jln@accuvax.nwu.edu (John Norstad) (10/22/89)
I'm just beginning to study the KIP protocols, and have some simple
questions. Basically, I'm confused about how Macs locate gateways.
(Yes, I know I should probably wait for the RFC, but I'm curious).
The KIP document on IP address management says the following:
"All IP address related services (EXCEPT for the address
resolution protocol, ARP) are located at the gateway as NBP
service type 'IPGATEWAY'. To use one of the services, the client
first does an NBP lookup for name='=', type='IPGATEWAY', zone='*'
(this means, ANY instance name, MY zone, service type IPGATEWAY).
After receiving the NBP reply the client should remember the
AppleTalk address returned. Subsequent requests are then sent
to this address using the AppleTalk Transaction Protocol (ATP)."
This part of the protocol must have changed, because when I use
InterPol to check our FastPath gateway (which is running K-STAR),
I discover that the FastPath is not advertising any NBP entries
of type IPGATEWAY. The only two NBP entries for the FastPath are:
<Bridge>:<Bridge>
and 129.105.49.128:IPADDRESS
My questions are:
How does Mac software (e.g., MacTCP) initially locate the gateway
(e.g., a FastPath box)? Does it look for any bridge that is also
advertising an IP address? Does it look for the smallest IP
address? Does it use some sort of on non-NBP broadcast technique?
Why was the protocol changed?
What happens if there is more than one gateway on the the
AppleTalk net? Which one is used?
Are there any documents on these protocols other than the ones
that come with KIP and the yet-to-be-released RFC?
Are there any other important protocol differences between KIP and
K-STAR?
Thanks in advance to anybody who can answer these questions.
John Norstad Northwestern University jln@acns.nwu.edu