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mediumtroubleshooting~45 min

The OSPF neighbors won't come up

Two routers share a link but never become OSPF neighbors, so neither learns the other's routes. Find why the adjacency is stuck and fix it.

Scenario

R1 and R2 are cabled together and both run OSPF, but they never become neighbors. Neither router learns the other's loopback, so the two sites can't reach each other.

The link is up and the routers can ping across it. The OSPF config looks almost right, but the two ends don't agree on something the adjacency requires.

Topology

  • R1: eth0 10.0.12.1/24, loopback 1.1.1.1/32
  • R2: eth0 10.0.12.2/24, loopback 2.2.2.2/32
  • Both run a single OSPF process

Your job

Find why the adjacency is stuck and fix it, so R1 and R2 become full OSPF neighbors and each learns the other's loopback.

What "done" looks like

The adjacency is full on the shared link; R1 has 2.2.2.2/32 and R2 has 1.1.1.1/32 in its OSPF routes.

Teaches: OSPF neighbors only form when both ends agree on the area for the link: a mismatch leaves the adjacency stuck and silently blocks every route.

What gets checked

Your solution is verified against each of these:

  • The OSPF adjacency between R1 and R2 forms on the shared link
  • R1 learns R2's loopback (2.2.2.2/32) via OSPF
  • R2 learns R1's loopback (1.1.1.1/32) via OSPF

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