Message types

The core functionality of OLSR defines tree message types, which will all be described in detail later. All core functionality of OLSR is based on processing and generation of these messages.

However, the OLSR protocol packet format allows for a wide variety of custom packets to be transmitted and flooded to the needs of the designer. OLSR will forward unknown packet types according to the default forwarding rule as explained later. The MPR optimization used in OLSR makes this possibility for message flooding a great asset to anyone in need of net-wide broadcasting of traffic in the ad-hoc network.