.TH IPX_PARSE 8 "April 2026" "ipx-utils 1.3" "System Administration"
.SH NAME
ipx_parse \- parse textual IPX packet dumps
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B ipx_parse
.RI < input
.SH DESCRIPTION
.B ipx_parse
reads textual packet dumps from standard input and decodes IPX, SAP, NCP, and
related packet data into a human-readable form.

The expected input format is one packet per line. Each line starts with a frame
type string followed by a space and a hexadecimal packet dump. This is the
format produced by
.BR ipx_dump (8)
when raw output mode is enabled.

.B ipx_parse
does not capture packets by itself. It is a decoder for packet dump streams.
Use
.BR ipx_dump (8)
to capture live traffic.
.SH INPUT FORMAT
Each input line must have this form:
.PP
.RS
.I frame
.I hex-data
.RE
.PP
The
.I frame
field is a short frame name such as
.BR raweth .
The
.I hex-data
field is a continuous hexadecimal byte stream.

Malformed lines cause
.B ipx_parse
to print an error and exit.
.SH EXAMPLES
.TP
Decode a saved raw dump:
.B ipx_parse < ipx-dump.txt
.TP
Capture and decode live traffic:
.B ipx_dump -r -d eth0 | ipx_parse
.SH DIAGNOSTICS
.TP
.B line too long
An input line exceeded the internal line buffer.
.TP
.B illegal line format
An input line did not contain a frame name followed by packet data.
.TP
.B illegal packet
The packet data contained non-hexadecimal or otherwise invalid byte data.
.SH NOTES
.B ipx_parse
is mainly a diagnostic tool. Its output is intended for administrators,
developers, and maintainers debugging legacy IPX/NCP network traffic.

The parser understands a number of common IPX packet types, including RIP,
SAP, SPX, NCP, and burst packets. Unknown packet types are printed with the
available numeric values.
.SH SEE ALSO
.BR ipx_dump (8),
.BR ipx_configure (8),
.BR ipx_interface (8),
.BR ipx_route (8)
.SH AUTHORS
Originally written by Volker Lendecke and Petr Vandrovec.
Maintained in the standalone ipx-utils package by Mario Fetka.