You have looked at Novell IPX, its protocols, addressing formats, and routing procedures.
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Novell/IPX is the router specification used to
identify the Novell NetWare protocol suite.

The protocols in the Novell NetWare protocol suite
do not map exactly to the OSI model but they correspond loosely to it.

Novell IPX is a network layer and datagram connectionless protocol.

Novell IPX uses

    • Routing Information Protocol (RIP) to route
       packets

    • Service Advertisement Protocol (SAP) to
       advertise network services

    • Novell Link Services Protocol for routing and
       advertising

    • NetWare Core Protocol (NCP) to provide
       client-to-server connections and applications

    • Sequenced Packet Exchange (SPX) for 
       transport layer connection-oriented 
       services

Novell IPX supports

    • IBM Logical Unit (LU) 6.2 network addressable
       units

    • Internet Protocol through User Datagram
       Protocol/IP encapsulation of SPX/IPX
       packets

    • Network Basic Input/Output System
       (NetBIOS)

    • NetWare shell

Novell IPX can run on five lower layer media access control protocols:

    • Ethernet/IEEE 802.3

    • Token Ring/IEEE 802.5

    • Fiber Distributed Data Interface

    • ARCnet

    • Point-to-Point Protocol
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You have looked at IPX addressing and routing elements and procedures.
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A Novell IPX address is represented in text in the format network.node.

In an IPX packet it consists of 80 bits.

The network number is expressed as eight hexadecimal digits.

The node number is represented by a dotted triplet
of four-digit hexadecimal numbers.

The node number contains the Media Access Control address of the interface.

Since the interface MAC address is part of the
logical address, an Address Resolution Protocol is
not needed.

Encapsulation is the process of packaging upper
layer protocol information into a frame.

Several different methods of encapsulation are available with Novell IPX.

For Ethernet interfaces:

    • Ethernet version 2.0

    • Novell-Ether

For FDDI interfaces:

    • 802.3 raw frames

For Ethernet, FDDI, and Token Ring interfaces:

    • Standard 803.3 frame using Service Access
       Point

    • Subnet Access Protocol with extended 802.2 
       SNAP LLC headers

For serial interfaces:

    • PPP's HDLC frame format

Cisco routers can support all these encapsulation formats.

The IPX packet header consists of the following fields:

    • Checksum
    • Packet length
    • Transport control
    • Packet type
    • The network, node, and socket source
    • The network, node, and socket destinations

Under IPX, you can configure single or multiple networks on an interface by using the IPX Network command and specifying a network number.

In addition, on multiple networks you have to
specify a different encapsulation type for each network or subinterface.

The encapsulation type must match that used by clients and servers on the network.
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You have seen how the services provided by NetWare transport and upper layer protocols are managed by the SAP protocols.
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All servers on an IPX network can advertise their services SAP messages.

Get Next Server (GNS) requests are broadcast by clients when they need specific service.

A Cisco router can act like a server by building SAP tables, but it does not perform the nearest server function.

Sequenced Packet Exchange (SPX) is the most common NetWare transport layer protocol.

It is a reliable, connection-oriented protocol that monitors transmissions sent across the network.    

Novell also offers Internet Protocol (IP) support in the form of User Datagram Protocol/Internet Protocol (UDP/IP) encapsulation of other Novell packets.

UDP is a connectionless protocol which simply accepts and transports data without any requirement for data receipt acknowledgment.

NetWare supports a number of upper layer protocols and services.  

NetWare upper layer protocols include

    • the NetWare shell

    • NetWare Core Protocol (NCP)
 
    • Remote Procedure Call (RPC)

NetWare application layer services include

    • NetWare Message Handling Service 
      (NetWare MHS)

    • NetWare Btrieve

    • NetWare Loadable Modules (NLMs)

    • IBM connectivity features
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