Content Outline (Unit 5)

 High-Level Data Link Control (HDLC)

 HDLC Configurations
 HDLC Transfer Modes
 HDLC Frame Structure
 Bit Stuffing
 HDLC Operations
 Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP)
 Framing
 Link Control Protocol (LCP)
 Authentication Protocols (AP)
 Network Control Protocols (NCP)

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 HDLC
 High-level Data Link Control (HDLC) was developed by ISO in 1979
 HDLC supports both half-duplex and full-duplex communications over
point-to-point and multipoint links
 HDLC has become the basis for most data link protocols used today
including:
 Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP)

 Frame Relay

 Link Access Protocols (LAPs)

 Most LANs and MANs, e.g. IEEE 802 family

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 HDLC
 Station Types
 Primary Station – has complete control of the link and sends commands to

secondary stations
 Secondary Station – receives commands and send response to primary

station
 Combined Station – sends command and response

 Configurations
 Unbalanced – One primary station and one or more secondary stations

 Balanced – Two combined stations

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HDLC Configurations

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 HDLC Transfer Modes
 A mode in HDLC is the relationship between two devices involved in an
exchange

 The mode of communication describes who controls the link

 HDLC supports two modes of communication between stations:

 Normal Response Mode (NRM)

 Asynchronous Balanced Mode (ABM)

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 HDLC Transfer Modes
 Normal Response Mode (NRM)
 used with an unbalanced configuration

 refers to the standard primary-secondary relationship

 secondary device must have permission from the primary

device before transmitting

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 HDLC Transfer Modes
 Asynchronous Balanced Mode (ABM)
 used with a balanced configuration

 all stations are equal and therefore only combined stations connected in

point-to-point are used

 either combined station may initiate transmission with the other

combined station without permission

NRM ABM
Station Primary
type & Combined
Secondary
Initiator Primary Any

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 HDLC Frame Types
 Information frames (I-frames)
 Used to transport user data and control information relating to user data

 Supervisory frames (S-frames)

 Used only to transport control information, primarily data link layer flow

control and error control

 Unnumbered frames (U-frames)

 Reserved for system management

 Information carried by U-frames is intended for managing the link itself

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 HDLC Frame Structures
 All HDLC frame types share a
similar basic structure
 Frame may contain up to six
fields:
 Beginning flag

 Address

 Control

 Information (absent in S-
frames)
 Frame Check Sequence
(FCS)
 Ending flag

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 Flag Field of HDLC Frame
 Flag field is an 8-bit pattern of 01111110
 A synchronization pattern for the receiver

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 Flag Field
 Sequence reserved for flag field : 01111110

 Problem: data field of HDLC may contain the same sequence pattern
 Receiver wrongly interprets the data

 Lack of data transparency

 Solution: Bit Stuffing

 Guarantee the flag field sequence does not appear anywhere else in the

frame

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 Bit Stuffing in HDLC
 Bit stuffing
 Process of adding one extra 0 whenever there are five consecutive
1s in the data
 Receiver does not misinterpret the data as flag

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 Address Field of HDLC Frame
 Address field contains the address of the secondary station that is
either the originator or destination of the frame
 One byte can identify up to 128 stations (7 bits used)

 Large network requires multiple-byte address fields

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a frame, it contains “to address” 13
Control Field of HDLC Frame

 A one-byte segment of HDLC frame

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 Control Field of HDLC Frame
 Poll/Final (P/F) bit = 1 for access control
 Poll (or Select) – Primary asks whether the secondary has anything to

send
 Final – Secondary replies that there is nothing to send; otherwise it

would reply with an I-frame

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 Control Field of HDLC Frame
 N(S) and N(R) for flow control
 I-frame contains both N(S) and N(R) fields

 S-frame contains an N(R) only

 S-frames are used to return N(R) for flow control when the receiver

does not have data to send

 U-frame has neither N(S) nor N(R) fields

 U-frames are used for system management information, but not for

user data exchange or acknowledgement

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 Control Codes in S-Frame
 S-frame is used for acknowledgement, flow control, and error control

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 Control Codes in S-Frame
 RR (Receive Ready)
 ACK – Used by a receiving station to return a positive acknowledgement,

N(R) (Next frame expected by the receiver) field having 3 bits (up to 8
frames)
 Poll – When transmitted by primary with P/F bit set, RR asks if it has

anything to send
 Negative response to poll – RR tells primary that secondary has nothing

to send. If the secondary does have data to transmit, it responds to poll

with an I-frame not an S-frame
 Positive response to select – When a secondary is able to receive a

transmission from the primary

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 Control Codes in S-Frame
 RNR (Receive Not Ready)
 ACK – RNR returned by a receiver to a sending station acknowledges

receipt of all frames up to, but not including the frame indicated in the
N(R) field
 Select – When a primary wishes to transmit data to a specific secondary,

it alerts the secondary by sending an RNR frame with the P/F (used as P)
set
 Negative response to select – When a selected secondary is unable to

receive data, it returns an RNR

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 Control Codes in S-Frame
 REJ (Reject)
 The negative acknowledgement returned by a receiver in a go-back-n

ARQ error correction system

 In an REJ frame, the N(R) field contains the number of the damaged

frame

 SREJ (Selective-reject)
 The negative acknowledgement returned by a receiver in a selective-reject

ARQ error correction system

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Poll and Select in HDLC

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 Control Codes of U-Frame
 U-frame is used to exchange session management and control information
between connected devices

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 Control Codes of U-Frame
 2+3 control bits in U-frames, 32 possible combinations
 In general, U-frame control functions are of 5 types:
1. Mode setting – set NRM, ARM or ABM modes
2. Disconnection – negative acknowledgement of mode setting commands
3. Unnumbered exchange – exchange of specific data such as date and
time
4. Initialization mode – initialize data link functions
5. Miscellaneous – exchange of address, resetting of sequence numbers,
etc

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Control Codes of U-Frame

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 Information Field and
Piggybacking
 Information field
 contains user data (variable length) in I-frames

 contains network management data (if any) in U-frames

 The main purpose of I-frames is to carry user data in the Information field,
but they also use N(S) and N(R) fields to acknowledge receipt of frames
 The combination of data and acknowledgement in one single frame is called
piggybacking

 Frame check sequence (FCS)

is for error detection
 2 or 4-byte CRC

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 HDLC Operation
 HDLC operations consists of exchange of information, supervisory and
unnumbered frames

 It have three phases

 initialization

 by either side, set mode & seq

 data transfer

 with flow and error control

 using both I & S-frames (RR, RNR, REJ, SREJ)

 disconnect

 when ready or fault noted

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Example 1: Poll / Response

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Example 2: Select /
Response

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Example 3: Connection and
Disconnection

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Example 4: Piggybacking

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Example 5: Piggybacking
with Error
 Node B sends three data frames (0, 1, and 2),
but frame 1 is lost.
 When node A receives frame 2, it discards it
and sends a REJ frame for frame 1.
 Note that the protocol being used is Go-
Back-N with the special use of an REJ frame
as a NAK frame.
 The NAK frame does two things here: It
confirms the receipt of frame 0 and declares
that frame 1 and any following frames must
be resent.
 Node B, after receiving the REJ frame,
resends frames 1 and 2.
 Node A acknowledges the receipt by sending
an RR frame (ACK) with acknowledgment
number 3.

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HDLC Operation Example

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HDLC Operation Example

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 Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP)
 One of the most common protocols for point-to-point access.

 PPP provides router-to-router and host-to-network connections over

synchronous and asynchronous circuits, which can be either dialup or
leased lines.

 Millions of Internet users who need to connect their home computers to the
server of an Internet service provider use PPP.

 PPP can often be run over other data link technologies providing best of
both worlds, e.g., PPPoE.

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 PPP Services
 The designers of PPP have included several services to make it suitable for
a point-to-point protocol, but have ignored some traditional services to
make it simple.

 Services provided:
 Establishment of the link and the exchange of data
 Authentication (optional)
 Provide connections over multiple links (Multilink PPP)
 Services not provided:
 No flow control
 No error control (only error detection)
 No sequence numbering

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 PPP Framing
 PPP uses a character-oriented (or byte-oriented) frame.

 Flag: A PPP frame starts and ends with a specific 1-byte pattern of 01111110
 Address: A constant value and set to 11111111 (broadcast address)
 Control: Set to a constant value 00000011 (imitating unnumbered frames in
HDLC)
 Protocol: Define what is being carried in the data field: either user data or other
information.
 FCS: The frame check sequence is simply a 2-byte or 4-byte CRC.

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 PPP Framing
 Payload: The data field is a sequence of bytes with the default of a
maximum of 1500 bytes; but this can be changed during negotiation.
 Byte Stuffing:

 Since PPP is a byte-oriented protocol, the flag in PPP is a byte that

needs to be escaped whenever it appears in the data section of the

frame.
 The escape byte is 01111101. Every time when the flag-like pattern

appears in the data, this extra byte is stuffed to tell the receiver that
the next byte is not a flag. The escape byte should also be stuffed
with another escape byte.
 Padding: Since there is no field defining the size of the data field,

padding is needed if the size is less than the maximum default value or
a maximum negotiated value.
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 PPP Transition Phases
 A PPP connection goes through phases which can be shown in a transition
phase diagram

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 PPP Multiplexing
 Although PPP is a link-layer protocol, it uses another set of protocols to
establish the link, authenticate the parties involved, and carry the network-
layer data.
 Three sets of protocols are defined to make PPP powerful:
 the Link Control Protocol (LCP)

 two Authentication Protocols (APs)

 several Network Control Protocols (NCPs)

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PPP Multiplexing

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PPP Architecture

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 Link Control Protocol
 LCP is responsible for establishing, maintaining, configuring, and
terminating links.
 It also provides negotiation mechanisms to set options between the two end
points.

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 LCP Packets
 The ID field holds a value that matches a request with a reply.
 One endpoint inserts a value in this field, which will be copied into the
reply packet.
 The length field defines the length of the entire packet.
 The information field contains information, such as options, needed for
some LCP packets.

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LCP Packets

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 Options
 There are many options that can be negotiated between two end points.
 Options are inserted in the information field of the configuration packets. In
this case, the information field is divided into three fields: option type,
option length, and option data.

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 Authentication Protocols
 PPP is designed for use over dial-up links where verification of user
identity is necessary.
 Authentication means validating the identity of a user who needs to access
a set of resources.
 PPP has 2 protocols for authentication:
 Password Authentication Protocol

 Challenge Handshake Authentication Protocol

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 Password Authentication
Protocol (PAP)
 PAP is a simple authentication procedure with a two-step process:

 The user who wants to access a system sends an authentication

identification (usually the user name) and a password.

 The system checks the validity of the identification and password and
either accepts or denies connection.

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Password Authentication
Protocol (PAP)

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 Challenge Handshake
Authentication Protocol (CHAP)
 CHAP is a three-way handshaking authentication protocol that provides
greater security than PAP.

 In CHAP, the password is kept secret; it is never sent online

 The system sends the user a challenge packet containing a challenge value,
usually a few bytes.
 The user applies a predefined function that takes the challenge value and the
user’s own password and creates a result. The user sends the result in the
response packet to the system.
 The system does the same. It applies the same function to the password of the
user (known to the system) and the challenge value to create a result. It the
result created is the same as the result sent in the response packet, access is
granted; otherwise, it is denied.

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Challenge Handshake
Authentication Protocol (CHAP)

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 Network Control Protocols
 PPP is a multiple-network-layer protocol that it can carry network-layer
data packet from different network layer protocols defined by the Internet,
OSI, Xerox, DECnet, AppleTalk, Novel and so on.
 PPP has defined a specific Network Control Protocol for each network
protocol.
 Internet Protocol Control Protocol (IPCP)

 OSI Network Control Protocol

 Xerox NS IDP Control Protocol

 None of the NCP packets carry network layer data; they just
configure the link at the network layer for the incoming data.

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 IPCP
 Internet Protocol Control Protocol

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IPCP Packets

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 Data from Network Layer
 After the network-layer configuration is completed by one of the NCP
protocols, the user can exchange data packets from the network layer.

 IP datagram encapsulated in a PPP frame:

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 Multilink PPP
 PPP was originally designed for a single-channel point-to-point physical
link.
 For multilink PPP (multiple channels in a single point-to-point link), a
logical PPP frame is carried in the payload of an actual PPP frame.

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An
Example

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An Example

LCP
Setup

PAP
IP NCP
setup

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 Reading
 B. A. Forouzan, “Data Communications and Networking,” 5th
Edition, McGraw-Hill 2013 (Chapter 11)

 William Stallings, “Data and Computer Communications,” 9th

Edition, Prentice Hall 2012 (Chapter 7)

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