Definition

flooding

In a network, flooding is the forwarding by a router of a packet from any node to every other node attached to the router except the node from which the packet arrived. Flooding is a way to distribute routing information updates quickly to every node in a large network. It is also sometimes used in multicast packets (from one source node to many specific nodes in a real or virtual network).

The Internet's Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) protocol, which updates router information in a network, uses flooding.

Related glossary terms: MBone (Multicast Internet), time-to-live (TTL), care-of address, TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol), EIGRP (Enhanced Interior Gateway Routing Protocol), passive FTP, route summarization (route aggregation), registered port numbers, IPX (Internetwork Packet Exchange), frame

This was last updated in June 2007

Posted by: Margaret Rouse

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