Date: Tue, 30 Jul 1996 17:18:46 -0400 From: "Louis A. Mamakos" <louie@TransSys.COM> To: Terry Lambert <terry@lambert.org> Cc: babkin@hq.icb.chel.su, jhay@mikom.csir.co.za, hackers@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: Ethernet-like loopback & IPX Message-ID: <199607302118.RAA03424@whizzo.transsys.com> In-Reply-To: Your message of "Tue, 30 Jul 1996 11:21:45 PDT." <199607301821.LAA00292@phaeton.artisoft.com> References: <199607301821.LAA00292@phaeton.artisoft.com>
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I said: > > Sure, it's true that the current drivers do not allow the MAC address > > to be set on the various LAN interfaces, but this would argue for > > fixing the device drivers, and not the protocol design. > > > > While you may believe that the single address per IPX host is an > > error, it is fundamental to the protocol's design. I wouldn't > > characterize changing this as "fixing" it, unless it's the same way a > > veteranarian "fixes" something. And Terry said: > You are mistaken. > > Probably, you don't know about "internal net addresses", which were > introduced in NetWare 3.x. > > Each NetWare server from 3.x onward (and thus each router) has the > concept of an internal net address. This is basically an internal > virtual network interface. I think that we're in violent agreement. First, IPX != Novell, more or less. Second, a NetWare 3.x file server I really view as a Novell router with this internal interface to a file server virtual host. When entities communicate with the file server, they use only the internal network number, and not the hardware interface addresses/network numbers. The file server "host" has only a single address. My part of the discussion was to discourage "fixing" the IPX stack to allow a multihomed host to have distinct addresses. I believe that this violates a premise of IPX and how entities are addressed. I believe that the Novell file server instances is really a different animal, and not just a host with multiple addresses. louie
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