RFC 1132 (rfc1132) - Page 2 of 4
Standard for the transmission of 802
Alternative Format: Original Text Document
RFC 1132 802.2 Packets over IPX Networks November 1989
Maximum Transmission Unit
The maximum data size of a IPX datagram is 546 bytes. As the
combined size of the 802.2 LLC and SNAP headers is 8 bytes, this
results in a Maximum Transmission Unit (MTU) of 538 bytes.
Address Mappings
The mapping of Internet Protocol addresses to 802.IPX addresses is
done using the Address Resolution Protocol in the same fashion as
with other IEEE 802.X physical addresses. However, the length of an
802.IPX physical address is 10 bytes rather than 2 or 6. This 10
byte physical address consists of the 4 bytes of the IPX network
address followed by the 6 bytes of the IPX node address.
Byte Order
The byte transmission order is "big-endian" [8].
Broadcast Addresses
IPX packets may be broadcast by setting the IPX header Packet Type
field to 0x14, the Destination Network field to the local network
number, the the Destination Node field to 0xffffff, and the Immediate
Address field of the IPX Event Control Block to 0xffffff.
Unicast Addresses
IPX packets may be unicast by setting the IPX header Packet Type
field to 0x04, the Destination Network field and Destination Node
field to those values found by address resolution, and the Immediate
Address field of the IPX Event Control Block to the physical address
of the destination node or the appropriate IPX bridge.
Checksum
Like most IPX applications, this specification does not use IPX
checksum.
Reserved values
The IPX socket 0x8060 has been reserved by Novell for the
implementation of this protocol.
Implementation
The encapsulation of Internet packets within IPX networks has proved
to be quite useful. Because the IPX interface insulates knowledge of
McLaughlin