A method comprising: establishing a link-state routing adjacency between a first router and a second router over a layer-two communication medium in accordance with a flooding-based link-state routing protocol; receiving, with the first router, a link state message in accordance with the link state routing protocol, wherein the link state message contains link state data for a flooding domain of the link state routing protocol; storing the link state message to a database of the first router; flooding the link state message from the first router to at least a third router of the flooding domain; after receiving an acknowledgement from the third router, pruning at least a portion of the link state data from the link state message stored within the database without removing some or all of the header information from the entry for the link state message; the method further comprising: identifying an event requiring the first router to flood the link state message including the pruned link state data to the flooding domain; outputting a database synchronization message from the first router to direct the second router to re-flood the link state message to the first router; receiving a copy of the link state message from the second router, wherein the copy of the link state message contains the link state data; and flooding the copy of the link state message from the first router to the flooding domain. establishing a link-state routing adjacency between a first router and a second router over a layer-two communication medium in accordance with a flooding-based link-state routing protocol; receiving, with the first router, a link state message in accordance with the link state routing protocol, wherein the link state message contains link state data for a flooding domain of the link state routing protocol; storing the link state message to a database of the first router; flooding the link state message from the first router to at least a third router of the flooding domain; after receiving an acknowledgement from the third router, pruning at least a portion of the link state data from the link state message stored within the database without removing some or all of the header information from the entry for the link state message; the method further comprising: identifying an event requiring the first router to flood the link state message including the pruned link state data to the flooding domain; outputting a database synchronization message from the first router to direct the second router to re-flood the link state message to the first router; receiving a copy of the link state message from the second router, wherein the copy of the link state message contains the link state data; and flooding the copy of the link state message from the first router to the flooding domain. identifying an event requiring the first router to flood the link state message including the pruned link state data to the flooding domain; outputting a database synchronization message from the first router to direct the second router to re-flood the link state message to the first router; receiving a copy of the link state message from the second router, wherein the copy of the link state message contains the link state data; and flooding the copy of the link state message from the first router to the flooding domain.