This application may be applied to the field of wireless communication technologies, and provides an RLF recovery method for an IAB network. The method includes: A first IAB node sets up an RRC connection to a target IAB donor by performing RLF recovery. After that a first IAB node sets up an RRC connection to a target IAB donor by performing RLF recovery, the first IAB node sends a first message to a second node by using an SRB 1 or an SRB 2, or the first IAB node sends a BH RLF indication to the second node. Before that a first IAB node sets up an RRC connection to a target IAB donor by performing RLF recovery, the second node is connected to a source IAB donor through the first IAB node. In this application, the second node may be triggered to set up an RRC connection to the target IAB donor based on the first message or the BH RLF indication. In this way, the connection between the second node and the target IAB donor can be recovered as soon as possible, so that network connection reliability is improved.