Adit 600 ipds0 Management Configuration

The Adit 600 channel bank (aka Cactus LITE and some other names, but they are all the same) supports management access via frame relay over a single DS0. This interface has the very practical name of "ipds0", and is what facilitates this. This can be used in conjunction with the dedicated Ethernet management interface or on its own. In my "home lab" I prefer the latter since it eliminates a cable and consumption of an Ethernet switch port.

Configuration of the ipds0 interface is not clearly documented, so below is an example of configuring the interface with a Cisco ISR on the other end. I initially could not figure out how to set this up. Fortunately my friend joe_z eventually did, so he deserves initial credit.

The bit I was missing was that the Adit uses DLCI 16 on the frame relay side of this interface.

Before we get started, a quick note for anyone who is using a Quad T1 card. You can only assign ipds0 to DS0's on the controller T1's (A:1 or A:2). For most people this likely doesn't matter, but for me this is important since I am one of the Quad T1 users.

Below makes the following assumptions:

• the Adit T1 A:1 is connected to T1 0/3/0 on the Cisco ISR
• the first DS0 on the span will be used for management
• 172.27.127.4/30 is the subnet used for management
• some form of routing between the ISR and the rest of the network is already in place
• basic understanding of T1 fundamentals like line build out and clock sources
• basic understanding of IP routing

You will want to substitute the assumed values with what will be used in your environment.

Configuration on the Adit:

! Configure DS0 A:1:1 for data
set a:1:1 type data
! Configure the ipds0 interface
set ipds0 assign a:1:1
set ipds0 ip address 172.27.127.6 255.255.255.252
set ipds0 up

Running "show ipds0" should look as follows:

Administrative state:  UP
DS0 Selected:          a:1:1     
IP Address and Mask:   172.27.127.6   255.255.255.252
Alarm Reporting:       On

Running "show connect a:1:1" should look as follows:

    From            Desc                    Desc            To      Comment
 -----------  ------------------      -----------------  ---------- --------
 A:01:01            DATA    DS0      BUNDLE              ds0mgtchan

Configuration on the ISR:

! Configure the controller
controller T1 0/3/0
 clock source internal
 cablelength short 110
 channel-group 0 timeslots 1
 description ADIT SPAN A:1

! Configure the serial interface
interface Serial0/3/0:0
 description ADIT IPDS0 MANAGEMENT
 ip address 172.27.172.5 255.255.255.252
 encapsulation frame-relay IETF
 no keepalive
 frame-relay map ip 172.27.127.6 16 IETF
 frame-relay interface-dlci 16

At this point, you should be able to ping the Adit side of the connection.

ISR#ping 172.27.127.6
Type escape sequence to abort.
Sending 5, 100-byte ICMP Echos to 172.27.127.6, timeout is 2 seconds:
!!!!!
Success rate is 100 percent (5/5), round-trip min/avg/max = 32/32/32 ms

You should also be able to telnet to the Adit!

ISR#telnet 172.27.127.6
Trying 172.27.127.6 ... Open

Telnet session



Turin Networks - Adit 600

07:13:21 11/28/2023

  Login:

If you do not have authentication enabled you will be dropped directly to the command prompt.

Something worth mentioning...if you run "status ipds0" on the Adit, it will report the operational state as DOWN. Do not let this fool you (I did).

You can now successfully manage your Adit over T1!