Frame relay: The straightforward approach. In this Daily Drill Down, I’ll discuss a straightforward approach to configuring frame relay using a Cisco frame relay switch connecting three Cisco routers to a corporate office. To really understand frame relay, you might want to look into what makes up frame relay, as well as some of its history. A good source for that information is the Tech. Pro. Guild piece “Getting fundamental with frame relay.” This Daily Drill Down discusses the technical aspects of frame relay and how a DLCI, LMI type, and frame relay encapsulation are used in a frame relay network.
Configuring frame relay: The basics. Frame relay is fairly simple to configure. Remember that by default, Cisco uses High- level Data Link Control (HDLC) as a serial link encapsulation. This is a proprietary encapsulation and can only be used if you’re connecting two Cisco routers with a point- to- point link.
Frame relay allows you to connect multiple vendors’ routers because of the frame relay standards created. If you had two offices that were connected with a dedicated line, the configuration of the physical network would look like the one shown in Figure A. The configuration of each router is very simple and looks something like this: Corporate: Router> enable. Router#config t. Router(config)#hostname Corp. Corp(config)#interface serial 0. Corp(config- if)#ip address 1. Corp(config- if)#no shutdown.
Serial interface s1/0. Hi all, I have question about frame Relay. Serial int of Router is config with IP address. 2650Router#sh run int se0/0 Building configuration. Current configuration : 152 bytes!
Corp(config- if)#exit. Corp(config)#exit.
Corp#Branch: Router> enable. Router#config t. Router(config)#hostname Branch. Branch(config)#interface serial 0. Branch(config- if)#ip address 1. Branch(config- if)#no shutdown. Branch(config- if)#exit. Branch(config)#exit.
Branch#It basically doesn’t get any easier than in this example. The two routers can now communicate point to point. If a company had large streams of data that constantly needed to be sent, this would be a good solution. For the sake of our example, let’s say that this company only sends a few text documents and e- mail. Frame relay would be a good solution for this company because it can provide the same connection speed but at about half the price.
This command also enables FRSW to function as a switch connected to a router. And the clock rate is necessary on the. In this article you will learn how to configure a Frame-Relay Point-to-Point network on Cisco IOS routers. Cisco IOS Wide-Area Networking Configuration Guide, Release 12.2. The Cisco Frame Relay MIB adds extensions. The following example configures a serial interface for Frame Relay encapsulation and sets up multiple IPX.
Frame Relay is a standardized wide area network technology that specifies the physical. Frame-relay frame structure essentially mirrors. These Frame Relay extensions are referred to as the local management interface. Interface serial 0 no ip address encapsulation frame-relay frame-relay intf-type dce frame-relay route 102 interface serial 1 201! LMI:- Frame Relay supports three LMI options; ANSI, Cisco and Q933a. Whatever option we choose here, we have to use the same option at DTE ( serial 0/0/0 interface of router). DLCI:- DTE device will identify this VC from DLCI. Posted on July 31, 2012 by p0sitivelife. By using Frame Relay we only need one serial interface at the HeadQuarter to connect to all branches. This is also true when we expand to 10 or 50.
The physical network would now look like the one shown in Figure B. The configuration is only slightly different than the point- to- point configuration: Corporate: Router> enable.
Router#config t. Router(config)#hostname Corp. Corp(config)#interface serial 0. Corp(config- if)#encapsulation frame- relay. Corp(config- if)#ip address 1.
Corp(config- if)#frame- relay interface- dlci 1. Corp(config- if)#frame- relay lmi- type cisco. Corp(config- if)#no shutdown. Corp(config- if)#exit. Corp(config)#exit.
Corp#Branch: Router> enable. Router#config t. Router(config)#hostname Branch. Branch(config)#interface serial 0. Branch(config- if)#encapsulation frame- relay. Branch(config- if)#ip address 1.
Branch(config- if)#frame- relay interface- dlci 1. Branch(config- if)#frame- relay lmi- type cisco. Branch(config- if)#no shutdown. Branch(config- if)#exit. Branch(config)#exit. Branch#The encapsulation was changed to frame relay from the default of HDLC and since no encapsulation method was specifically configured, the default is Cisco, which means that a Cisco router is on both sides of the link. If you have a Cisco router on one side of the link and a Nortel or Juniper router on the other side of the link, for example, then you would use this command: Branch(config- if)#encapsulation frame- relay ietf.
Also, in the configuration example above, the DLCI number for each permanent virtual circuit (PVC) was assigned to each interface (this number is provided to you by the ISP) as well as the LMI type. The LMI type of Cisco was used because the frame relay switch is a Cisco frame relay switch. Usually, the Ansi LMI type is used, which means the frame relay switch is anything other than a Cisco.) If you have Cisco routers and a Cisco frame relay switch, you don’t even need to set the LMI type; however, I did it here to show you how to set the LMI type in a configuration. Cisco routers also can auto- detect the LMI type, so if you don’t know what type of switch you’re connecting to, you can let the routers auto- sense the LMI type. The typical frame relay corporate network. This is where frame relay really shines. If you have multiple locations to connect and you don’t need the dedicated lines to each location, then frame relay is the savior of the WAN world.
The network would be physically connected, as shown in Figure C. This setup provides a huge cost savings because you only pay for the toll charges to connect from each location to the nearest provider’s point- of- presence (POP). You then purchase PVCs, which are identified by a Data Link Connection Identifier (DLCI), for each connection you need. For example, the corporate office would purchase three PVCs, one for each connection to a remote branch. The provider would then give the corporate IS department three DLCI numbers to configure under the serial interface of the router, with each DLCI number identifying a connection to a certain location.
The brunt of the work is then done by the provider, which maps each and every DLCI to each of the remote locations. Configuring the corporate router.
The recommended configuration for this network is subinterfaces. Figure D shows how the physical connection would look if you use subinterfaces in your frame relay network. This setup allows the same benefits of dedicated point- to- point links without the cost. You do have a single point of failure, but the idea here is to save money. Using the original network configuration of three remote branches connected to the corporate office through a frame relay network, the configuration of the corporate router would now look like this: Corporate: Router> enable.
Router#config t. Router(config)#hostname Corp. Corp(config)#interface serial 0.
Corp(config- if)#encapsulation frame- relay. Corp(config- if)#frame- relay lmi- type cisco. Corp(config- if)#no shutdown.
Corp(config- if)#no ip address. Corp(config- if)#interface serial 0. Corp(config- subif)# ip address 1.
Corp(config- subif)# frame- relay interface- dlci 2. Corp(config- if)#interface serial 0. Corp(config- subif)# ip address 1. Corp(config- subif)# frame- relay interface- dlci 2. Corp(config- if)#interface serial 0. Corp(config- subif)# ip address 1.
Corp(config- subif)# frame- relay interface- dlci 2. Corp(config- if)#exit.
Corp(config)#exit. Corp#I broke up the configuration into multiple parts so you can see the configuration better. The first section just sets the hostname of the router; the second section configures the serial 0 interface with the encapsulation LMI type and enables the interface with the no shutdown command. Notice the no ip address command under the serial 0? This is important. Where to add IP addresses?
It doesn’t matter which subinterface number you use. I like to use the assigned DLCI number to help me identify the connection configuration information, but that is for administration purposes only and it matters not what the number is in the actual configuration. I used interface serial. PVC connection 2.
Notice that under that subinterface configuration, the IP address and DLCI number are identified. I created different IP subnets for each subinterface. I used the DLCI number as the subnet for ease of administration. The remote location for PVC 2. IP address 1. 0. 2. IP address for PVC 2. Instead of using frame relay mapping, I’m allowing IARP to find each PVC and translate the Network layer address to a DLCI number for each connection.
Understand that each configuration under a subinterface must be a separate subnet. That’s the beauty of this configuration. You have more control over how each PVC is configured when you use subinterfaces. For example, if you wanted to add IPX support to the N. Y. The DLCI numbers are irrelevant and only locally significant. This means that the corporate office needs a DLCI number to identify each of the remote locations, but this only identifies the transmitted data frame to the switch. When the frame relay switch receives a data frame from the corporate router with a destination DLCI number of 2.
L. A. It doesn’t matter whatsoever what DLCI number is used by the L. A. Just understand that when you see a DLCI number, it’s the number used by the local router to get to the frame relay switch, which in turn uses the number to figure out which PVC to send the data. So here’s the first configuration we can use on the corporate router: Corporate: Router> enable. Router#config t. Router(config)#hostname Corp.
Corp(config)#interface serial 0. Corp(config- if)#encapsulation frame- relay. Corp(config- if)#ip address 1.
Corp(config- if)#frame- relay interface- dlci 2. Corp(config- if)#frame- relay interface- dlci 2. Corp(config- if)#frame- relay interface- dlci 2. Corp(config- if)#frame- relay map ip 1. Corp(config- if)#frame- relay map ip 1.
Corp(config- if)#frame- relay map ip 1. Corp(config- if)#frame- relay lmi- type cisco. Corp(config- if)#no shutdown. Corp(config- if)#exit. Corp(config)#exit. Corp#The first part is basically the same: You set the encapsulation on the serial interface, add the IP address (if using IP), and then set the DLCI number. However, you have three DLCI numbers to add, so there are three lines of DLCI addresses.
The new part is the address mapping. Basically, this just says that if you’re sending a packet to 1. DLCI number 2. 0.
When the frame relay switch receives this frame, it will then forward it through the frame relay packet- switching network to the N. Y. You don’t have to add the static mappings; you can allow what is called Inverse ARP (IARP) to find each PVC (on by default), which will provide a Network layer- to- Data Link layer translation. You can see these translations with the show frame- relay map command. Conclusion. You can learn much more about frame relay but, other than a few verification commands, you can pretty much connect to and configure a small frame relay network using the information I provided in this Daily Drill Down.