Installing and Administering LAN/9000 Software

Chapter 6 125

Network Addressing

Networking Terminology

Following are descriptions of important networking terms.

Nodes

A node is a computer on the network. Local node (or host) refers to the

computer or host to which your terminal is physically attached. A

remote node is a computer on the network with which your local node

can communicate. A remote node does not have to be directly attached to

your terminal.

Routes and Protocols

A route is the sequence of network nodes through which messages

travel when sent from a source node to a destination node.

A protocol is a set of rules for a particular communication task. A

protocol handler or protocol module is a piece of software that

implements a particular protocol.

Network Interface Name

A network interface is a communication path through which messages

can be sent and received. A hardware network interface has a hardware

device associated with it, such as an Ethernet, Fibre Channel, ATM,

Token Ring, or FDDI card. A software network interface does not include

a hardware device, (for example, the loopback interface). An IP address

is associated with an interface name. The interface name(s) for a

hardware network interface can be found by running the lanscan

command and looking at the “Net-Interface Name PPA” ﬁeld.

For Ethernet cards, you can choose either Ethernet encapsulation by

specifying lan when conﬁguring the interface, or IEEE 802.3

encapsulation by specifying snap when conﬁguring the interface.

The interface name may include a colon (:), followed by a number that

denotes the logical interface number. The number 0 is the ﬁrst logical

interface number for a card/encapsulation type and is known as the

initial interface. The interface name lan0 is equivalent to lan0:0, lan1 is

equivalent to lan1:0, and so on.