IS-IS PDUs

IS-IS encapsulates data into a data-link protocol data unit (PDU). There are four different PDU types and each can be Level 1 or Level 2:

• LSP --An LSP is a PDU that is sent between two IS-IS neighbors. The LSP contains information about neighbors and path costs, including adjacencies to neighbors, connected IP prefixes, Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) end systems, and area addresses. LSPs are used by the receiving routers to maintain their routing tables.
• IIH --An IS-IS Hello PDU is used to establish and maintain adjacencies. By default, an Intermediate-to-Intermediate Hello (IIH) is padded to the maximum transmission unit (MTU) size.
• PSNP --A partial sequence number PDU (PSNP) contains summaries of only a subset of known LSPs. A PSNP is used to acknowledge and request link-state information by soliciting newer versions of a complete LSP, or acknowledging receipt of an updated LSP, respectively.
• CSNP --A complete sequence number PDU (CSNP) contains summaries of all LSPs known by the issuing router.

LSP-Related Intervals and Exponential Backoff Timers

The following timers and intervals relate to LSPs that are generated by the IS-IS router.

• LSP refresh interval --Specifies the number of seconds (0 to 65535) the router will wait before refreshing (re-creating and reflooding) its own LSP.
• Maximum LSP lifetime --Specifies the value of the lifetime in the LSP header. Lifetime is used by all IS-IS routers in order to age out and purge old LSPs.

The following exponential backoff timers have been implemented in IS-IS to control the events of SPF calculation, Partial Route Calculations (PRC) computation, and LSP generation:

• PRC interval --Specifies the number of seconds between two consecutive PRCs. When changes that do not affect the topology, such as advertised external prefixes, are detected, the PRC is triggered.
• LSP generation interval --Specifies the number of seconds between creating new versions of a given LSP on a per-node basis.
• SPF interval --Specifies the number of seconds between two consecutive SPF calculations.

The purpose of these exponential backoff timers is to react quickly to the first events but, under constant churn, to slow down in order to prevent the CPU of the router from collapsing. The exponential backoff algorithm operates as follows:

1. An initial event triggers the SPF, PRC, or LSP generation.
2. The initial wait time that is configured for the interval determines the time between the initial event and the start of the SPF, PRC, or LSP generation.
3. The incremental wait time that is configured for the interval determines the amount of time that the router will wait in between the consecutive SPF execution, PRC execution, or LSP generation. This incremental value will increase exponentially between the incremental events until the maximum value is reached. For example, the incremental value will be (1x incremental value) between the first and second events, (2 x incremental value) between the second and third event, (4 x incremental value) between the third and fourth event, (8 x incremental value) between the fourth and fifth event, and so on, until the configured maximum interval--amount of time in seconds that the router will wait in between consecutive SPF execution, PRC execution, or LSP generation--has been reached.
4. If no new triggers have been received after two times the configured maximum wait-interval value, the network stabilizes, returning to a steady state and fast behavior. The initial wait-time interval will be reinstated.

See the to configure the recommended settings for the SPF, PRC and LSP generation timers.

IS-IS Hello PDU Timers

The different IS-IS Hello timers need to be adapted according to the adjacency convergence time required for each subnet. Where a rapid adjacency loss has been detected, the timers need to be reduced. These timers should be modified if necessary after deployment and after an accurate monitoring of the network stability and convergence has occurred.

• Hello interval --Number of seconds during two consecutive transmissions of IIH PDUs.
• Hello interval minimum --When the hello interval is configured, the hold time is set to one second. The significance of the hello multiplier changes if Fast Hellos are used; the hello multiplier becomes the number of hellos that will be sent per second.
• Hello multiplier --An integer from 1 to 300 that is used to calculate the hold time. The hold time is the number of seconds during which the router will wait for an IIH before declaring that its neighbor is lost. The router multiplies the hello interval by the hello multiplier to determine the hold time. To avoid unnecessary adjacency resets, increase the default value of 3 on interfaces where frequent losses of IIH PDUs are detected.
• IS-IS retransmit interval --Specifies the number of seconds between the resending of IS-IS link-state PDU transmissions for point-to-point links.

CSNP Interval

TheCSNP interval specifies the number of seconds between the two consecutive transmissions of CSNP PDUs. CSNP are generated by the designated router (DIS) in order for all routers connected to a broadcast media to synchronize their databases and by adjacent routers on a point-to-point network while setting up an adjacency. CSNPs are used to keep all router databases up to date. The lower the value of the CSNP interval, the faster the speed of the sychronization. However, a CSNP interval that is too low will trigger intensive PSNP PDU transmissions. All routers that are not synchronized with the DIS (Designated Intermediate System) and that, therefore, need additional LSPs in their database send PSNPs.

SPF, PRC, and LSP generation exponential backoff timers need to be tuned according to the level of stability of the network and the stability required in the routing domain. For instance, setting low values will trigger a fast convergence with a potential risk of high resource utilization if flapping routes cause network churn. Setting high values will keep the network stable with slower convergence.

It is recommended to leave the default value for the LSP generation interval at 5 seconds and also to increase the maximum lifetime for LSPs to 65,535 seconds, in order to conserve CPU usage for generation and refreshing of LSPs.

If you are using a routing algorithm based on SPF and if you use values for the initial required delay that are fewer than 40 milliseconds, SPF may start before the LSP that triggered SPF is flooded to neighbors. The router should always flood, at least, the LSP that triggered SPF before the router runs the SPF computation. LSP flooding is required in order to guarantee that the network update in the LSP is propagated around the network as quickly as possible.

The following example configures the router to reduce LSP flooding and the consequent resource consumption by tuning the LSP values to their maximums. Adjusting the IS-IS timers will decrease the time required for the router to send routing updates.

Router> enable
Router# configure terminal
Router(config)# router isis
Router(config-router)# isis tag 200
Router(config-router)# lsp-gen-interval 5
Router(config-router)# max-lsp-lifetime 65535
Router(config-router)# lsp-refresh-interval 65000

In the following example, the fast-flood command is entered to configure the router to flood the first seven LSPs that invoke SPF, before the SPF computation is started. When the show running-config command is entered, the output confirms that fast-flooding has been enabled on the router.

Router> enable
Router# configure terminal
Router(config)# router isis first
Router(config-router)# fast-flood 7
Router(config-router)# end
Router# show running-config | include fast-flood

fast-flood 7