Why ospfd multiple instances don’t support vrf

[xiaojing-snow-sun]

I don't understand that when ospfd is running as a single instance, it can work with vrf. But in multiple instances mode, vrf is not supported.

[donaldsharp]

At the time of implementation of ospf instances there were no vrf's available and no-one has gone back to make changes to allow instances to work with vrfs. This would require someone to do this and we have had no call from a customer to do such a thing

[xiaojing-snow-sun]

At the time of implementation of ospf instances there were no vrf's available and no-one has gone back to make changes to allow instances to work with vrfs. This would require someone to do this and we have had no call from a customer to do such a thing

If we just lift the cli restrictions, will it（multi-instances with vrfs） work properly?

[aceelindem]

At the time of implementation of ospf instances there were no vrf's available and no-one has gone back to make changes to allow instances to work with vrfs. This would require someone to do this and we have had no call from a customer to do such a thing

If we just lift the cli restrictions, will it（multi-instances with vrfs） work properly?

No, there are assumptions in the ospfd code where the logic assumes the default VRF is being used if ospfd is in instance mode. I'm fixing a problem with multiple instances in default origination and mutual redistribution but there are probably more - #17436

Note that topotests for multiple instances were only recently made to work - #17331

Enabling this for VRFs is definitely possible but would take some amount of work and testing. Right now, our customers (LabN) don't have this as I requirement so I won't be able to spend time on it.