not in use by systems accessible through the respective ports multiple destination packets received at an incoming port on an edge device are sent via the connection oriented network to a server on the connection oriented network at the server the network protocol for which the multiple destination packet is intended is determined the server transmits via the connection oriented network the multiple destination packet to ports of edge devices other than the incoming port and other than ports for which the status information indicates that the determined network protocol is not in use by systems accessible through the port the status information is learned at the edge devices based on activity on the respective ports and reported by the edge device to the server application_number US 38965799 A description a detailed description of preferred embodiments of the present invention is provided with reference to fig1 through 4 there are several techniques that can be used to configure a broadcast and unknown server in an atm system with required protocol information according to the present invention the preferred embodiment described below is optimized for minimizing customer expertise and time for configuration alternative methods could be used based on manual configuration of the tables by a network management specialist alternatively end systems could be polled to determine a configuration using standard ping protocols for ip ipx xns 3com adapter management protocol amp and other network protocols the environment of the present invention is illustrated in fig1 which is based on an atm switch 10 or other connection oriented network system the atm switch is coupled to a plurality of edge devices including edge devices 11 12 and 13 each edge device includes.