Appendices | 281 |
|
|
Static Routes & Routing Protocols
In addition to the three required values, you must also decide whether to use an IP routing protocol. Routing protocols are how routers tell each other about networks they are responsible for. Virtually all routers support the IP Routing Information Protocol (RIP).
There are also a variety of other routing protocols which have been devel- oped, some proprietary and some open. A router which is using one of these other protocols can always accept routes using RIP and then supply informa- tion about them using the other protocol.
If you choose not to use RIP, or other routers on your network are not broad- casting routing information, you may need to set a default router or define some static routes.
The default router is the place where your router will send any packets addressed to IP networks that it does not know about. With RIP turned off, it will only know about statically configured routes. For very simple IP connec- tions, such as a small network being connected out to the Internet through an ISP, a default route is probably the only routing information needed by your router.
A default router provides a generic location for packets to be sent to, while static routes are more detailed definitions where you specify the route for certain networks, and a “metric” which defines how attractive the route should be considered.
When specifying default routes, you must provide a mask value (as discussed earlier) which tells the router how much of the address you are entering the route for should be considered as the network portion.
IPX 101
ϖNote: This is a very brief introduction to IPX networking. For more
IPX Routing Basics
All routable protocols work by dividing the physical devices on a network into logical groups. A logical group will typically consist of all of the machines on a physical network segment (such as an Ethernet segment).
