Frame classes

While studying for the CWNA and CWAP, you learn about the 802.11 State Machine. This describes the states of client connectivity during a session.

In the provided schematic there are three Frame classes mentioned.

 

Below an overview of these frame classes.

Class 1
  • Control frames
    • Acknowledgement (ACK)
    • CF-End
    • Clear to send (CTS)
    • Contention-Free (CF)-End+ACK
    • Request to send (RTS)
  • Management frames
    • Announcement Traffic Indication Message (ATIM)
    • Authentication
    • Beacon
    • Deauthentication
    • Probe Request / Response
    • Spectrum Management Action. Only applicable in an IBSS.
  • Data frames
    • Between stations in an IBSS
Class 2
  • Management
    • Association Request/ Response
    • Disassociation
    • Reassociation Request / Response
Class 3
  • Management
    • Block Ack Action
    • Direct Link Setup (DLS)
    • Quality of Service (QoS)
  • Control
    • Action. Only applicable in an infrastructure BSS.
    • Block Ack (BlockAck)
    • Block Ack Request (BlockAckReq)
    • Power Save (PS)-Poll
  • Data