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Chapter 3: CCIIPX Configuration

CCIIPX is supported on Windows 95, Windows 98 and Windows NT systems only.

3.1 CCI Support for Novell NetWare IPX

3.1.1 CCI Support Modules for IPX

In order to enable CCI support for the Novell NetWare IPX transport, one executable module is provided:

3.1.2 Novell NetWare IPX Configuration

There is no specific configuration of the Novell NetWare or operating system environment required to run CCIIPX, however there are restrictions on the supported IPX protocol providers which can operate with CCIIPX, these differ between operating systems.

Microsoft Windows 95.

Microsoft Windows NT.

CCIIPX cannot use the Microsoft IPX compatible transport as shipped with Windows 95 or Windows NT, these IPX transports do not provide the interface support level required for CCIIPX.

3.2 Configuring CCIIPX Parameters

3.2.1 CCI.INI File Options for CCIIPX

You can tune CCIIPX using the tuning options described below. You set the ones you want to change in the file CCI.INI.

Why would I need to use any CCI.INI options?

The CCIIPX module has been developed to be a reliable and easy to configure protocol option in the CCI suite. In almost all circumstances CCIIPX will work correctly straight out of the box with no need to configure anything. If however some system tuning is required the following options are available under a heading of [cciipx-base] in the CCI.INI file.

CCI.INI can be located in a number of locations for testing and deployment. On Windows systems of all types the Windows root directory is a good location as it is visible from all applications. There may be configuration sections for more than one CCI protocol module in any CCI.INI file.

If you only want to affect the behavior of a single application, rather than affecting every application on the system, put the CCI.INI file (containing the CCIIPX entries for this application) in the current directory - the directory from where the application is being run.

What form do CCIIPX CCI.INI options take?

A sample CCIIPX section of a CCI.INI file could look like:-

[cciipx-base] 
 REPORT_CONNTYPES=n 
 CRC_SEND=n 
 CRC_FORCE_RECV=n
 CRC_REPORT_FAILS=n
 CRC_RETRY=y
 MAX_PKT_SIZE=17872 

Acceptable entries for yes/no options are, "Y","y","YES" or "yes", and "N","n","NO", or "no". Mixed case words such as "Yes" are NOT accepted and default settings will be used if their use is attempted. Numeric values must always be entered in decimal format, use of HEX and OCTAL values is not supported and will lead to unpredictable results. Any unwanted entries in the CCI.INI file can be commented out using ";" as the first character of the line.

3.3 Available CCI.INI Options for CCIIPX

3.3.1 Basic CCI.INI Options for CCIIPX

3.3.2 Advanced CCI.INI Options for CCIIPX

3.4 Application Configuration

CCIIPX Client/Server applications use the CCI Server Name and Machine Name parameters to enable the CCI Client to specify the CCI Server with which to communicate.

The CCI Server identifies itself on the network by using the Server Name parameter. The CCI Client specifies the CCI Server using the Server Name. Additionally, if it only wants to find this Server running on a particular machine in the network, it needs to specify the Machine Name parameter.

3.4.1 CCIIPX Server Name

Both CCI server and CCI client applications need to have a Server Name specified: server applications need to register themselves as available under this name (or what fixed port to use); and clients need to specify which server they wish to contact.

This can be any valid alphanumeric string (up to 47 characters in length). Strings must be terminated with either a space (" ") or a NULL (binary zero) byte. Names presented with a length greater than this limit will be rejected with a bad parameter message, to avoid the possibility of a truncated name allowing connection of a client to an unwanted service.

3.4.2 CCIIPX Machine Name

This is a parameter that only needs to be specified by CCI client applications.

There are two aspects to the use of Machine Name

  1. Clients for later versions of the old 16-bit broadcast based CCIIPX and the new CCIIPX for 32-bit Windows installations support the use of a 'Machine Name' parameter when calling CCI Client initialization functions.

    The broadcast based CCIIPX modules support the string format:

    For example, "33c251.1" for a NetWare Server based CCIIX32.NLM hosted service, where the NetWare Servers internal network number is "33c251" and the logical "node" address for the server is "1".

    The new 32-bit Windows hosted CCIIPX modules support the use of 'machinename' in exactly the same manner as the older broadcast based CCIIPX modules, however the SAP based module also support the use of ',' as the name element separators

    For example, "33c251,1" for the NetWare Server in the example above.

  2. The 32-bit Windows hosted CCIIPX modules use the Novell NetWare Service Advertising Protocol (SAP) to detect the presence of CCIIPX services, without the direct need for 'machinename' information.

    The Service location detection is done by querying the contents of the NetWare Server which the client is attached to at the time. However if a large number of connections/disconnections are to be made with the same service, this SAP look-up can take up an appreciable amount of the overall time spent in using a connection.

    If the application using CCI supports this style of access, one such application is AAI, it is possible to avoid the requirement to search the SAP information on the connected NetWare Server and make the connection directly and thus speed up the connection time.

    This is done as follows:-

    Set 'Machine Name' to "FFFFFFFF,FFFFFFFFFFFF,FFFF"

    The contents of the data area which holds this set of values will be over-written with the correct location of the server on the first successful connection attempt. If the same information is then passed back to the CCI Client connection call on the next connection/disconnection loop by the application, the CCI Client connection call will attempt to connect directly to this location, and avoid using the NetWare Servers SAP table completely.

    If three attempts to connect using this method are ignored (this takes 12 seconds during CCI Client connection execution time), the client will then use the NetWare Server's SAP tables and attempt to locate the service in the usual fashion. This technique provides a backup connection path, should the location information in the 'Machine Name' area become stale.

    Please note: the use of "FFFFFFFF" parameters in any other format or combination with other groups of numbers is invalid, and will result in a parameter rejection message being returned by CCI.


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