CCNA Certication/Data Link Layer

0.1 Logical Link Control Sublayer

CCNA Certication
Acknowledgements Introduction The OSI Model
Application Layer Transport Layer Network Layer
Addressing Routing Protocols Data Link Layer
Switching Physical Layer Router Operation
Advanced Addressing Topics Advanced Routing Topics
Advanced Switching Topics Security WAN
Conguration Conclusion References About the
Exam Cisco Router Commands Quick Reference Sheet

The uppermost sublayer is Logical Link Control (LLC).

This sublayer multiplexes protocols running atop the data
link layer, and optionally provides ow control, acknowledgment, and error recovery.
PPP and HDLC protocols works in Logical Link Control
Sub Layer.

0.2 Media Access Control Sublayer

The data link layer is layer two of the seven-layer
OSI model as well as of the ve-layer TCP/IP reference
model. It responds to service requests from the network
layer and issues service requests to the physical layer.

The sublayer below it is Media Access Control (MAC).

Sometimes this refers to the sublayer that determines who
is allowed to access the media at any one time (usually
CSMA/CD). Other times it refers to a frame structure
with MAC addresses inside. There are generally two
forms of media access control: distributed and centralized. Both of these may be compared to communication
between people:

This is the layer which transfers data between adjacent

network nodes in a wide area network or between nodes
on the same local area network segment. The data link
layer provides the functional and procedural means to
transfer data between network entities and might provide
the means to detect and possibly correct errors that may
occur in the Physical layer. Examples of data link protocols are Ethernet for local area networks and PPP, HDLC
and ADCCP for point-to-point connections.

In a network made up of people speaking, i.e. a conversation, we look for clues from our fellow talkers
to see if any of them appear to be about to speak.
If two people speak at the same time, they will back
o and begin a long and elaborate game of saying
no, you rst.

The data link is all about getting information from one

place to a selection of other places. At this layer one does
not need to be able to go everywhere, just able to go somewhere else. It is analogous to social interaction in that one The Media Access Control sublayer also determines
needs to be able to talk to Bob to get a message to Fred where one frame of data ends and the next one starts. In
a snail-mail network, each letter is one frame of data, and
or James.
one can tell where it begins and ends because it is inside
The data link provides data transfer across the physical an envelope. One might also specify that a letter will belink. That transfer might or might not be reliable; many gin with a phrase like Dear Sir, and ends with a phrase
data link protocols do not have acknowledgements of suc- like Yours Sincerely.
cessful frame reception and acceptance, and some data
link protocols might not even have any form of checksum
to check for transmission errors. In those cases, higher1 Examples
level protocols must provide ow control, error checking,
and acknowledgements and retransmission.
ARCnet
In some networks, such as IEEE 802 local area networks,
ATM
the data link layer is split into MAC and LLC sublayers; this means that the IEEE 802.2 LLC protocol can be
Cisco Discovery Protocol (CDP)
used with all of the IEEE 802 MAC layers, such as Ethernet, token ring, IEEE 802.11, etc., as well as with some
Controller Area Network (CAN)
non-802 MAC layers such as FDDI. Other data link layer
Econet
protocols, such as HDLC, are specied to include both
sublayers, although some other protocols, such as Cisco
Ethernet
HDLC, use HDLCs low-level framing as a MAC layer in
Fiber Distributed Data Interface (FDDI)
combination with a dierent LLC layer
1

4 LLC
Frame Relay
High-Level Data Link Control (HDLC)
IEEE 802.2 (provides LLC functions to IEEE 802
MAC layers)
LocalTalk
Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS)
Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP)
Serial Line Internet Protocol (SLIP) (obsolete)
StarLan
Token ring
and most forms of serial communication.

Interfaces

subnetwork, i.e. a physical network without routers, for

example an Ethernet network.
Media access control is often used as a synonym to multiple access protocol, since the MAC sublayer provides
the protocol and control mechanisms that are required
for a certain channel access method. This makes it possible for several stations connected to the same physical
medium to share it. Examples of shared physical media
are bus networks, ring networks, hub networks, wireless
networks and half-duplex point-to-point links.
Examples of packet mode multiple access protocols for
wired multi-drop networks are:
CSMA/CD (used in Ethernet and IEEE 802.3),
Token bus (IEEE 802.4)
Token ring (IEEE 802.5)
Token passing (used in FDDI).

Examples of multiple access protocols that may be used

The data link layer is often implemented in software as a in packet radio wireless networks are:
network card driver. The operating system will have
a dened software interface between the data link and
CSMA/CA
the network transport stack above. This interface is not a
layer itself, but rather a denition for interfacing between
Slotted ALOHA
layers. Examples include:
Dynamic TDMA
ODI
Reservation ALOHA (R-ALOHA).
NDIS
CDMA
SANA II - Standard Amiga Networking Architec OFDMA
ture, version 2

MAC

The Media Access Control (MAC) data communication

protocol sub-layer is a part of the data link layer specied in the seven-layer OSI model (layer 2). It provides
addressing and channel access control mechanisms that
makes it possible for several terminals or network nodes
to communicate within a multipoint network, typically
a local area network (LAN) or metropolitan area network (MAN). A MAC protocol is not required in fullduplex point-to-point communication. In single channel
point-to-point communications full-duplex can be emulated. This emulation can be considered a MAC layer.

4 LLC
According to the IEEE 802 family of standards, Logical
Link Control (LLC) is the upper sublayer of the OSI
data link layer. The LLC is the same for the various physical media (such as Ethernet, token ring, and WLAN).
The LLC sublayer is primarily concerned with:
Multiplexing protocols transmitted over the MAC
layer (when transmitting) and demultiplexing them
(when receiving).
Optionally providing ow control and detection and
retransmission of dropped packets, if requested.

The MAC sub-layer acts as an interface between the Logical Link Control sublayer and the networks physical
The protocol used in IEEE 802 networks and in some
layer.
The MAC layer provides an addressing mechanism called non-IEEE 802 networks such as FDDI for LLC is speciphysical address or MAC address. This is a unique se- ed by the IEEE 802.2 standard.
rial number assigned to each network adapter, making it Some non-IEEE 802 protocols can be thought of as bepossible to deliver data packets to a destination within a ing split into MAC and LLC layers. For example, while

3
HDLC species both MAC functions (framing of packets) and LLC functions (protocol multiplexing, ow control, and detection and retransmission of dropped packets), some protocols such as Cisco HDLC can use HDLClike packet framing and their own LLC protocol.
An LLC header tells the Data Link layer what to do with a
packet once a frame is received. It works like this: A host
will receive a frame and look in the LLC header to nd
out where the packet is destined for - say, the IP protocol
at the Network layer or IPX.

References

External links

7 TEXT AND IMAGE SOURCES, CONTRIBUTORS, AND LICENSES

Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses

7.1

Text

CCNA Certication/Data Link Layer Source: https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/CCNA_Certification/Data_Link_Layer?oldid=2657849

Contributors: Kgrr, Recent Runes, QuiteUnusual and Anonymous: 2

7.2

Images

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7.3

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