Configuring frame relay switch on a Cisco Packet Tracer.

1. Setup the topology as show by simply dragging the devices.

                     







2. Double click on R1 and then switch off the power button as show in the diagram. This will enable you to add an interface card module to the router. Notice that all the interface slots are empty.

3. Drag a WIC-2T interface card to slot zero of the router.

4. Turn on the router by clicking on the power button. It will turn green. Repeat these steps for the other routers as well.

Configuring the Cloud for Frame-relay point-to-point networks.

1. Double click on the cloud icon. A window like this will open.

2. Click on the Config tab. A window like this will open. To configure the cloud as a frame-relay switch, all we are interested are the serials of the cloud that connect our routers and the Frame Relay tab, where we do the sublinks.

The topology shows that R1, R2 and R3 are using their serial 0/0/0 interfaces to connect to the cloud serial 1, 2 and 3 interfaces respectively.

The cloud, our frame-relay switch is using DLCI 102 and 103 on its serial 0 which is connected to R1’s se0/0/0. It is using DLCI 201 and 301 on its serial 2 and 3 which are connected to R2’s se0/0/0 and R3’s se0/0/0 respectively as shown above. Notice that in our DLCI naming convention e.g. DLCI 102, the 1 refers to router 1 the 0 for the cloud 0 in case you using multiple clouds and 2 refer to the other router we wish to connect to. The DLCIs are locally significant. Notice also that the DCE end of the cable connect to the frame-relay switch end.

3. Click on serial 1 of the cloud interface and add the DLCIs 102 and 103 as shown below. Notice that for simplicity, you can use the DLCI number as the name for the DLC

4. Click on serial 2 of the cloud interface and add DLCI 201.

5. Click on serial 3 of the cloud interface and add DLCI 301.

At this point all that we have done was putting DLCIs to our frame-relay switch. This is not enough to make the cloud a frame-relay switch. If you imagine that these DLCIs for our PVCs are like pipes that carry data, then you will soon realise that, if we want to carry data across the frame-relay switch, then we need to join the pipes. This is done in packet tracer by making sublinks.

6. Let us say that now we want to connect
R1 DLCI 102 to R2 DLC 201
R1 DLCI 103 to R3 DLCI 301.
Also note that the connections are bidirectional. Click on the Frame Relay tab and do the sublinks.

With this our frame-relay switch is good to go!! Let us test it by running OSPF on it.
R1
==
conf t
int ser 0/0/0
encapsulation frame-relay
no shut
exit
int ser 0/0/0.102 point-to-point
ip add 192.168.12.1 255.255.255.252
frame-relay interface-dlci 102
exit
int ser 0/0/0.103 point-to-point
ip add 192.168.13.1 255.255.255.252
frame-relay interface-dlci 103
exit
interface loop 0
ip add 1.1.1.1.1 255.255.255.255
exit
router ospf 1
network 0.0.0.0 255.255.255.255 area 0
================
R2
==
int ser 0/0/0
encapsulation frame-relay
no shut
exit
int ser 0/0/0.201 point-to-point
ip add 192.168.12.2 255.255.255.252
frame-relay interface-dlci 201
exit
interface loop 0
ip add 2.2.2.2 255.255.255.255
exit
router ospf 1
network 0.0.0.0 255.255.255.255 area 0
=========================
R3
==
int ser 0/0/0
encapsulation frame-relay
no shut
exit
int ser 0/0/0.301 point-to-point
ip add 192.168.13.2 255.255.255.252
frame-relay interface-dlci 301
exit
interface loop 0
ip add 3.3.3.3 255.255.255.255
exit
router ospf 1
network 0.0.0.0 255.255.255.255 area 0

Testing with show commands and ping