6-6 Reference GuideSoft seeding: When a router that uses soft seeding is turned on orreset, it requests network number and zone name information fromany existing routers on the networks it will serve. If no other routersreply, the router uses the network numbers and zone namesspecified in its own configuration. If other routers reply, the routeruses the information they provide, regardless of whether or notthere are conflicts between the information received and itsconfigured information. Once the soft seeding router begins toroute, it can serve as a seed router, providing network number andzone name information to other routers upon request. The defaultstate of the Netopia Router’s AppleTalk ports is soft seeding.Non-seeding: When a router that uses non-seeding is turned on orreset, it requests network number and zone name information fromany existing routers on the networks it will serve. For any networkwhere no other routers reply, the non-seeding router will not haveany active ports until the next reset.You should set the Netopia Router’s seeding action to work best inyour particular network environment. These scenarios may guideyou in deciding how to set the router’s seeding:n If the Netopia Router is the only router on your network, youmust set it to either hard seeding or soft seeding. The defaultis soft seeding.n If there is another active router on your network, and you wantthat router to configure the Netopia Router’s EtherTalk orLocalTalk parameters, you can set the Netopia Router tonon-seeding.n If there is another active router on your network, you could setthe Netopia Router to be soft seeding if you are unsure that thesecond router would always be available to configure theNetopia Router’s EtherTalk or LocalTalk parameters.n If you want the Netopia Router to configure the EtherTalk orLocalTalk parameters of other routers on your network, youmust set it to hard seeding. In this case, the other routers mustbe soft seeding or non-seeding, and the Netopia Router mustalready be active when those other routers are rebooted.
