Example Data Link Protocols

Savera Tanwir

Bit-Oriented & Character-Oriented

Protocols
„ Bit Oriented Protocol
„ Basic unit: Bit
„ Frame length is not a multiple of character size
„ Example: HDLC (High-level Data Link Control)

„ Character Oriented Protocol

„ Basic unit: character
„ Frame length is a multiple of character size
„ Example: PPP

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 HDLC
„ High Level Data-link Control
„ ISO 13239
„ Bit-oriented data link layer protocol
„ Provides both connectionless and connection-oriented
services to Network Layer
„ Can be used for point-point as well as point-multipoint
(usually for wireless) connections

Framing
„ HDLC can operate on both synchronous & asynchronous
links
„ Each frame begins and ends with a frame delimiter bit-
pattern – 01111110
„ When no frames are being transmitted on a synchronous link,
the frame delimiter is continuously transmitted
„ It generates a continuous bit pattern used by modems to train and
synchronize their clocks

„ Bit-stuffing is used to avoid the flag pattern from occurring in the

data

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 Types of Stations
„ Primary terminal
„ Responsible for operation control over the link
„ It issues the frames which are called commands
„ Secondary terminal
„ operates under the control of the primary
„ Frames issues, are responses only
„ Primary is linked with secondaries by multiple logical links
„ Combined terminal
„ Has the features of both primary and secondary terminals
„ It issues both commands and responses

High-Level Data Link Control

„ Address Field
„ Contains address of the Slave/Secondary station
„ Control Field
„ Used for Seq #, ACKs and other control features etc.
„ Data Field
„ Variable length, but has an upper limit depending on the network
„ Checksum Field
„ CRC-16 of Address, Control and Data fields (x16 + x12 + x5 + 1)
„
„ Minimum frame contains three fields and total 32 bits,
excluding the flags on either side

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 Frame Types
„ Three kinds of frames in HDLC
„ Information Frames
„ To transport user data (both normal data & piggybacked control
data)
„ Supervisory Frames
„ To transport control data only
„ used whenever piggybacking is impossible or inappropriate
„ Unnumbered Frames
„ To transport link management and control information

High-Level Data Link Control (2)

Control field of
(a) An information frame.
(b) A supervisory frame.
(c) An unnumbered frame.

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 I-Frame Format

„ Seq Field
„ Three bits to denote the seq # of the frame
„ Poll/Final Flag
„ It is used to signal which side is ‘talking’
„ When a primary station has finished transmitting a series of frames, it
sets the Poll bit to obtain a response from a secondary station, thus
giving control to the secondary station
„ At this time the secondary station may reply to the primary station
„ When the secondary station finishes transmitting its frames, it sets the
Final bit and control returns to the primary station
„ Next Field
„ Three bits to denote the seq # of the piggybacked +ve ACK

S-Frame Format

„ Type Field
„ Used to distinguish the 4 types of S-Frames
„ Receive Ready (RR)
„ 00 – +ve ACK and cancels a previous RNR
„ Receive Not Ready (RNR)
„ 10 – +ve ACK plus receiver cannot receive more I-frames
„ Reject (REJ)
„ 01 – Signals NAK for Go-Back-N protocol
„ Selective Reject (SREJ)
„ 11 – Signals NAK for Selective Repeat protocol
„ Next Field
„ Three bits to denote the Seq # of the ACK or NAK

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 U-Frame Format

„ First 2 bits are for identification

„ The 5 bits of Type and Modifier fields are used in
combination to indicate the U-Frame type

Command/response Meaning
SNRM Set normal response mode

SNRME Set normal response mode (extended)

SABM Set asynchronous balanced mode

Set asynchronous balanced mode
SABME
(extended)
UI Unnumbered information
UA Unnumbered acknowledgment
DISC Disconnect
FRMR Frame reject

HDLC Modes of Operation

„ Three modes of operation according to the strength of
Primary/Slave relationship
1. Normal Response Mode (NRM)
„ Primary station initiates the session and full polling is used for all frame
transmissions
„ The P/F Flag is used in this mode only
„ Signified by the SNRM(E) frame
2. Asynchronous Response Mode (ARM)
„ Slave terminals may transmit without permission from the Primary
terminal
„ However, the primary terminal still retains responsibility for line
initialization, error recovery, and logical disconnect
3. Asynchronous Balanced Mode (ABM)
„ Either station may initiate the transmission and send frames at any
time
„ Signified by the SABM(E) frame

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 The Data Link Layer in the
Internet
A home personal computer acting as an internet host.

PPP – Point to Point Protocol

„ RFCs 1661, 1662, 1663
„ More of a protocol suite than a particular protocol
„ PPP is a connection-oriented protocol
„ Character-oriented with byte-stuffing
„ Can operate in half-duplex or full-duplex mode
„ Designed to carry IP traffic but is general enough to allow any
type of network layer datagram to be sent over a PPP
connection
„ Frames are sent and received in the same order
„ Doesn’t provide reliable data transfer using sequence numbers
and acknowledgments as the default
„ Reliable data transfer can be requested as an option
„ One of the most popular Layer 2 WAN technologies in the
networking world, esp. for dial-up access
„ An encapsulated form of PPP, called PPP over Ethernet (PPPoE),
is commonly used with DSL Internet service

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 PPP Advantages and Benefits
1. Specification of the encapsulated protocol, to
allow multiple Layer 3 protocols to be
multiplexed on a single link
2. Error detection for each transmitted frame
through the use of a CRC code in each frame
header
3. A robust mechanism for negotiating link
parameters, including the maximum frame size
permitted

PPP Advantages and Benefits

4. A method for testing links before datagram
transmission takes place, and monitoring link
quality
5. Support for authentication of the connection
using multiple authentication protocols
6. Support for additional optional features,
including compression, encryption and link
aggregation (allowing two devices to use
multiple physical links as if they were a single,
higher-performance link)

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 PPP Components
„ The PPP standard itself describes three “main”
components of PPP:

1. PPP Encapsulation Method

2. Link Control Protocol (LCP)

3. Network Control Protocols (NCPs)

PPP Encapsulation
„ The primary job of PPP is to take higher-layer messages
such as IP datagrams and encapsulate them for
transmission over the underlying physical layer link

„ PPP defines a special frame format for encapsulating

data for transmission, based on the framing used in the
HDLC protocol

„ PPP frame has been specially designed to be small in

size and contain only simple fields, to maximize
bandwidth efficiency and speed in processing

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 Link Control Protocol (LCP)
„ LCP is responsible for setting up, maintaining, testing,
negotiating and terminating the data-link connection
between devices

„ Optional support protocols

„ Authentication Protocols – PAP, CHAP etc.
„ PPP Compression Control Protocol (CCP) allows compression of
PPP data
„ PPP Encryption Control Protocol (ECP) enables datagrams to be
encrypted for security
„ PPP Multilink Protocol (PPP MP) allows a single PPP link to be
operated over multiple physical links

Network Control Protocols (NCPs)

„ PPP supports the encapsulation of many different Layer
3 protocol packets
„ After the general link setup is completed with LCP,
control is passed to the Network Control Protocol (NCP)
specific to the Layer 3 protocol being carried on the PPP
link
„ For example, when IP is carried over PPP the NCP used is the
PPP IP Control Protocol (IPCP)
„ Other NCPs are defined for supporting the IPX protocol,
the NetBIOS Frames (NBF) protocol, and so forth

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 Connection Establishment
“A host machine (PC) calling ISP for internet connectivity”

1. PC calls ISP’s Access

Server/Router via modem 2. AS’s modem answers the
phone and a physical
connection is established

3. PC sends a series of LCP

packets in one or more PPP frame
payload 4. Responses to establish PPP
parameters

Time

Connection Establishment & Data Transfer

“Once PPP parameters have been agreed upon”

5. A series of NCP packets sent

to configure network layer (e.g., 6. ISP dynamically assigns IP
IP address request in TCP/IP address
suite)

7. PC is now a proper host on the

Internet and can send and
receive IP packets 8. Transmission and reception of
IP packets (encapsulated in PPP
frame) takes place
Time

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 Connection Release
“When data transfer is over”

1. NCP tears down internet

connectivity and frees IP address

2. LCP shuts down data link

layer connection

3. Modem hangs up the phone to

release physical line
Time

Line Up & Down phases

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 Frame Format of PPP

„ Control field
„ Controls services offered to the network layer
„ Protocol field
„ Kind of packet in the payload e.g. LCP, NCP, IP, IPX, AppleTalk etc.
„ 0 — Refers to Network layer protocols like IP, IPX etc.
„ 1 — Refers to negotiation protocols e.g., LCP, NCP
„ Payload field
„ Variable length, up to some max. size negotiated by LCP at setup time
„ Default is 1500 bytes
„ CRC Checksum

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 LCP Overview
„ LCP is used to negotiate data link protocol options
during ESTABLISH phase
„ Deals with the way for the initialization process to make a
proposal and for the responding process to accept or
reject it
„ Allows testing of line quality
„ Network Layer protocol configuration negotiation (NCP
comes in here)
„ Handles connection termination

Encapsulated LCP frame

„ For LCP, value of Protocol field is 1100000000100001 or

0xC021
„ Code
„ Defines type of LCP frame
„ ID
„ To match a request with a corresponding reply
„ Length
„ Defines the length of entire frame
„ Information
„ Extra information needed for some frames

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 LCP frame types
„ 11 types defined in RFC 1661

LCP Information field

„ Contains options that are to be negotiated
1. Maximum-Receive-Unit (MRU)
„ The maximum size datagram it wants the link to be able to carry
2. Authentication-Protocol
„ Indicate the type of authentication protocol it wishes to use (if any)
3. Quality-Protocol
„ To enable quality monitoring on the link and what protocol to use (if any)
4. Magic-Number
„ Used to detect looped back links or other anomalies in the connection
5. Protocol-Field-Compression
„ To specify use of “compressed” (8 bit) Protocol fields in PPP data frames
instead of the normal 16 bit Protocol field
6. Address-and-Control-Field-Compression (ACFC)
„ Used to compress the Address and Control fields, again for bandwidth
savings

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 Authentication Protocols
„ Password Authentication Protocol (PAP)
„ A simple authentication protocol with a two-step process

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 Challenge Handshake Authentication
Protocol (CHAP)
„ It is a three-way hand-shaking authentication
protocol that provides more security than PAP
„ Password is kept secret and never sent online

Network Control Protocol (NCP)

„ Is a set of control protocols for negotiation at the network
layer
„ Each is specific to some network layer protocol and allows
protocol-specific configuration requests to be made
„ For example dynamic address assignment of IP address
„ Each of the common network layer technologies has a PPP
NCP defined for it in a separate RFC
„ The most common ones are:-
„ The PPP Internet Protocol Control Protocol (IPCP)
„ The PPP Internetworking Packet Exchange Control Protocol (IPXCP)
„ The PPP NetBIOS Frames Control Protocol (NBFCP)
„ Te PPP IP Version 6 Control Protocol (IPv6CP)

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 Acknowledgements
„ Ali Sajjad’s lecture slides

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