OSPF neighbour adjacencies, route advertisements, and DR/BDR elections appear consistently on the CCNA. These questions test whether you can read OSPF state from show commands and identify why two routers fail to reach FULL adjacency or why a route isn't being learned.
Start Scenario PracticeDrag and drop the steps to troubleshoot OSPF DR/BDR election on a multi-access segment into the correct order, from first to last.
Explanation: The correct order ensures that the OSPF DR/BDR election is properly influenced. First, verify the current DR/BDR roles using show ip ospf interface. Next, set the OSPF priority on the desired router to a higher value than the current DR. Then, clear the OSPF process on all routers to force a new election. After that, verify the new DR/BDR roles have been elected as expected. Finally, confirm that adjacencies are formed with the new DR/BDR.
An engineer configures mutual redistribution between OSPF and EIGRP on a router. Both protocols have routes for the same prefix. The engineer also applies an inbound ACL on the OSPF interface to deny certain routes from being learned via OSPF. After the ACL is applied, the router still has the prefix in the routing table, but it is learned via EIGRP instead of OSPF. What is the most likely explanation?
Explanation: The inbound ACL on the OSPF interface blocks the OSPF-learned route from being installed in the routing table. Since mutual redistribution is configured, the same prefix is also learned via EIGRP. EIGRP has a default administrative distance (AD) of 90 for internal routes, which is lower than OSPF's AD of 110. Therefore, the router selects the EIGRP route as the best path, and the prefix remains in the routing table but now points to the EIGRP next hop.
In a VRF-Lite setup, Router R1 and R2 are running OSPF in VRF-A. R1 has interface Gig0/0 in VRF-A with ip ospf network point-to-point. R2 has interface Gig0/1 in VRF-A with default network type (broadcast). The link between them is a direct Ethernet connection. OSPF neighbors are not forming. What is the root cause?
Explanation: OSPF network type mismatch prevents neighbor formation. On a broadcast network, OSPF expects DR/BDR elections, while point-to-point expects no election. The mismatch causes hello packets to be ignored because the OSPF interface parameters (like hello interval, dead interval, and network type) differ. Specifically, on a point-to-point link, the neighbor state machine expects a different packet format and does not process broadcast hellos.
An engineer redistributes OSPF routes into EIGRP. The OSPF routes have a metric of 20. After redistribution, the EIGRP topology table shows the routes but they are not installed in the routing table. The 'show ip eigrp topology' shows the route in active state. Which is the most likely explanation?
Explanation: When redistributing into EIGRP, a seed metric must be specified. If not, the routes are redistributed with an infinite metric (e.g., 4294967295) and are not installed. However, the question says the route is in active state, which indicates a query is pending. This is an edge case where the route is redistributed with a valid metric but the EIGRP process is stuck-in-active due to a unidirectional link or a neighbor not replying to queries.
A network engineer is troubleshooting an OSPFv2 adjacency issue between two routers connected via a VLAN trunk. R1 and R2 are in different VLANs but are connected through a Layer 2 switch. The engineer has configured 'ip ospf 1 area 0' on the subinterfaces. The adjacency forms but is stuck in INIT state. What is the most likely cause?
Explanation: The INIT state indicates that the router has received a hello packet from the neighbor but the neighbor has not seen its own router ID in the hello packet. This is often due to a mismatch in the OSPF network type or a unicast communication issue. In a VLAN trunk scenario, if the subinterfaces are not in the same VLAN, the routers may not be able to communicate at Layer 2. However, the most common cause is that the routers are using the same router ID, which causes the hello packet to be ignored because the router sees its own router ID in the neighbor list.
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Practice all OSPF Troubleshooting ScenariosOSPF neighbour adjacencies, route advertisements, and DR/BDR elections appear consistently on the CCNA. These questions test whether you can read OSPF state from show commands and identify why two routers fail to reach FULL adjacency or why a route isn't being learned. These appear throughout the 300-410 and require you to apply your knowledge, not just recall facts.
Cisco doesn't publish an exact breakdown, but scenario-based questions (especially exhibit and command-output formats) make up a significant portion of the 300-410. Practicing each scenario type ensures you're ready for any format.
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