If you have a number of IPX segments that you wish to internetwork you need the services of a router. In the Novell environment there are two pieces of information which are necessary to be propogated around the network. They are the network routing information propogated using Novell RIP, and the service advertisement information propogated using Novell SAP. Any router must support both of these protocols to be useful in most situations.
Linux has support for both of these protocols and can be fairly easily made to function as a fully Novell compliant router.
The Linux kernel IPX support actually manages the IPX packet forwarding across interfaces, but it does this according to the rules coded into the IPX routing table. Linux needs a program to implement Novell RIP to ensure that the IPX routing table is built correctly and updated periodically to reflect changes in the network status. The lwared package described in the "NCP Server" section later includes software that implements a Novell RIP daemon and a Novell SAP daemon. Alternatively there may be standalone daemon programs available from your nearest Linux ftp site.
Configuring your Linux machine to act as a router is very straightforward. The steps you must take are:
/proc
support.Consider the following simple network:
IPX Addr: 0x01000000 802.2 |--------------------------| | \_________________________ \ Linux Router IPX Addr: 0x02000000 802.2 \ |--------------------------| \ eth0/-----------\ | \--====| | \_________________________ | IPX route | \ eth1| Table | IPX Addr: 0x02000000 etherII \----====| ^ | |--------------------------| | | | | eth2| IPXd | \______________________________/====| | | SAPd | IPX Addr: 0x02000000 etherII eth3| | |--------------------------| /====| | | | \___________/ \______________________________/
The configuration for the above network would look like:
# ipx_interface add eth0 802.2 0x0100000000
# ipx_interface add eth0 802.2 0x0200000000
# ipx_interface add eth0 etherii 0x0300000000
# ipx_interface add eth0 etherii 0x0400000000
# ipxripd
# ipxsapd
You should then wait a moment or two and check your
/proc/net/ipx_route
file and you should see it populated with
the IPX routes relevant to your configuration and any learned from any other
routers in the network.
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