Frame Relay

Frame Relay is classified as a non-broadcast multi-access (NBMA) network, meaning it doesnt

send any broadcasts like RIP updates across the network. It operates at the Physical and Data
Link layers of the OSI reference model and was originally designed for use across Integrated
Services Digital Network (ISDN) interfaces. Cisco Frame Relay supports the following
protocols:

IP
DECnet
AppleTalk
Xerox Network Service (XNS)
Novell IPX
Connectionless Network Service (CLNS)
International Organization for Standards (ISO)
Banyan Vines
Transparent bridging

Frame Relay Terminology

Figure below is labeled with the various terms used to describe different parts of a Frame Relay
network.

Here is how the process works

1. The users network device sends a frame out on the local network. The hardware address of
the router (default gateway) will be in the header of the frame.

2. The router picks up the frame, extracts the packet, and discards the frame. It then looks at the
destination IP address within the packet and checks to see whether it knows how to get to the
destination network by looking in the routing table.
3. The router then forwards the data out the interface that it thinks can find the remote network.
(If it cant find the network in its routing table, it will discard the packet.) Because this will be a
serial interface encapsulated with Frame Relay, the router puts the packet onto the Frame Relay
network encapsulated within a Frame Relay frame. It will add the DLCI number associated with
the serial interface. DLCIs identify the virtual circuit (PVC or SVC) to the routers and providers
switches participating in the Frame Relay network.
4. The channel service unit/data service unit (CSU/DSU) receives the digital signal and encodes
it into the type of digital signaling that the switch at the Packet Switch Exchange (PSE) can
understand. The PSE receives the digital signal and extracts the 1s and 0s from the line.
5. The CSU/DSU is connected to a demarcation (demarc) installed by the service provider, and
its location is the service providers first point of responsibility (last point on the receiving end).
The demarc is typically just an RJ-45 jack installed close to the router and CSU/DSU.
6. The demarc is typically a twisted-pair cable that connects to the local loop. The local loop
connects to the closest central office (CO), sometimes called a point of presence (POP). The
local loop can connect using various physical mediums, but twisted-pair or fiber is very
common.
7. The CO receives the frame and sends it through the Frame Relay cloud to its destination.
This cloud can be dozens of switching officesor more! It looks for the destination IP address
and DLCI number. It typically can find the DLCI number of the remote device or router by
looking up an IP-to-DLCI mapping. Frame Relay mappings are usually created statically by the
service provider, but they can be created dynamically using the Inverse ARP (IARP) protocol.
Remember that before data is sent through the cloud, the virtual circuit is created from end to
end.
8. Once the frame reaches the switching office closest to the destination office, it is sent through
the local loop. The frame is received at the demarc and then is sent to the CSU/DSU. Finally, the
router extracts the packet, or datagram, from the frame and puts the packet in a new LAN frame
to be delivered to the destination host. The frame on the LAN will have the final destination
hardware address in the header. This was found in the routers ARP cache, or an ARP broadcast
was performed.
Committed Information Rate (CIR)
Frame Relay provides a packet-switched network to many different customers at the same time.
Frame Relay is based on the assumption that all customers wont ever need to transmit data
constantly, and all at the same time. Frame Relay works by providing a portion of dedicated
bandwidth to each user, and it also allows the user to exceed their guaranteed bandwidth if

resources on the telecommunication network happen to be available. Frame Relay providers

allow customers to buy a lower amount of bandwidth than what they really use. There are two
separate bandwidth specifications with Frame Relay:
Access Rate The maximum speed at which the Frame Relay interface can transmit.
CIR The maximum bandwidth of data guaranteed to be delivered. In reality, its the
average amount that the service provider will allow you to transmit. The CIR is the rate, in bits
per second, at which the Frame Relay switch agrees to transfer data.
Frame Relay Encapsulation
There are only two encapsulation types Cisco and IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force).
RouterA(config)# int s0
RouterA(config-if)# encapsulation frame-relay ?
ietf Use RFC1490 encapsulation
The default encapsulation is Cisco unless you manually type in IETF, and Cisco is the type used
when connecting two Cisco devices. The IETF-type encapsulation will be needed if connecting a
Cisco device to a non-Cisco device with Frame Relay.
Data Link Connection Identifiers (DLCIs)
Frame Relay virtual circuits (PVCs) are identified by DLCIs. A Frame Relay service provider,
such as the telephone company, typically assigns DLCI values, which are used by Frame Relay
to distinguish between different virtual circuits on the network. For the IP devices at each end of
a virtual circuit to communicate, their IP addresses need to be mapped to DLCIs. This mapping
can function as a multipoint deviceone that can identify to the Frame Relay network the
appropriate destination virtual circuit for each packet that is sent over the single physical
interface. The mappings can be done dynamically through IARP or manually through the Frame
Relay map command. DLCI numbers, used to identify a PVC, are typically assigned by the
provider and start at 16. Configuring a DLCI number to be applied to an interface is shown
below:
RouterA(config-if)#frame-relay interface-dlci ?
<16-1007> Define a DLCI as part of the current
subinterface
RouterA(config-if)#frame-relay interface-dlci 16
Local Management Interface (LMI)
The Local Management Interface (LMI) was developed in 1990 by Cisco Systems, StrataCom,
Northern Telecom, and Digital Equipment Corporation and became known as the Gang-of-Four
LMI or Cisco LMI. This gang took the basic Frame Relay protocol from the CCIT and added
extensions onto the protocol features that allow internetworking devices to communicate easily
with a Frame Relay network. The LMI is a signaling standard between a CPE device (router) and

a frame switch. The LMI is responsible for managing and maintaining status between these
devices. LMI messages provide information about the following:
Keepalives Verify data is flowing
Multicasting Provides a local DLCI PVC
Multicast addressing Provides global significance
Status of virtual circuits Provides DLCI status
The three different LMI types are depicted in the router output below:
RouterA(config-if)#frame-relay lmi-type ?
cisco
ansi
q933a
As seen in the output, all three standard LMI signaling formats are supported:
Cisco LMI defined by the Gang of Four (default)
ANSI Annex D defined by ANSI standard T1.617
ITU-T (q933a) Annex A defined by Q.933
Routers receive LMI information on a frame-encapsulated interface and update the virtual circuit
status to one of three different states:
Active state Everything is up and routers can exchange information.
Inactive state The routers interface is up and working with a connection to the
switching office, but the remote router is not working.
Deleted state This means that no LMI information is being received on the interface
from the switch. It could be a mapping problem or a line failure
Subinterfaces
You can have multiple virtual circuits on a single serial interface and yet treat each as a separate
interface. These are known as subinterfaces. There are two types of subinterfaces:
Point-to-point Used when a single virtual circuit connects one router to another. Each
point-to-point subinterface requires its own subnet.
Multipoint Used when the router is the center of a star of virtual circuits. Uses a single
subnet for all routers serial interfaces connected to the frame switch.

Creating Subinterfaces
You define subinterfaces with the int s0.subinterface number command as shown below. You first
set the encapsulation on the serial interface, then you can define the subinterfaces.
RouterA(config)#int s0
RouterA(config)#encapsulation frame-relay
RouterA(config)#int s0.?
<0-4294967295> Serial interface number
RouterA(config)#int s0.16 ?
multipoint Treat as a multipoint link
point-to-point Treat as a point-to-point link
Frame Relay Congestion Control
In this section we will define how the Frame Relay switch handles congestion problems.
DE (Discard Eligibility) When a Frame Relay router detects congestion on the Frame
Relay network; it will turn the DE bit on in a Frame Relay packet header. If the switch is
congested, the Frame Relay switch will discard the packets with the DE bit set first. If your
bandwidth is configured with a CIR of zero, the DE will always be on.
FECN (Forward-Explicit Congestion Notification) When the Frame Relay network
recognizes congestion in the cloud; the switch will set the FECN bit to 1 in a Frame Relay packet
header. This will indicate to the destination DCE that the path just traversed is congested.
BECN (Backward-Explicit Congestion Notification) When the switch detects
congestion in the Frame Relay network, it will set the BECN bit in a Frame Relay packet and
send it to the source router, telling it to slow down the rate at which it is transmitting packets.
Frame Relay Implementation
We want to connect two routers with single PVC. The configuration would be like this:
RouterA# config t
RouterA(config)# int S0/0
RouterA(config-if)# encapsulation frame-relay
RouterA(config-if)# ip address 172.16.20.1 255.255.255.0
RouterA(config-if)#frame-relay lmi-type ansi
RouterA(config-if)#^Z

Frame Relay Monitoring

There are several ways to check the status of your interfaces and PVCs once you have Frame
Relay encapsulation set up and running:
RouterA>sho frame ?
ip show frame relay IP statistics
lmi show frame relay lmi statistics
map Frame-Relay map table
pvc show frame relay pvc statistics
route show frame relay route
traffic Frame-Relay protocol statistics
Show Frame-Relay lmi
The show frame-relay lmi command will give you the LMI traffic statistics exchanged between
the local router and the Frame Relay switch.
Router#sh frame lmi
LMI Statistics for interface Serial0 (Frame Relay DTE) LMI TYPE
= CISCO
Invalid Unnumbered info 0 Invalid Prot Disc 0
Invalid dummy Call Ref 0 Invalid Msg Type 0
Invalid Status Message 0 Invalid Lock Shift 0
Invalid Information ID 0 Invalid Report IE Len 0
Invalid Report Request 0 Invalid Keep IE Len 0
Num Status Enq. Sent 0 Num Status msgs Rcvd 0
Num Update Status Rcvd 0 Num Status Timeouts 0
Router#
The router output from the show frame-relay lmi command shows you LMI errors as well as the
LMI type.
Show Frame-Relay PVC
The show frame pvc command will list all configured PVCs and DLCI numbers. It provides the
status of each PVC connection and traffic statistics. It will also give you the number of BECN
and FECN packets received on the router.
RouterA#sho frame pvc
PVC Statistics for interface Serial0 (Frame Relay DTE)
DLCI = 16,DLCI USAGE = LOCAL,PVC STATUS =ACTIVE,INTERFACE
= Serial0.1
input pkts 50977876 output pkts 41822892 in bytes
3137403144
out bytes 3408047602 dropped pkts 5 in FECN pkts 0
in BECN pkts 0 out FECN pkts 0 out BECN pkts 0
in DE pkts 9393 out DE pkts 0

pvc create time 7w3d, last time pvc status changed 7w3d
DLCI = 18,DLCI USAGE =LOCAL,PVC STATUS =ACTIVE,INTERFACE =
Serial0.3
input pkts 30572401 output pkts 31139837 in bytes
1797291100
out bytes 3227181474 dropped pkts 5 in FECN pkts 0
in BECN pkts 0 out FECN pkts 0 out BECN pkts 0
in DE pkts 28 out DE pkts 0
pvc create time 7w3d, last time pvc status changed 7w3d
To see information about only PVC 16, you can type the command show frame-relay pvc 16.
Show Interface
We can also use the show interface command to check for LMI traffic. The show interface
command displays information about the encapsulation as well as layer-2 and layer-3
information. The LMI DLCI, as bolded in the command, is used to define the type of LMI being
used. If it is 1023, it is the default LMI type of Cisco. If the LMI DLCI is zero, then it is the
ANSI LMI type.
RouterA#sho int s0
Serial0 is up, line protocol is up
Hardware is HD64570
MTU 1500 bytes, BW 1544 Kbit, DLY 20000 usec, rely 255/
255, load 2/255
Encapsulation FRAME-RELAY, loopback not set, keepalive
set (10 sec)
LMI enq sent 451751,LMI stat recvd 451750,LMI upd recvd
164,DTE LMI up
LMI enq recvd 0, LMI stat sent 0, LMI upd sent 0
LMI DLCI 1023 LMI type is CISCO frame relay DTE
Broadcast queue 0/64, broadcasts sent/dropped 0/0,
interface broadcasts 839294
The show interface command displays line, protocol, DLCI, and LMI information.
Show Frame Map
The show frame map command will show you the Network layertoDLCI mappings.
RouterB#show frame map
Serial0 (up): ipx 20.0007.7842.3575 dlci 16(0x10,0x400),
dynamic, broadcast,, status defined, active
Serial0 (up): ip 172.16.20.1 dlci 16(0x10,0x400),
dynamic,
broadcast,, status defined, active
Serial1 (up): ipx 40.0007.7842.153a dlci 17(0x11,0x410),
dynamic, broadcast,, status defined, active

Serial1 (up): ip 172.16.40.2 dlci 17(0x11,0x410),

dynamic,
broadcast,, status defined, active
Notice that the search interface has two mappings, one for IP and one for IPX. Also, notice that
the Network layer addresses were resolved with the dynamic protocol Inverse ARP (IARP). If an
administrator mapped the addresses, the output would say static. After the DLCI number is
listed, you can see some numbers in parentheses. Notice the first number is 0x10, which is the
hex equivalent for the DLCI number 16 used on serial 0, and the 0x11 is the hex for DLCI 17
used on serial 1. The second numbers, 0x400 and 0x410, are the DLCI numbers configured in the
Frame Relay frame. They are different because of the way the bits are spread out in the frame.
Debug Frame Lmi
The debug frame lmi command will show output on the router consoles by default. The
information from this command will allow you to verify and troubleshoot the Frame Relay
connection by helping you to determine whether the router and switch are exchanging the correct
LMI information.
Router#debug frame-relay lmi
Serial3/1(in): Status, myseq 214
RT IE 1, length 1, type 0
KA IE 3, length 2, yourseq 214, myseq 214
PVC IE 0x7 , length 0x6 , dlci 130, status 0x2 , bw 0
Serial3/1(out): StEnq, myseq 215, yourseen 214, DTE up
datagramstart = 0x1959DF4, datagramsize = 13
FR encap = 0xFCF10309
00 75 01 01 01 03 02 D7 D6
Serial3/1(in): Status, myseq 215
RT IE 1, length 1, type 1
KA IE 3, length 2, yourseq 215, myseq 215
Serial3/1(out): StEnq, myseq 216, yourseen 215, DTE up
datagramstart = 0x1959DF4, datagramsize = 13
FR encap = 0xFCF10309
00 75 01 01 01 03 02 D8 D7