IPX Configuration Decisions

How you configure IPX beyond its most basic configuration depends on the following decisions:

• Whether to turn off IPX packet forwarding or to use the system as an IPX router

  The routing software enables you to turn off IPX packet forwarding on a NetWare^® file server. This is useful when you have more than one NetWare system connecting two or more LANs and you want to free one of the systems from the task of forwarding---that is, routing ---IPX packets between the LANs.

  To turn off IPX packet forwarding, refer to Turning Off IPX Packet Forwarding.

• If you have WAN connections, whether to configure any of the following:

  • Static routes and services
  • Watchdog packet spoofing
  • Routed or static on-demand calls
  • IPX and NetWare Core Protocol^TM (NCP^TM) header compression

  How you configure a WAN connection for IPX depends on how you want to use the connection and whether you use IPX with PPP, X.25, frame relay, or asynchronous transfer mode (ATM).

  NOTE:  Before you can configure IPX to run over a WAN connection, you must configure the WAN board, a network interface, and at least one WAN call destination.

  To configure static routes and services for a permanent or on-demand call, refer to Configuring Static Routes and Services.

  To configure watchdog packet spoofing, refer to Configuring Watchdog Spoofing.

  To configure routed or static on-demand calls, refer to Configuring Routed or Static On-Demand Calls.

  To configure header compression, refer to Configuring IPX and NCP Header Compression.

• Whether to use NLSP, RIP/SAP, or both

  NetWare Link Services Protocol^TM (NLSP^TM ) software is the Novell link state routing protocol for IPX internetworks; Routing Information Protocol (RIP) and Service Advertising Protocol (SAP) are the traditional NetWare routing and service advertising protocols.

  To configure NLSP on your router, refer to Configuring NLSP.

  To configure RIP and SAP on your router, refer to Configuring RIP and SAP.

• Whether to configure file server proxying on a dedicated router

  File server proxying is useful when you have a dedicated router---a PC running Novell Internet Access Server 4.1 over a two-user version of NetWare 4.11---and several NetWare workstations operating on the same network. Proxying enables the dedicated router to reply to workstations' Get Nearest Server requests with the name of a NetWare file server instead of its own. This enables the server, which has multiple connection slots, to handle simultaneous NCP connection requests from the workstations.

  To configure file server proxying, refer to Proxying a NetWare File Server.

• Whether to use the IPX Address Mapping Gateway

  The IPX Address Mapping Gateway provides the following advantages:

  • You can connect to a backbone network even when your local network numbers are not compatible with the backbone addressing scheme.
  • If the routing protocol in the backbone does not support route aggregation, like most implementations of NLSP, the routing protocol probably cannot manage the number of network addresses from every user. Even if the routing protocol could handle route aggregation, network numbers might be assigned in a way that does not lend itself to aggregation. The IPX Address Mapping Gateway enables the summarization of routes in a manner transparent to the routing protocol by mapping many network numbers to a single number outside the local network.

  To use the IPX Address Mapping Gateway, refer to Configuring the IPX Address Mapping Gateway.

• Whether to use IPX Route Aggregation

  IPX Route Aggregation allows your router to compactly report many IPX networks to a connecting backbone network. IPX Route Aggregation is most useful when several RIP networks are attached to an NLSP backbone network. Information in the backbone network is minimized by having the routers that connect to RIP networks report address summaries for these networks.

  To use IPX Route Aggregation, refer to Configuring IPX Route Aggregation.

• Whether to change how your router propagates type 20 packets

  Type 20 is an IPX packet type that refers to any propagated packet. NetBIOS packets, for example, are type 20 packets. If your router processes a large number of type 20 packets, you can control how it propagates these packets through its interfaces. This can reduce the amount of traffic on a LAN.

  To change how your router propagates type 20 packets, refer to Controlling the Propagation of Type 20 Packets.

• Whether to change the hop count limit of outbound IPX packets

  This enables you to control the range of outbound IPX packets on your router.

  To control the range of IPX packets, refer to Changing the Hop Count Limit for IPX Packets.

• Whether to balance traffic loads over equal-cost routes

  If your router has two or more network interfaces that can reach the same destination, it can distribute outbound traffic among those interfaces for an effective increase in throughput. This is called load balancing .

  To configure load balancing over equal-cost routes, refer to Balancing Traffic Loads over Equal-Cost Routes.

• Whether to configure SPX connection parameters

  Some NetWare applications have specific requirements for Sequenced Packet Exchange^TM (SPX^TM) connection timeouts, retry counts, and so on. If any of these applications are used on your network, you might need to configure certain SPX parameters to enable these applications to run properly.

  To configure any of these parameters, refer to Configuring SPX Connection Parameters.

• Whether to change the delay and throughput values on your router

  This section explains how to set the delay and throughput values on a router to avoid connection timeouts over a slow link. This is often necessary for routers on LANs or bridged network segments that are separated by slow links.

  To change the delay and throughput values, refer to Setting Delay and Throughput for a Slow Link.