When teaching the H3CNE class, one of the questions is about the compatibility of the HDLC encapsulation of H3C router with Cisco router. As Cisco HDLC is well known to be a propriety implementation, while H3C doesn’t state clearly about its implementation.
So what’s the answer? Maybe you want to try it out by yourself. You don’t need to have the actual device, you can use the H3C simulator (LITO) and Cisco simulator (GNS3) to test it out. If you don’t know where to download it, please visit my other Blog entry.
Now, how to emulate the serial connection between GNS3 and LITO, as both of them support the using of UDP session to emulate the serial connection, however the underlying implementation is different, so you can’t directly connect them together. Instead you can use the UBridge tool to bridge them. Following diagram illustrates the connection.
You need to create 2 different UDP sessions: one session between the Cisco Router to the UDP Bridge, the other between the H3C Router to the UDP Bridge.
So you require2 pairs of UDP port numbers, e.g. Cisco serial interface use 2012, UBridge to Cisco use 5212, H3C interface use 3012, UBridge to H3C use 5312.
LITO configuration under the “hardcfg.tcl”:
AddSerial -slot 1 -local 127.0.0.1 -lport 3012 -dest 10.1.1.2 -dport 5312
GNS3 configuration (please consult the GNS document): udp:"2011:10.1.1.2:5211"
While for the UBridge, you need to create 2 legs and put them into a group, you can choose any group number. E.g. group 3. Now you can start the UBridge as follows:
c:\iptools>ubdg 3#C:S@5212:127.0.0.1:2012 3#H:S@5312:127.0.0.1:3012
In the H3C router console, configure the serial link use hdlc encapsulation. E.g.:
[R1]interface Serial0/1/2
[R1-Serial0/1/2]link-protocol hdlc
In the Cisco end, just “no shutdown” the interface, (as Cisco by default use) . then both H3C and Cisco’s interface will become up.
Now, you get the answer.
