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To: Terry Lambert <terry@lambert.org>
cc: babkin@hq.icb.chel.su, jhay@mikom.csir.co.za, hackers@FreeBSD.org
From: "Louis A. Mamakos" <louie@TransSys.COM>
Subject: Re: Ethernet-like loopback & IPX 
References: <199607301821.LAA00292@phaeton.artisoft.com> 
In-reply-to: Your message of "Tue, 30 Jul 1996 11:21:45 PDT."
             <199607301821.LAA00292@phaeton.artisoft.com> 
Date: Tue, 30 Jul 1996 17:18:46 -0400
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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