Patent ID: 7466661

Claim:
A method of establishing adjacencies on a network, the method comprising, at a first node of the network, sending one or more hello packets on the network; receiving one or more hello packets from other nodes on the network on the basis of the sent hello packets; in response to receiving the one or more hello packets, sending a first link-state packet in Intermediate System-to-Intermediate System protocol; wherein the first link-state packet includes a field for an overload bit; wherein the overload bit in said field is not set; wherein the first link-state packet comprises no adjacency information; interrogating a link-state adjacency table and, when only one adjacency is listed in the link-state table, sending a second link-state packet in Intermediate System-to-Intermediate System protocol; wherein the second link-state packet comprises adjacency information and an overload bit that is set; and on convergence of a forward cache, sending a further link-state packet in Intermediate System-to-Intermediate System protocol; wherein the further link-state packet comprises adjacency information and an overload bit that is not set.