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From: dougm@ICO.ISC.COM ("Doug McCallum")
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip
Subject: Re: DECnet & IPX
Message-ID: <9010280310.AA26849@violet.ICO.ISC.COM>
Date: 28 Oct 90 03:10:01 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 27

In reply to your message of 25 Oct 90 01:14:41 GMT
-------
> This is correct, but does not guarantee coexistence.  Remember that all VAX
> Ethernet controllers are Version 2 devices, NOT 802.3 devices.  Netware, on
> the other hand, DEFAULTS to 802.3 operation.  While you can certainly run
> both protocols simultaneously on the same cable, if you want to gateway the
> two environments, you have to backpatch the IPX card drivers with a utility
> called 'econfig.'  Basically, econfig allows you to select whether you want
> your Novell net to run using Ethernet Version 2 (type field IPX=8037) or
> 802.3 (length field).

Actually, what Novell calls 802.3 is not quite what the rest of the world
thinks of as 802.3.  Novell is 802.3 at the MAC level and used the 802.3
length field.  They do not then use an 802.2 LLC layer as the rest of the
world does and thus frequently cannot coexist on a true 802.3 based LAN.

In any mixed environment, it would probably be best to econfig all the
Netware systems anyway since there are systems that have problems dealing
with the Novell broadcast packets that also appear to have both LSAP values
(destination and source) being the broadcast SAP.

Its too bad Novell chose to implement something that almost follows the IEEE
standards rather than doing the nearly trivial additional work to do it
"right".

Doug McCallum
dougm@ico.isc.com