frame-relay (pertaining to techlab)

bighornsheep

Someone can correct me if I am wrong, but I believe the techlab for frame-relay is missing instructions. The DLCI # needs to be configured on the end routers for the switching to take place, is this not true?

Router1(config-if) frame-relay interface-dlci <dlci #>
Router2(config-if) frame-relay interface-dlci <dlci #>

dtlokee

The lab is using th physical interfaces and relies on inverse-arp to map IP addresses to DLCI's. The "frame-relay interface-dlci" command is only required on point-to-point subinterfaces.

bighornsheep

If you wouldn't mind explaining a little bit.....

This is what happened for me; the first time I tried the lab, it didn't work for me...but I believe it might have been because the IP addresses on the serial interfaces weren't on the same subnet. I removed startup-config, put the serial interfaces (on end routers) on the same subnet, but I still couldn't get them to ping with each other. FR route was active, I can see the mapping, still nothing...then I removed startup-config once again, this time I used the interface-dlci <dlci #> and it worked...

What was different? And while on the same topic...does it matter if frame-relay intf-type dte is used or not?

dtlokee

You only need the frame-relay intf-type dce command on the frame switch. Once you enable frame relay encapsulation and assign the IP address it will automatically map the IP address to dlci of the remote routers. One key to frame relay, it may take some time for the full status messages to be exchanged (up to 60 seconds) so your pings may not be successful right away. You should use the "show frame-relay map" command to verify the dlci to IP address mappings.