Cabletron Systems SmartSwitch manual Chapter IPX Routing Configuration Guide, IPX Routing Overview

Chapter 16

IPX Routing

Configuration

Guide

IPX Routing Overview

The Internetwork Packet Exchange (IPX) is a datagram connectionless protocol for the Novell NetWare environment. You can configure the SSR for IPX routing and SAP. Routers interconnect different network segments and by definitions are network layer devices. Thus routers receive their instructions for forwarding a packet from one segment to another from a network layer protocol. IPX, with the help of RIP and SAP, perform these Network Layer Task. These tasks include addressing, routing, and switching information packets from one location to another on the internetwork.

IPX defines internetwork and intranode addressing schemes. IPX internetwork addressing is based on network numbers assigned to each network segment on a Novell NetWare internetwork. The IPX intranode address comes in the form of socket numbers. Because several processes are normally operating within a node, socket numbers provide a way for each process to distinguish itself.

The IPX packet consists of two parts: a 30-byte header and a data portion. The network node and socket addresses for both the destination and source are held within the IPX header.

RIP (Routing Information Protocol)

IPX routers use RIP to create and dynamically maintain a database of internetwork routing information. RIP allows a router to exchange routing information with a neighboring router. As a router becomes aware of any change in the internetwork layout,

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