OSPF and the wildest card (255.255.255.255)

[mkoniuszko]

Hi,

I'm just playing with OSPF in sim environment and was wondering about usfulness of 255.255.255.255 wildcard with network command.

I've checked it and it seems to work fine. In config I've got now entry network 0.0.0.0 255.255.255.255 and it advertise all interfaces as expected.

My question is , in real world, can you actually see this kind of configuration ? Is it useful ? Or maybe it's some kind of serious security violation ?

Need a word from an expert.

Regards,

Mariusz

[Reza Sharifi]

Hi Mariusz,

In real world you advertise what needs to be advertise and not every thing.

HTH

Reza

[Jon Marshall]

Mariusz

Personally i don't think it's a good idea to use it because it automatically covers every interface address. That's fine if when you apply it you want the router to start OSPF on all interfaces and then advertise those networks but if you then add an interface it will then automatically start OPSF on that interface and start advertising as well.

I would rather have to explicitly add a new network statement for any additional interfaces but that could just be me to be honest

Jon