A communication management apparatus that manages transmission of data in a network in which plural communication nodes are connected via a transmission line in a ring shape, the apparatus including: a network-presence checking unit that transmits a network-presence-check frame in broadcast and generates network connection information indicating a connection state among the connection nodes from a received network-presence-check acknowledge frame, a token-circulation-order determining unit that determines token circulation order; a setup processing unit that performs setup processing for notifying each of the communication nodes of a token circulation destination; a data-frame-communication processing unit that performs transmission and reception of a data frame using a token frame; and a line-connection managing unit that disables, when the network has a ring configuration, any one of ports of any one of the communication nodes to prevent a connection state of the network from becoming a ring shape.