User Guide

Server Operating System Communications 9
Server Communications Administration Guide
103-000145-001
August 30, 2001
Novell Confidential
Manual 99a38 July 17, 2001
Server Operating System Communications
NetWare
®
has traditionally used IPX
TM
and its protocols for network
communication. NetWare 4 supported IP networks through NetWare/IP
TM
.
The release of NetWare 6 allows a choice of running networks with just IPX,
with both IP and IPX, or with pure IP.
The Internet Protocol comprises a set of publicly available protocols that
provides the means by which computers communicate on the Internet.
IPX comprises a set of protocols that facilitate communication between
computers on NetWare networks.
In order to make IP run on NetWare, the public protocols of IP had to be
incorporated into, and replace, the proprietary protocols in NetWare. Since
NDS
®
is the heart of NetWare, it was used to bring all the Internet Protocols
together in NetWare 6. This makes it possible to configure and maintain the
protocols using NetWare Administrator.
Compatibility Mode (CM) (page 31) maintains backward compatibility with
IPX NetWare systems. You can install a server or client using one of three
methods: IP (with compatibility mode), IPX, or both IP and IPX. CM provides
translation between IP and IPX by recognizing IPX packets and then
determining how to forward them. A Migration Agent (MA) (page 32) on the
server uses CM to bridge IP and IPX networks while maintaining protocol
purity on each of the respective networks.
No other networking software vendor has combined Internet protocols with a
proven networking platform to provide a pure IP networking solution.
Novell
®
has accomplished this because of the flexibility and scalability
inherent in NDS. By extending the NDS schema and adding objects, Novell
has built a network operating system out of publicly available Intenet
Protocols and made it work with IPX for backward compatibility. The Server