System Intro

 

There is much information about ISIS history and present state, when I want to study something new I am looking for the small bullets that make subject easier to understand, once I got the basics I am taking each point and digging into it, here I would like to give the key elements for understanding ISIS and I would have to say  from the start that every point can be elaborated into at least an article if not a book (exaggerating) by itself:

• ISIS link state protocol (most important key to start with and easiest to remember)
• ISO protocol working based on CLNP (Connection Less Network Protocol)
• Support IP Routing
• Router (Node or IS) Addressing use 8 – 20 byte hex format address ( AREA + SYS-ID + NSEL )
• ISIS have 2 hierarchy called Level 1 and Level 2
• IS can be either Level 1 or Level 2 or Level 1 + 2
• Level 1 may only have neighbor relations within the same area and only with L1 or L1 + L2 IS
• Level 2 may establish neighbors relation with other areas, Level 2 also refer to as backbone (some time compared to OSPF area 0)
• In case level-1-2 is used and the neighbor IS is also level-1-2 and both systems are in the same area, the IS will form 2 neighbors 1 for Level 1 and another for Level 2.
• DIS – Designated IS very similar to DR function in OSPF to reduce the size of the database and allowing efficient scalability, one exist in every broadcast domain and level
• DIS is preemptive eligible meaning that is a IS will come up with stronger parameters it will take the DIS role
• Only 2 types of interfaces, broadcast and point to point
• Authentication can be done separately on Hello messages or link state updates
• Support extensions using different TLV’s (Type length value) like Graceful restart, TE…

 

What you see from below is that R3 is the the DIS, according to the pseudonode see at the bottom of the output generated by the DIS LSP with metric 0 to each of the routers on the LAN.
 
R1#show isis database detail
IS-IS Level-1 Link State Database:
LSPID                 LSP Seq Num  LSP Checksum  LSP Holdtime      ATT/P/OL
R1.00-00            * 0x00000006   0x1919        1114              0/0/0
  Area Address: 49.0001
  NLPID:        0xCC
  Hostname: R1
  IP Address:   10.123.0.1
  Metric: 10         IP 10.123.0.0 255.255.255.0
  Metric: 10         IS R3.01
R2.00-00              0x00000004   0x0CBF        1165              0/0/0
  Area Address: 49.0001
  NLPID:        0xCC
  Hostname: R2
  IP Address:   10.123.0.2
  Metric: 10         IP 10.123.0.0 255.255.255.0
  Metric: 10         IS R3.01
R3.00-00              0x00000004   0xFA68        960               0/0/0
  Area Address: 49.0001
  NLPID:        0xCC
  Hostname: R3
  IP Address:   10.123.0.3
  Metric: 10         IP 10.123.0.0 255.255.255.0
  Metric: 10         IS R3.01
R3.01-00              0x00000004   0x3195        1101              0/0/0
  Metric: 0          IS R3.00
  Metric: 0          IS R1.00
  Metric: 0          IS R2.00
IS-IS Level-2 Link State Database:
LSPID                 LSP Seq Num  LSP Checksum  LSP Holdtime      ATT/P/OL
R1.00-00            * 0x00000007   0x0E23        1004              0/0/0
  Area Address: 49.0001
  NLPID:        0xCC
  Hostname: R1
  IP Address:   10.123.0.1
  Metric: 10         IS R3.01
  Metric: 10         IP 10.123.0.0 255.255.255.0
R2.00-00              0x00000003   0x05C7        354               0/0/0
  Area Address: 49.0001
  NLPID:        0xCC
  Hostname: R2
  IP Address:   10.123.0.2
  Metric: 10         IS R3.01
  Metric: 10         IP 10.123.0.0 255.255.255.0
R3.00-00              0x00000004   0xF171        1120              0/0/0
  Area Address: 49.0001
  NLPID:        0xCC
  Hostname: R3
  IP Address:   10.123.0.3
  Metric: 10         IS R3.01
  Metric: 10         IP 10.123.0.0 255.255.255.0
R3.01-00              0x00000004   0xE26C        1180              0/0/0
  Metric: 0          IS R3.00
  Metric: 0          IS R1.00
  Metric: 0          IS R2.00
R1#
 

Today I got Certified IPv6 Engineer from IPv6 Forum, that is nice to add more certs to the collection :-)

As far as posts I was and still am very busy this last 2 months, started a new job as System Test at Compass-EOS, a startup that I heard of almost 2 years ago, and got lucky to join, We build the Next Generation of Core Routers, with some very cool hardware based patents and very strong software, seem very promising. IPv6 is one of the big focus of features as the Next Gen must have and the impact of that feature is growing by the day.

So I do hope to have some more time in the near future so I can share with you my technical knowledge.