Active gateways are treated as remote network interfaces. Active gateways are routers that are running RIP, but are reached through a medium that does not allow broadcasting or multicasting and is not point-to-point, for example, Hyperchannel. NCPROUTE normally requires that routers be reachable by broadcast or multicast for non-point-to-point links or by unicast addresses for point-to-point links. If the interface is neither, then an active gateway entry can add the gateway to NCPROUTE's interface list. NCPROUTE will treat the active gateway as a remote network interface. Note that the active gateway must be directly connected.
Active gateways should be used when the foreign router is reachable over a non-broadcast-capable, non-multicast-capable, and non-point-to-point network, and is directly connected to the local host.
NCPROUTE communicates with active routes by unicast transmissions to the gateway address. Routes are not added immediately to either NCPROUTE or the NCP routing table. They are added and propagated normally when route advertisements arrive from an active gateway. The sole effect of an active gateway statement is to bypass the requirement for broadcast communication on non-point-to-point links. Interfaces that are not broadcast, non-point-to-point, and are not active gateways are assumed to be loopback interfaces to the local machine. Also, while a route to an active gateway might timeout, the interface entry is never removed. If transmissions resume, then the new routes will still be available to the active gateways.