Reducing RIP Requests with NWLINK

• Microsoft Windows NT Workstation versions 3.51 and 4.0
• Microsoft Windows NT Server versions 3.51 and 4.0

IMPORTANT: This article contains information about editing the registry. Before you edit the registry, make sure you understand how to restore it if a problem occurs. For information on how to do this, view the "Restoring the Registry" online Help topic in Regedit.exe or the "Restoring a Registry Key" online Help topic in Regedt32.exe.

SUMMARY

By default, Windows NT will verify network addresses for existing connections over IPX by sending out a routing information protocol (RIP) request for the remote network number every five minutes. While this design is similar to the behavior of past versions of Novell client software, these RIP requests are not necessary for proper operations of the Workstation service, Client Services for NetWare or Gateway Services for NetWare.

In most cases, the percentage of network bandwidth consumed by these RIP requests is almost negligible. However, some network administrators may prefer to remove any unnecessary network traffic from their network. These RIP requests can be reduced by setting the values for RipUsageTime and RipAgeTime to their maximum value of 65535 in the Windows NT registry.

Windows NT stores the IPX network number to media access control address mappings in a RIP cache. The RipUsageTime entry informs IPX how many minutes to wait before an entry in the RIP cache will be deleted from the cache. The RipAgeTime entry informs IPX how long to wait before requesting a RIP update for an entry.

If the connection between Windows NT and a computer on a remote IPX network cannot be established when using a cached address, Windows NT will request a RIP update for the remote IPX network number before failing the connection request.

MORE INFORMATION

WARNING: Using Registry Editor incorrectly can cause serious problems that may require you to reinstall your operating system. Microsoft cannot guarantee that problems resulting from the incorrect use of Registry Editor can be solved. Use Registry Editor at your own risk.

For information about how to edit the registry, view the "Changing Keys And Values" online Help topic in Registry Editor (Regedit.exe) or the "Add and Delete Information in the Registry" and "Edit Registry Data" online Help topics in Regedt32.exe. Note that you should back up the registry before you edit it.

To set the values for RipUsageTime and RipAgeTime to their maximum values, perform the following steps:

1. Run Registry Editor (Regedt32.exe).

2. From the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE subtree, go to the following key:

         \SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\NWLinkIPX\Parameters
   

3. Modify the value for RipUsageTime, setting it to decimal 65535.

4. Create the following DWORD Value, or modify the value as noted below if it already exists:

         Value Name: RipAgeTime
         Data Type:  REG_DWORD
         Decimal:    65535
   
   

5. Close Registry Editor and restart.

Keywords          : NTPROTOCOL NTSrvWkst
Version           : WinNT:3.51,4.0
Platform          : winnt
Hardware          : ALPHA x86
Issue type        : kbinfo