Data link layer

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OSI Model
7 Application layer
6 Presentation layer
5 Session layer
4 Transport layer
3 Network layer
2 Data link layer
1 Physical layer

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

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.

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 needs to be able to talk to Bob to get a message to Fred or James.

The data link provides data transfer across the physical link. That transfer might or might not be reliable; many data link protocols do not have acknowledgments of successful 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, higher-level protocols must provide flow control, error checking, and acknowledgments and retransmission.

In some networks, such as IEEE 802 local area networks, the data link layer is split into MAC and LLC sublayers; this means that the IEEE 802.2 LLC protocol can be used with all of the IEEE 802 MAC layers, such as Ethernet, token ring, IEEE 802.11, etc., as well as with some non-802 MAC layers such as FDDI. Other data link layer protocols, such as HDLC, are specified to include both sublayers, although some other protocols, such as Cisco HDLC, use HDLC's low-level framing as a MAC layer in combination with a different LLC layer.

The five-layer TCP/IP model
5. Application layer

DHCP · DNS · FTP · Gopher · HTTP · IMAP4 · IRC · NNTP · XMPP · POP3 · RTP · SIP · SMTP · SNMP · SSH · TELNET · RPC · RTCP · RTSP · TLS (and SSL) · SDP · SOAP · GTP · STUN · NTP · BGP · (more)
4. Transport layer
TCP · UDP · DCCP · SCTP · RSVP · ECN · (more)
3. Network/internet layer
IP (IPv4 · IPv6) · OSPF · IS-IS · IPsec · ARP · RARP · RIP · ICMP · ICMPv6 · IGMP · (more)
2. Data link layer
802.11 (WLAN) · 802.16 · Wi-Fi · WiMAX · ATM · DTM · Token ring · Ethernet · FDDI · Frame Relay · GPRS · EVDO · HSPA · HDLC · PPP · PPTP · L2TP · ISDN · ARCnet · LLTD · (more)
1. Physical layer
Ethernet physical layer · RS-232 · SONET/SDH · G.709 · Optical fiber · Coaxial cable · Twisted pair · (more)
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Contents

[edit] Connection-oriented communication

Connection-oriented protocols

[edit] Connectionless communication

Connectionless mode transmission

[edit] Logical Link Control Sublayer

The uppermost sublayer is Logical Link Control (LLC). This sublayer multiplexes protocols running atop the data link layer, and optionally provides flow control, acknowledgment, and error recovery. The LLC provides addressing and control of the data link. It specifies which mechanisms are to be used for addressing stations over the transmission medium and for controlling the data exchanged between the originator and recipient machines.

[edit] Media Access Control Sublayer

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:

  • 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 off and begin a long and elaborate game of saying "no, you first".

The Media Access Control sublayer also determines where one frame of data ends and the next one starts. There are four means of doing that: a time based, character counting, byte stuffing and bit stuffing.

The time based approach simply puts a specified amount of time between frames. The major drawback of this is that new gaps can be introduced or old gaps can be lost due to external influences. Character counting simply notes the count of remaining characters in the frame's header. This method, however, is easily disturbed if this field gets faulty in some way, thus making it hard to keep up synchronisation. Byte stuffing precedes the frame with a special byte sequence such as DLE STX and succeeds it with DLE ETX. Appearances of DLE (so every byte that starts with 0x10) has to be escaped with another DLE. Bit stuffing replaces these start and end marks with a count of special bits. E.g. inserting a 0 if there are 5 consecutive 1s in the data stream. This makes for arbitrary long frames and easy synchronisation for the recipient.

In a snail-mail network, each letter is one frame of data, and one can tell where it begins and ends because it is inside an envelope. One might also specify that a letter will begin with a phrase like "Dear Sir", and ends with a phrase like "Yours faithfully".

[edit] List of Data link layer services

[edit] Examples

[edit] Interfaces

The data link layer is often implemented in software as a "network card driver". The operating system will have a defined software interface between the data link and the network transport stack above. This interface is not a layer itself, but rather a definition for interfacing between layers. Examples include:

  • ODI
  • NDIS
  • SANA II - Standard Amiga Networking Architecture, version 2