Short for Open Shortest Path First, OSPF is an IP link-state networking routing protocol that helps determine the best or shortest path to the next hop in a network. OSPF was first proposed in 1989 in RFC 1131, OSPF version 2 was later proposed in RFC 2178, and finally OSPF version 3 or OSPFv3 (used with IPv6) was proposed in RFC 2740.
