ospf...

goals

neighbor discovery

topology database exchange
   each router id
   each router interface, ip address, subnet and mask
   the routers reachable by each interface
  
route computation
   independent analysis of the topology for best routes based on the router's  
   own perspective


why it's called open shortest path first...
   the spf algorithm analyzes the given data to come up with a best route   
   (shortest path) to each reachable subnet