Cisco Frame Relay LMI

[ciscodaze]

Originally Posted by bibekdeep

I have looked for this all over Google and many web pages...

Can someone explain to me what Cisco Frame Relay LMI is used for?

Local Management Interface (LMI) is used between your side (DTE) and the frame relay providers side (DCE). Everything related to LMI happens between those two points.

Basically the provider, the DCE side, will give you all the info you need to know about which DLCIs and VCs exist, and what their status is.

Also, LMI also acts as a keepalive mechanism.

You have to have the LMI types the same on both ends or there will be no messaging and no frame relay happening. The 3 types are ANSI, CISCO and ITU (or q933a). Unless you are using a really old device you dont need to worry about changing it. [ed. beginning with ios 11.2 cisco uses autodetect for the LMI type, so you dont need to configure it, it gets it type info from the frame relay provider]. I think the chances that your IOS version is 11.2 or older is pretty slim!

The two key LMI commands are:
sh frame lmi
debug frame lmi