![[previous]](../../../graphics/l_arrow.gif){kind=icon}
![[next]](../../../graphics/r_arrow.gif){kind=icon}
This chapter describes the procedures for configuring your system to perform VINES IP routing. It also describes how the router works and gives guidelines for operating, managing, and troubleshooting the router.
For conceptual information, see "How the VINES Router Works" later in this chapter.
VINES network numbers and addresses are not user-configurable in the same way that other routing protocols are. The router automatically assigns its own VINES network address, enabling the router to communicate with VINES servers once VINES routing is enabled. This VINES network address is 32 bits long and consists of two parts. The first part of the network number is a specific vendor code that Banyan Systems has reserved for 3Com. This vendor code, which starts with hex 302 or hex 303, is composed of the 11 most significant bits of the 32-bit network address. The remaining 21 bits of the network number contain the 21 least significant bits of the router MAC address.
The procedure in this section explains how to enable VINES routing and set up parameters on LAN ports and Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP) links where no VINES servers are available.
Before beginning this procedure, complete the following tasks:
To configure the system to perform basic VINES routing, follow these steps:
1 . Enable VINES routing using:
SETDefault !<port> -VIP CONTrol = Route
2 . Enable ARP on those ports where no VINES servers are available using:
SETDefault !<port> -VIP CONTrol = Arp
3 . Forward VINES broadcast packets when the nearest VINES server is more than one hop away from a VINES client using:
SETDefault !<port> -VIP CONTrol = NoServer
4 . Select the packet encapsulation format for each Ethernet interface using:
SETDefault !<port> -VIP HeaderFormat = [Ethernet | Ieee | Snap]
5 . Control whether the router forwards broadcast packets over a port where packet charges are enforced using:
SETDefault !<port> -VIP CONTrol = PktChrge
6 . Verify the VINES configuration by entering:
SHow -VIP CONFiguration
SHow !* -VIP CONFiguration
You can configure the VINES router to perform routing over wide area network ports using Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP), Frame Relay, Asynchronous Transfer Mode data exchange interface (ATM DXI), Switched Multimegabit Data Service (SMDS), X.25, and Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN).
Routing VINES over Frame Relay, ATM DXI, and X.25 is supported over fully meshed, partially meshed, and nonmeshed topologies. If you plan to route VINES over Frame Relay, ATM DXI, or X.25 in a partially meshed or nonmeshed topology, you must create a virtual port for each remote network that is attached to a Frame Relay, ATM DXI, or X.25 cloud. For complete information on configuring VINES routing over Frame Relay, ATM DXI, or X.25, including a discussion on fully meshed, partially meshed, and nonmeshed topologies and virtual ports, see the Configuring Wide Area Networking Using Frame Relay chapter, the Configuring Wide Area Networking Using the ATM DXI chapter, and the Configuring Wide Area Networking Using X.25 chapter, respectively. For information on the number of virtual ports supported per platform, see Table 11 in the Configuring Advanced Ports and Paths chapter.
Routing VINES over SMDS is supported over fully meshed and hierarchical partially meshed topologies (where virtual ports are configured to attach to distinct groups of fully meshed devices). To configure your VINES router to perform routing over SMDS, see the Configuring Wide Area Networking Using SMDS chapter.
To configure your VINES router to perform routing over PPP, see the Configuring Wide Area Networking Using PPP chapter. For information on wide area networking using ISDN, see the Configuring Wide Area Networking Using ISDN chapter.
After you have configured the basic VINES router, check to see whether it can route packets properly. Examine the VINES routing and neighbor tables, and send packets from one network to another to see if they are properly forwarded.
Before you use the router for interconnecting networks, follow these steps to verify the router configuration:
1 . Check the router path configuration by entering:
SHow -PATH CONFiguration
2 . Check the router port configuration by entering:
SHow -PORT CONFiguration
3 . Verify the VIP Service configuration by entering:
SHow -VIP CONFiguration
4 . Check the status of each port on the VINES router by entering:
SHow -VIP STATUS
5 . Examine the routing table to see if the destination networks are reachable by entering:
SHow -VIP AllRoutes
6 . Display all known neighbors in the neighbor table by entering:
SHow -VIP Neighbor
To check statistics for the VINES router, enter:
SHow -SYS STATistics -VIP
You can collect statistics for a specific time period by using the SampleTime and STATistics parameters. For more information, see the SYS Service Parameters chapter in Reference for Enterprise OS Software. For information on interpreting the statistics displays, see the Statistics Displays appendix.
You can use the VPing command to check if a specific server or router is reachable or alive. If the target server is not reachable, try reaching the intermediate routers and locate the source of the problem.
To ping a VINES server, use:
VPing <server address>
The following message appears if the target server is alive:
Pinging... 2901599 is alive
The target server must be running VINES 5.0 or greater or 3Com Enterprise OS software version 6.2 or greater.
For more information on the VPing command, see the Commands chapter in Reference for Enterprise OS Software.
If you are unable to make connections to other networks after setting up the router, review the following troubleshooting procedure. If the router continues to operate improperly after you have completed the troubleshooting procedure, contact your network supplier or 3Com for assistance.
To troubleshoot the VINES configuration, follow these steps:
1 . Check that all cables on all routers in a specific path in the routing table are properly connected and that the routers are properly installed.
2 . Check the VIP CONTrol status by entering:
SHow -VIP CONTrol
SETDefault !<port> -VIP CONTrol = Route
3 . Check the VINES network status by entering:
SHow -VIP STATUS
4 . Check whether a specific neighbor is up and running by entering:
SHow -VIP Neighbor
5 . Check whether the network you are trying to reach is in the VINES Routing Table by entering:
SHow -VIP AllRoutes
6 . Display statistics for the VIP Service by entering:
SHow -SYS STATistics -VIP
You can customize the VINES router configuration by assigning a name to the local VINES router and assigning symbolic names to neighbors in your VINES network for tracking purposes.
To assign a name to the VINES router network number, use the SETDefault -VIP RtrName command. You can rename the router to any string up to 16 characters, but the name must be unique in the VINES network.
For example, to assign the name "3Com.Engr" to the router, enter:
SETDefault -VIP RtrName = "3Com.Engr"
This router name is used when the router responds to VINES Security Service requests, which enforce network security and authentication. The service uses the router name for user ID authentication to determine whether the client from where the user is logging in is a physical neighbor and should be permitted access to the network. The router name is also used when the router responds to service statistics requests from clients invoking the WHATZ command.
To assign symbolic names to other VINES servers on your network, enter the ADD -VIP SymbolicNames command. Adding symbolic names to VINES servers can help you keep track of other VINES servers when you display the VINES neighbor and routing tables. You assign the symbolic name to the VINES network number (which must be entered in hexadecimal form).
For example, to assign the name "Finance.2ndFloor" to a VINES server with the network number 002c465f (hexadecimal), enter:
ADD -VIP SymbolicNames 002c465f "Finance.2ndFloor"
You can assign up to 128 symbolic names, and each symbolic name can be up to 15 characters long. Symbolic names are only displayed when you specifically request the symbolic name option with the SHow -VIP AllRoutes and SHow -VIP Neighbor commands.
Names configured with the RtrName and SymbolicNames parameters have no relationship to Banyan VINES StreetTalk names, and will not be advertised. The NETBuilder bridge/router does not support StreetTalk name server requests.
VINES networks are configured automatically on each port, and the configuration is transparent to the user. The port can be a local Ethernet port or a serial line port for a wide area network, such as a point-to-point link or an X.25 link.
Figure 218 is an example showing a wide area router connecting two local Ethernet networks (Santa Clara) to two wide area networks (Los Angeles and Santa Barbara).
Figure 218 
Wide Area Router Connecting Four VINES Networks
All 3Com router network numbers start with hex 302 or hex 303. As shown in Figure 218, all routers and servers have unique serial numbers, which are the same as the network numbers. Their subnetwork numbers are always 0001. These servers and routers assign unique network numbers and subnetwork numbers to the client nodes. Client subnetwork numbers can be any number from hex 8000 through hex FFFE. One physical network can have as many logical network numbers as the servers and routers (See Figure 218).
A router must check its routing table to determine where to route a packet. If the destination is one of the neighbors, the router can send it directly to the neighbor. If the destination is not a neighbor, the router must route the packet to another router (called a "gateway") that is closer to the destination. The route to a remote network can be dynamically learned through routing protocols, such as the Routing Table Protocol (RTP) for VINES.
Two tables are used in VINES routing: the VINES Routing Table and the VINES Neighbor Table.
This table displays all known routes in the routing table. To display the VINES Routing Table, enter the SHow -VIP ALLRoutes command.
The following display is an example of the default routing table:
You can also display the routing table in both hex or symbolic formats. To display the routing table in hex format, enter:
SHow -VIP AllRoutes Hex
To display the routing table in symbolic format, enter:
SHow -VIP AllRoutes Sym
The VINES Routing Table provides the following information:
Indicates the status of the route as follows:
The ROUTE status is only displayed when you display the routing table in symbolic or hex format.
This table displays all known neighbors in the neighbor table. To display the VINES Neighbor Table, enter:
SHow -VIP Neighbor
The following display is an example of the neighbor table:
The VINES Neighbor Table provides the following information:
Identifies the port number of the router through which the destination is available.
If the neighbor is a service node or a router, it has a unique 32-bit network number. The network number is the serial number of the service node or the router. Each service node or router has 0001 for its subnetwork number. If a neighbor is a client node, it gets its network number and subnetwork number from a service node or a router. Subnetwork numbers range from hex 8000 through hex FFFE.
While network numbers and subnetwork numbers are the logical network numbers of a node, media address represents the underlying data link layer address, such as Ethernet address, X.25 address, or Frame Relay DLCI.
Indicates the metric (in 200 millisecond increments).
Indicates whether Ethernet, IEEE, or SNAP packet encapsulation is being used.
Indicates the status of the neighbor as follows:
For each destination address, the router supports only one route.
The VINES router keeps in its routing table only one network number per destination. It does not support backup routes.
Because VINES does not allow for static route configuration, there is no DELete command that deletes individual routes one at a time. You can delete all the entries by flushing them.
VINES Routing Table entries and neighbor table entries age out if no updates are received for about 9 minutes, which is six times the value of the user-configured UpdateTime parameter. The default value for the UpdateTime parameter is 90 seconds.
To remove all dynamic routes from the VINES Routing Table, enter:
FLush -VIP AllRoutes
This command simultaneously removes all entries from the VINES Neighbor Table so that the two tables remain consistent.
Every time the router learns a route change for a network, or every 90 seconds (by default), it uses broadcast packets to report the following types of information to its neighboring gateways:
You can configure the UpdateTime parameter in the VINES Service to change the interval at which the router broadcasts routing update packets (RTPs). .
The types of networks that are considered "reachable" when a router broadcasts its RTP update packets are as follows:
To prevent endless routing loops caused by including routes in the updates sent back to the same gateway from which the routes were originally learned, a preventive measure known as split horizon is used. To achieve split horizon, the router does not include those routes learned from that interface when it generates RTP update packets to an interface. For example, when a network is learned from a neighbor on port 1, this network will not be included in any updates to port 1 to prevent mutual deception.
VINES servers currently do not support split horizon.
The UpdateTime parameter changes the frequency at which the router sends update packets. The UpdateTime parameter specifies the time interval by which the router sends its routing table updates. For networks that seldom experience topology changes, the interval time can be set higher than the default value to reduce the amount of network traffic. For networks that often experience topology changes, this value can be set lower than the default value.
The lower you set the UpdateTime value, the more data traffic will be generated on the network; increased traffic can degrade network performance.
The 3Com VINES router supports a subset of the VINES Protocol suite, such as VINES Internet Protocol (VINES IP), the RTP, Address Resolution Protocol (ARP), and the Internet Control Protocol (ICP). When the VINES router receives broadcast packets, it pays special attention to ICP packets by selectively propagating VINES StreetTalk packets (for the VINES Directory Service), Time Synch Service packets, and VINES Security Service. However, the VINES router does not participate in any other VINES Directory Service.
3Com VINES routers are preassigned with a unique 32-bit network number and a subnetwork number of 0x0001. However, a client must obtain its VINES Internet address from its router or server using the VINES ARP. After a client boots up, it broadcasts an ARP Query Request seeking a response from a server or a router. Any neighbor server or router with the ARP Service enabled responds with an ARP Query Response. Two different versions of VINES ARP are available: sequenced ARP and non-sequenced ARP. All VINES servers and clients running Banyan VINES software previous to version 5.50 use non-sequenced ARP, while servers and clients running VINES software version 5.50 and later use sequenced ARP. For the two types to interoperate, nodes that support sequenced ARP also support non-sequenced ARP. For example, a client node that runs VINES 5.50 can use a VINES 5.0 server if no VINES 5.50 servers are available, and a server that runs VINES 5.50 can provide an ARP Service to a VINES 5.0 client node.
This version of the 3Com VINES router does not support sequenced ARP. The 3Com VINES router uses the RTP to exchange routing information with servers or routers, and to maintain the topology information in the routing table. When routing data packets, the 3Com VINES router makes routing decisions based on the routing database. If the final destination of a packet is a neighbor, the router will send the packet to the neighbor directly. Otherwise, it will send the packet to the next router toward the final destination. Each RTP update packet contains a list of all the networks known to the router and metric for each network.
Two versions of RTP are available: sequenced RTP and non-sequenced RTP. All VINES servers and clients running Banyan VINES software previous to version 5.50 use non-sequenced RTP, while servers and clients running VINES software version 5.50 and later use sequenced RTP. For interoperability, routers that support sequenced RTP also support non-sequenced RTP for backward compatibility. This version of the 3Com VINES router does not support sequenced RTP.
The 3Com VINES router provides support for RTP Redirect. When a unicast packet has to be forwarded on the same port on which it was received and the RTP Redirect bit is set, 3Com routers generate an RTP Redirect packet to inform the last forwarding router or server of a better path to the given destination. The advantage of RTP Redirect is that an unnecessary extra hop can be reduced.