8-2 CHAPTER 8: ADMINISTERING IPX ROUTING
Administering
Interfaces
You define interfaces to establish the relationship between the ports on
your EFSMs and the network in your IPX network. You must define one
interface for each group of ports that are connected to the same
network. This means that every EFSM has one interface defined for each
network to which it is directly connected.
An IPX interface has the following information associated with it:
■IPX Network Address
This is a 4-byte address set by the network administrator. Each address
within the network should be unique.
■Cost
This is the number between one and fifteen that is used when calculat-
ing route metrics. Unless your network has special requirements, such
as the need for redundant paths, you should assign a cost of 1 to all
interfaces.
■Encapsulation Format
There are four Ethernet encapsulation formats and two FDDI
encapsulation formats used in IPX routing. The Ethernet encapsulation
formats are Ethernet Type II, Novell 802.3 raw, 802.2 LLC, and 802.3
SNAP. The FDDI encapsulation formats are FDDI 802.2 and FDDI SNAP.
The two FDDI encapsulation formats correspond to the Ethernet 802.2
LLC and 802.3 SNAP encapsulation formats. If you select either of these
Ethernet encapsulation formats, the corresponding FDDI encapsulation
format is automatically selected for shared Ethernet and FDDI ports.
■Ports
A single interface may contain several bridge ports. All of the ports
corresponding to one interface share the same IPX address, cost, and
encapsulation format. An EFSM contains a maximum of eighteen ports:
two FDDI and sixteen Ethernet. The port indices for the maximum
configuration are the following: 1,2 = FDDI; 3 – 18 = Ethernet.
You do not have to include every EFSM port in an interface (that is,
some ports may remain unassigned). Packets will be bridged to and
from unassigned ports. However, IPX packets will not be forwarded to
ports that are not assigned to an IPX interface.