Enterasys Networks CSX6000 - Manual (Page 324)

USER’S GUIDE
324 CyberSWITCH
IPX O PTION B ACKGROUND I NFORMATION
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 I NTERNAL N ETWORK N UMBER
C ONFIGURING THE IPX I NTERNAL N ETWORK N UMBER
U SING 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.
U SING M ANAGE M ODE C OMMANDS
ipxinet
Allows you to enter the hexadecimal internal network number for the IPX router.
IPX I NTERNAL N ETWORK N UMBER C ONFIGURATION E LEMENT
IPX I NTERNAL N ETWORK N UMBER
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).