DLSW and passthru

From: Bob Nelson (nelsnjr@cox.net)
Date: Tue May 17 2005 - 22:38:02 GMT-3


All:

I have searched the archives on this site and still do not have a good
handle on this issue. Can someone clarify this?

What I have researched:

1. TCP and LLC2 encapsulation have local acknowledgement and reliable
transport
2. FST and Direct do not have either local acknowledgement or reliable
transport.
         Sources: Solie - CCIE Practical Studies Vol 1 page 898 - Cisco
DLSw+ Design and Implementation Guide - pages 12-14

Statements in documentation that confuse me:
    Cisco IOS Bridging and IBM Networking Guide page BC-291 (under the
Direct configuration heading)
          dlsw remote-peer 0 frame-relay interface serial 0/1 pass-thru
         "Specifying the pass-thru option configures the router so that the
traffic will not be locally acknowledged
         (DLSw+ normally locally acknowledges traffic to keep traffic on the
WAN to a minimum)"

    Question 1 - Why do we need the pass-thru option here since by default
Direct encapsulation does not
     perform local acknowledgement. (see #2 above)

    Cisco DLSw+ Design and Implementation Guide - pages 12-14 (Advanced
Configuration Section)
        dlsw remote-peer 0 frame-relay interface serial 01 33 pass-thru
        int s1
        frame-relay map dlsw 33
        "In this example, data-link connection identifier (DLCI) 33 on
serial interface 1 will be used to transport DLSw+ traffic.
        Specifying pass-thru implies that the traffic is not locally
acknowledged. Leaving pass-thru off will cause the
        traffic to be locally acknowledged, which means it is transported in
LLC2 to ensure reliable delivery."

    Question 2 - Again, why specify pass-thru when Direct encapsulation does
not do local acknowledgment anyway?
    Additionally, how can leaving pass-through off magically make this
configuration transport packets using LLC2
    without changing the frame-relay map statement from dlsw to frame-relay
map llc2 33?

    A CCIE bootcamp student manual
        dlsw remote-peer 0 frame-relay interface 0/1 201 pass-thru
        "The pass-thru option can be added to other remote-peer methods as
well.
        This will prevent the local acknowledgements and keepalives from
going across the WAN"

Question 3 - My understanding of the pass-thru is that this will not perform
local acknowledgement and
will pass both the acknowledgements and keepalives end-to-end. Is this what
pass-thru actually does or
does it prevent local acknowledgements? Additionally, why do we need this
if according to Cisco, Direct
encapsulation does not support local acknowledgements and keepalives are
end-to-end.

Thanks,

Bob



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