Supervising the Network

7-11
Maintaining the NetWare Server
About NetWare Networking Protocols
About NetWare Networking Protocols
The following information provides an overview of IPX and NetWare
protocols. If you are familiar with IPX and you now want to configure IPX
from the server console, skip to chapter 1 in the NetWare 4.1/9000
Installation and Administration Guide.
NetWare Protocol Overview
The IPX protocol is the main protocol used to transfer data from your HP-
UX system to a NetWare server.
This section provides a description of the protocols that make client-server
communications possible on NetWare networks. It explains packet
structures defined by each protocol. It also describes how workstations,
routers, and file servers transmit or receive packets.
If you plan to configure NetWare at the HP-UX server console, you need a
basic understanding of the NetWare protocols.
Most computer networks require information that is transferred between two
nodes (workstations or servers) to be broken up into blocks, called packets.
Sending information with packets makes a transfer between nodes and any
intermediate nodes (bridges or routers) more manageable. In addition, each
packet contains control information used for error checking, addressing, and
other purposes. The protocols used on the network define the content of this
control information.
In most cases, multiple protocols exist within a packet; each protocol defines
a different portion of the control information for the packet, and the control
information for each protocol serves a different purpose. When multiple
protocols are used, the control information for the highest level protocol is
first placed around the data, then the control information for each subsequent
protocol in the protocol stack is added to the beginning or end of the packet.
This is called enveloping.
To standardize the definition of protocols, several standards organizations
were formed by governments and corporations. One of these groups, the
International Standards Organization (ISO), has developed a model called