Cabletron Systems CyberSWITCH CSX150 User Manual

Also see for CyberSWITCH CSX150: User guide Quick start guide

Contents

Small Office Remote Access Switch 259CONFIGURING IPXIPX Network InterfacesIPX NETWORK I NTERFACE BACKGROUND I NFORMATIONTraditional routing products ask you to define the network interfaces to which the router is directlyconnected:LAN I NTERFACESLAN network interfaces are fixed broadcast media type interfaces. These interfaces are assigned aspecific network number and all devices on that LAN must agree on the IPX network number usedon the LAN segment. The LAN network interface is a regular IPX interface used to connect thesystem to the LAN. The Ethernet frame types supported under the IPX protocol include:• Novell 802.3. This is the Novell default frame format for NetWare 2.x and 3.x servers.• Novell SNAP. The DSAP and SSAP values indicate SNAP encapsulation.• Ethernet 802.2. The Novell default frame format with NetWare 4.x software for CSMA/CD isEthernet 802.2. The DSAP and SSAP values indicate that the frame contains an IPX packet.• Novell Ethernet II. Ethernet protocol id field indicates that the frame contains an IPX packet.WAN INTERFACESThe CyberSWITCH connects IPX router devices over ISDN and other digital WAN links. Routersoperate at the network protocol layer and understand the logical topology of the IPX intranet.The CyberSWITCH uses the NetWare Routing Information Protocol (RIP) to transmit its routinginformation on the network. This protocol periodically broadcasts routing table updates on thenetwork. A dynamically learned entry is aged out of the system’s routing table if the route entry isnot verified by the periodic RIP broadcasts.In a similar manner, the system uses the NetWare Service Advertisement Protocol (SAP) totransmit its service table information on the network.The system supports the standard NetWare RIP and SAP protocols as described in the Novell’sdocument, “IPX Routing Specification.”REMOTE LAN INTERFACESCyberSWITCH uses a Remote LAN interface to connect remote bridge devices to other IPX routernetwork interfaces. The IPX router treats all bridge devices connected to the Remote LAN as if theywere on an Ethernet LAN segment. That is, the system emulates an Ethernet medium over theseries of ISDN point-to-point connections. The IPX router encapsulates IPX data for the RemoteLAN interface in Ethernet packets and forwards the data to the remote bridges.If the remote LAN only has NetWare clients connected to it, these clients will assume the IPXnetwork number assigned to the Remote LAN interface. For these “simple” remote networks, it isnot required to configure an IPX network number for the remote bridge device. When the bridgeconnects, it looks for the first configured IPX Remote LAN interface, and uses it as a default.Currently, we do not support a remote LAN with both NetWare servers and clients connected to it.