Open Shortest Path First is a routing algorithm that is mainly based on Interior Gateway Protocol IGP and is destined for the IP packets on the network. It mainly works on the information of link state that is being send by the routers in the network.

This topology is being represented as a routing table to the Internet in which the data is being route based on their IP addresses that is mentioned in the IP packets.

OSPF supports Internet Protocol Version 4 (IPv4) and Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6) networks and features variable-length subnet masking (VLSM) and Classless Inter-Domain Routing (CIDR) addressing models.

OSPF detects changes in the topology, such as link failures, and converges on a new loop-free routing structure within seconds. It computes the shortest path tree for each route using a method based on Dijkstra's algorithm, a shortest path first algorithm.

An OSPF network may be structured, or subdivided, into routing areas to simplify administration and optimize traffic and resource utilization.

OSPF uses multicast addressing for route flooding on a broadcast domain. For non-broadcast networks, special provisions for configuration facilitate neighbor discovery