HDLC High Level Data link Control

HDLC High Level Data link Control
 


High Level Link Control (HDLC) Protocol
The HDLC protocol is a general purpose protocol which operates at the data link layer of the OSI reference model. The protocol uses the services of a physical layer, and provides either a best effort or reliable communications path between the transmitter and receiver (i.e. with acknowledged data transfer). The type of service provided depends upon the HDLC mode which is used.

Each piece of data is encapsulated in an HDLC frame by adding a trailer and a header. The header contains an HDLC address and an HDLC control field. The trailer is found at the end of the frame, and contains a Cyclic Redundancy Check (CRC) which detects any errors which may occur during transmission. The frames are separated by HDLC flag sequences which are transmitted between each frame and whenever there is no data to be transmitted.    

It is a transmission protocol used at the data link layer (layer 2) of the OSI seven layer model for data communications. The HDLC protocol embeds information in a data frame that allows devices to control data flow and correct errors. HDLC is an ISO standard developed from the Synchronous Data Link Control (SDLC) standard proposed by IBM in the 1970's.

For any HDLC communications session, one station is designated primary and the other secondary. A session can use one of the following connection modes, which determine how the primary and secondary stations interact.

  • Normal unbalanced: The secondary station responds only to the primary station.
  • Asynchronous: The secondary station can initiate a message.
  • Asynchronous balanced: Both stations send and receive over its part of a duplex line. This mode is used for X.25 packet-switching networks.

There are three fundamental types of HDLC frames.

  • Information frames, or I-frames, transport user data from the network layer. In addition they can also include flow and error control information piggybacked on data.
  • Supervisory Frames, or S-frames, are used for flow and error control whenever piggybacking is impossible or inappropriate, such as when a station does not have data to send. S-frames do not have information fields.
  • Unnumbered frames, or U-frames, are used for various miscellaneous purposes, including link management. Some U-frames contain an information field, depending on the type.
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