Internetwork Packet Exchange (IPX)

Internetwork Packet Exchange (IPX) is a connectionless datagram protocol that is used by the Novell NetWare Operating System.  This protocol is the implementation of Xerox Network Systems’ IDP (Internet Datagram Protocols). It is Layer 3 protocol i.e. Network Layer Protocol.

IPX Protocol is very similar to the IP protocol. Some useful points about this protocol are as follows:

1)Unique 32 bit address is assigned to Logical Networks ranging from 0x1 to 0xFFFFFFFF (Hexadecimal).

2)48 bit node address is used by hosts, which is by default set to network card’s MAC address. Node address and network address are jointly used to identify the host on network.

3)00:00:00:00 means current network.

4)FF: FF: FF: FF is used as broadcast address.

Figure Given below Illustrates the IPX Packet.

Cheksum : Its value is set to FFFFH

Packet Length : IPX data gram length is measured in octets.

Transport Control: Used by netware routers. Its value is set to zero before packet transmission

Packet Type:This information is used to specify packet information
0 for hello or SAP
1 for Routing Information Protocol
2 for Echo Packets
3 for Error Packets
4 for NetWare 386 or SAP
5 for sequenced Packet Protocol
16-31 for experimental protocols
17 NetWare 286

Network Number: It is a 32 bit number assigned by Network Administrator.It is set to 0 for local network.

Node Number: It is a 48 bit number that is used to identify LAN hardware address.
FFFF FFFF FFFF Means Broadcast
0000 0000 0001 Means  ,it is server.

Socket Number:  It is 16 bit number that is used to identify higher layer packets.
0451H for NCP.
0452H for SAP.
0453H for RIP.
0455H for Net BIOS.
0456H for Diagnostics.
0x457 for Serialization Packet(SER)
4000-6000H for Ephemeral Sockets that are used for file server and network communication.