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The Daily Insight

What is the passive-interface in OSPF?

Author

Caleb Butler

Updated on April 03, 2026

Passive Interface is used in routing protocols to disable sending updates out from a specific interface – This holds true for OSPF, EIGRP and RIP . In OSPF, Passive interface is somewhat like EIGRP where Hello packets are suppressed in addition to neighbor relationship.

Why would you want to set an OSPF interface to passive?

Setting an interface as passive disables the sending of routing updates on that interface, hence adjacencies will not be formed in OSPF. However, the particular subnet will continue to be advertised to other interfaces.

What is a Cisco passive-interface?

The passive-interface command tells an interface to listen to RIP or IGRP routes but not to advertise them. This configuration tells Router 1 and Router 2 not to send any EIGRP updates over the Ethernet interface and not to send RIP updates over the serial links.

What is passive-interface used for?

–> Passive Interface is a feature used by routing protocol to stop sending updates on the particular interface. –> Basically this command is applied on the router interface which is connected to LAN or Loopback. –> Routing updates are only understood by the routers.

What is the purpose of passive-interface command?

Passive-interface command is used in all routing protocols to disable sending updates out from a specific interface. However the command behavior varies from one protocol to another.

What is a passive-interface and how do you you set an interface to be passive?

How do you find the passive-interface?

To configure an interface as a passive interface in EIGRP, you’ll use the passive-interface interface#/# command in EIGRP router configuration mode. To verify rather or not an interface is in passive-mode you can use the show ip protocols command in privileged mode.

What is the purpose of passive-interface?

The passive-interface command can be used to prevent the neighbor adjacencies. There are two primary reasons for enabling the passive-interface command: To suppress unnecessary update traffic, such as when an interface is a LAN interface, with no other routers connected.

What does no passive-interface mean in OSPF?

So,”no passive-interface vlan2″ means that the OSPF peering is over vlan 2 with the neighboring router. more info: In Open Shortest Path First (OSPF), hello packets are not sent on an interface that is specified as passive.

What is a passive OSPF interface?

OSPF Passive Interface When you use the network command in OSPF, two things will happen: All interfaces that have a network that falls within the range of the network command will be advertised in OSPF. OSPF hello packets are sent on these interfaces.

How does OSPF send an LSA from the router?

The “network” statement under OSPF tells the router which interfaces to run OSPF on. When OSPF then runs on that interface it takes the IP subnet configured on that interface and advertises it out. Technically with OSPF it sends an LSA but you get the idea.

Do all L3 interfaces on my Network have to be passive?

Also, the rule does not apply if all L3 interfaces are designed to participate in the OSPF domain. To verify that interfaces on your network have been set to passive, use the command show ip ospf interface and look for the report indicating “No Hellos (Passive interface)”.

What does the ‘no passive-interface’ command do?

This command changes the configuration logic to a default passive; therefore, interfaces where router adjacencies are expected need to be configured with the ‘no passive-interface’ command. Setting an interface as passive disables the sending of routing updates on that interface, hence adjacencies will not be formed in OSPF.