Digital Multimeter
Network Primer
93
knowledge of the network IDs of the other network segments, so it forwards the packet to
other gateways on the network until the packet is delivered to the gateway attached to the
destination segment with the matching network ID. This process is generally referred to
as routing the packet, and devices that do this are also referred to as Routers.
In many modern networks, the use of subnet masking and the default gateway is not
necessary. These networks contain routers and gateways that support the proxy ARP
protocol. In this protocol, the routing path between any two hosts is automatically
established by the routers during the ARP process. As a result, the user does not need to
manually enter the subnet mask and default gateway information.
When the TCP/IP protocol stack software starts operation, it communicates with an NDIS
or ODI driver in a process called binding. During this process, the stack tells the driver
which protocol it is handling. In this way, a driver can direct packets to more than one
protocol stack. For example, it is quite common to have the Novell IPX/SPX protocol
stack and the TCP/IP protocol stack operating over the same ODI multi-protocol driver.
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