Novell NETWARE 6-DOCUMENTATION Manual page 1783

Configuring NLSP
72
Internetwork Packet Exchange
5
Select Compression Slots , then enter the number of slots you want to
allocate to this call.
IMPORTANT:
Be careful not to allocate too many compression slots. Memory is
required to store the headers, and the compression algorithm must scan through
stored headers to find a match for each transmitted packet. An excessive number
of slots results in a higher processing load and slower performance.
6
Press Esc and save your changes.
7
Press Esc to return to the Internetworking Configuration menu.
8
If you want these changes to take effect immediately, select Reinitialize
System .
If you want to configure other parameters, do so now, then reinitialize the
system when you are finished.
Novell developed NLSP to meet the demands of large IPX internetworks. As
a link state routing protocol, NLSP offers better performance, reliability, and
scalability than the IPX RIP routing traditionally employed by NetWare
servers.
Unlike RIP and SAP, which periodically broadcast routing and service
information respectively, NLSP transmits routing information only when a
change occurs in a route or service somewhere in the network, or every two
hours —whichever occurs first. Because NLSP generates fewer routing
updates than RIP and SAP, it uses less network bandwidth to maintain its
routing database.
To transmit information about its directly connected routers and the links to
those routers, an NLSP router uses Link State Packets (LSPs). By default,
LSPs are 512 bytes, a nominal value that is sufficient for most IPX networks.
If you have a large network—on the order of 4,000 routes and 2,000 services
or more—you should increase the value of the LSP Size parameter to 1024.
To configure this parameter, refer to
76.
By default, NLSP broadcasts its packets because some LAN drivers do not
properly support multicast , a transmission mode that enables only those
devices listening for a specific multicast packet address to accept the packet.
You can, however, change the NLSP packet transmission mode to multicast
with the MAC Channel parameter. An advantage of using multicast
"How to Change the LSP Size" on page