Enterasys Networks CSX5500 manual IPX Internal Network Number, IPX Option Background Information

USER’S GUIDE

IPX OPTION BACKGROUND INFORMATION

The Internetwork Packet Exchange (IPX) protocol is a datagram, connectionless protocol in the NetWare environment analogous to the Internet Protocol (IP) in the TCP/IP environment. With the help of Routing Information Protocol (RIP) and Service Advertising Protocol (SAP), the IPX router performs the network layer tasks of addressing, routing and switching information packets, to move packets from one location to another in a complex network.

The CyberSWITCH supports the standard method of routing Novell® IPX datagrams over an internetwork. The system provides bandwidth management features to make the interconnection of IPX networks cost effective over demand type connections like ISDN. Additional security features provide data privacy for Novell networks connected by the system.

Over the last few years Novell has evolved their WAN IPX routing model. Originally the Novell IPX router supported numbered WAN network interfaces only. That is, a unique IPX network number was assigned to each WAN port on the router.

Novell then migrated to an unnumbered WAN network interface in their latest versions of their IPX router. When two routers communicate, they will try to use the unnumbered network interface type. If both routers support this type of interface they will agree on this and initiate data transfer. If one router does not support the unnumbered type, the newer router will defer to the older router and agree to use a numbered type interface. The new router will let the older router assign the network number for the WAN link.

IPX INTERNAL NETWORK NUMBER

CONFIGURING THE IPX INTERNAL NETWORK NUMBER

USING CFGEDIT

1.Press 2 at the IPX menu to configure the IPX internal network number.

2.As prompted, enter the hexadecimal internal network number for the IPX router (the CyberSWITCH). In our example, this is 12F8.

USING MANAGE MODE COMMANDS

ipxinet

Allows you to enter the hexadecimal internal network number for the IPX router.

IPX INTERNAL NETWORK NUMBER CONFIGURATION ELEMENT

IPX INTERNAL NETWORK NUMBER

This number uniquely identifies a specific IPX router in the internetwork. In the Novell environment, an IPX internal network number must be assigned to all IPX file servers, including IPX routers. This number is an arbitrary value, assigned when the IPX router is configured. It may be 1 to 8 hexadecimal digits in length (up to 4 bytes).

324 CyberSWITCH