From owner-freebsd-isp Sun Sep 29 00:59:18 1996 Return-Path: owner-isp Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id AAA21608 for isp-outgoing; Sun, 29 Sep 1996 00:59:18 -0700 (PDT) Received: from panda.hilink.com.au (panda.hilink.com.au [203.2.144.5]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with ESMTP id AAA21563 for ; Sun, 29 Sep 1996 00:59:13 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from danny@localhost) by panda.hilink.com.au (8.7.6/8.7.3) id RAA24991; Sun, 29 Sep 1996 17:59:04 +1000 (EST) Date: Sun, 29 Sep 1996 17:59:02 +1000 (EST) From: "Daniel O'Callaghan" To: "Mark S. Velasquez" cc: freebsd-isp@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: your mail In-Reply-To: <2.2.32.19960927193337.006ac718@207.100.94.5> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-isp@FreeBSD.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Fri, 27 Sep 1996, Mark S. Velasquez wrote: > > Well, I know I'm asking a stupid question, but I'll do it anyways : > > > This seems to work fine, however, when I do a "restore -if" to look at the > tape, I can only see the first(/) filesystem I dumped. > I'm doing an "mt -f /dev/rst0 fsf 1", etc. , to skip to the next dump-file ^ You are skipping on a rewinding device. You need to skip without rewinding :-) Danny > on the tape, but I never get to the next dump. Does mt work on FreeBSD 2.1.5 > with my tape drive ? or am I misremembering how to skip to the next > dump-file ? Admittedly its been several years since I was involved with > system backup. > > TIA > > Mark > > From owner-freebsd-isp Sun Sep 29 02:28:17 1996 Return-Path: owner-isp Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id CAA13225 for isp-outgoing; Sun, 29 Sep 1996 02:28:17 -0700 (PDT) Received: from shadows.aeon.net (bsdscsi@shadows.aeon.net [194.100.41.1]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with ESMTP id CAA12722; Sun, 29 Sep 1996 02:27:34 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from bsdscsi@localhost) by shadows.aeon.net (8.7.5/8.6.9) id LAA09750; Sun, 29 Sep 1996 11:24:06 +0200 (EET) From: mika ruohotie Message-Id: <199609290924.LAA09750@shadows.aeon.net> Subject: Re: striping/mirroring? To: jgreco@brasil.moneng.mei.com (Joe Greco) Date: Sun, 29 Sep 1996 11:24:06 +0200 (EET) Cc: freebsd-isp@freebsd.org, scsi@freebsd.org In-Reply-To: <199609282113.QAA00554@brasil.moneng.mei.com> from Joe Greco at "Sep 28, 96 04:13:37 pm" X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL22 (25)] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-isp@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > Having used ccd extensively for the past year, on production news server > systems, I think I can safely state that you need not concern yourself > too much with "striping crashes"... you are more likely to run into a > dead disk than a problem with ccd. I have over two dozen heavily utilized > ccd partitions in operation and have not seen any problems with ccd. when i said "striping crash" i included dead drive there too... i meant crash being _anything_ that interferes the striping and causes me a serious loss of data... > If you are looking purely for reliability, look for a RAID solution. > RAID's are more reliable than a SLED (Single Large Expensive Disk). i know that. but i would have a _hard_ time to explain to my boss why we should spend $$$$$ instead of $$$ since he has no knowledge whatsoever how the systems actually work... and is not too happy spending too much money... mickey -- mika@aeon.net mika ruohotie From owner-freebsd-isp Mon Sep 30 21:58:05 1996 Return-Path: owner-isp Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id VAA26877 for isp-outgoing; Mon, 30 Sep 1996 21:58:05 -0700 (PDT) Received: from trogon.kiwi.net (trogon.kiwi.net [207.155.57.66]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with ESMTP id VAA26851; Mon, 30 Sep 1996 21:57:56 -0700 (PDT) Received: from trogon.kiwi.net (trogon.kiwi.net [207.155.57.66]) by trogon.kiwi.net (8.8.0/8.7.3) with SMTP id WAA18504; Mon, 30 Sep 1996 22:02:11 -0700 (PDT) Date: Mon, 30 Sep 1996 22:02:11 -0700 (PDT) From: "Christopher H. Taylor" To: FreeBSD ISP cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Portmaster dillema! Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-isp@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Hi all, I just started my ISP, using FreeBSD-2.1.5..... I got my Portmaster, and configured everything properly. However, I noticed that another local ISP running SunOS, has something calld in.pmd - portmaster daemon. I can't seem to figure out how to use it with FreeBSD, or the importance of it for that matter! It says I can only use it with SunOS or Linux. Now, it hasn't been a problem, but am I supposed to be adding all of my users into the Portmaster user table? I figured the portmaster would read my /etc/passwd database, but I guess not! This is getting to be a pain adding new users to my passwd table, then to the portmaster user table! Isn't there a limit on the amount of users I can have in the table? What if I get another Portmaster, will I have to add all of the users from the first one, into that one too? TIA for any help anybody can give me! +=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=+ o Christopher Taylor - Owner - Kiwi Computer Services o o 3410 Lasierra Ave. Suite F-170 Riverside, Ca 92503-5205 o o VOICE: 909-274-7800 BBS: 909-274-7803 o +=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=+ PGP Fingerprint: 0D 47 98 16 74 DC 3D 7E 1E 6E 6C 2B D9 A5 C7 1B Public Keyring Available Upon Request! From owner-freebsd-isp Mon Sep 30 22:59:17 1996 Return-Path: owner-isp Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id WAA29453 for isp-outgoing; Mon, 30 Sep 1996 22:59:17 -0700 (PDT) Received: from bitbucket.edmweb.com (bitbucket.edmweb.com [204.244.190.9]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id WAA29444 for ; Mon, 30 Sep 1996 22:59:12 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from steve@localhost) by bitbucket.edmweb.com (8.6.12/8.6.12) id WAA00645; Mon, 30 Sep 1996 22:59:12 -0700 Date: Mon, 30 Sep 1996 22:59:06 -0700 (PDT) From: Steve Reid To: freebsd-isp@freebsd.org Subject: logging connection times with pppd Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-isp@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk I don't know if this has been mentioned before, so I'm mentioning it now. The pppd in -STABLE (and probably 2.1.5-RELEASE) is able to keep track of connection time by syslogging how many seconds it's been running. I would guess that this is to keep track of how much time each user is spending online, but it is NOT reliable if you're running pppd from init via an entry in /etc/gettytab. The problem is, it's logging how long pppd has been running, not how long the connection has been up. If pppd is run from init then it could be running for hours before it receives a connection. If you need to keep track of how much time each user is spending online, I'm fairly certain that this very small change (add one line) should be sufficient: *** /usr/src/usr.sbin/pppd/main.c Sat Sep 21 20:04:10 1996 --- pppd/main.c Mon Sep 30 22:28:36 1996 *************** *** 482,489 **** --- 482,490 ---- /* * Block all signals, start opening the connection, and wait for * incoming signals (reply, timeout, etc.). */ + time(&t1); syslog(LOG_NOTICE, "Connect: %s <--> %s", ifname, devnam); sigprocmask(SIG_BLOCK, &mask, NULL); /* Block signals now */ lcp_lowerup(0); /* XXX Well, sort of... */ lcp_open(0); /* Start protocol */ If there's a problem with this, or a better way of doing it, please let me know. I have NOT tested this change yet. It's a very simple change, so I don't expect any problems with it. ===================================================================== | Steve Reid - SysAdmin & Pres, EDM Web (http://www.edmweb.com/) | | Email: steve@edmweb.com Home Page: http://www.edmweb.com/steve/ | | PGP (2048/9F317269) Fingerprint: 11C89D1CD67287E68C09EC52443F8830 | | -- Disclaimer: JMHO, YMMV, TANSTAAFL, IANAL. -- | ===================================================================:) From owner-freebsd-isp Mon Sep 30 23:35:15 1996 Return-Path: owner-isp Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id XAA00824 for isp-outgoing; Mon, 30 Sep 1996 23:35:15 -0700 (PDT) Received: from valerian.alma.fr (valerian.alma.fr [194.2.236.83]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with ESMTP id XAA00811 for ; Mon, 30 Sep 1996 23:35:10 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from titi@localhost) by valerian.alma.fr (8.8.0/AT-090296) id IAA23806; Tue, 1 Oct 1996 08:34:59 +0200 (MET DST) Message-Id: <199610010634.IAA23806@valerian.alma.fr> Date: Tue, 1 Oct 1996 08:34:59 +0200 From: Alain.Thivillon@alma.fr (Alain Thivillon) To: steve@edmweb.com (Steve Reid) Cc: freebsd-isp@freebsd.org Subject: Re: logging connection times with pppd In-Reply-To: ; from Steve Reid on Sep 30, 1996 22:59:06 -0700 References: X-Mailer: Mutt 0.45 Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Comment: Ce message est compose a 100% d'octets recyclables Sender: owner-isp@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Steve Reid wrote : > If there's a problem with this, or a better way of doing it, please let me > know. I have NOT tested this change yet. It's a very simple change, so I > don't expect any problems with it. Use Mgetty+Sendfax, it will autosense the initial LCP request and launch pppd as needed. It's a far better solution, because mgetty allow you also to : - properly initialise modems - check every hour if they are alive - filter PPP/Direct Dialup connections - turn off answering just by creating a file - modems are not left in AutoAnswer mode : if your system is done, the modem does not answer. - be sure that the modem hang-up when pppd exits. - etc .... With mgetty, the connection time of pppd is the good time (ie the real connection time) because pppd is launched only when needed. -- Alain Thivillon -+- Alain.Thivillon@alma.fr -+- Alma, Grenoble From owner-freebsd-isp Tue Oct 1 00:57:36 1996 Return-Path: owner-isp Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id AAA04492 for isp-outgoing; Tue, 1 Oct 1996 00:57:36 -0700 (PDT) Received: from quagmire.ki.net (root@quagmire.ki.net [205.150.102.1]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with ESMTP id AAA04487; Tue, 1 Oct 1996 00:57:33 -0700 (PDT) Received: from spirit.ki.net (root@spirit.ki.net [205.150.102.51]) by quagmire.ki.net (8.7.5/8.7.5) with ESMTP id DAA13323; Tue, 1 Oct 1996 03:57:40 -0400 (EDT) Received: from localhost (scrappy@localhost) by spirit.ki.net (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id DAA01729; Tue, 1 Oct 1996 03:57:34 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: spirit.ki.net: scrappy owned process doing -bs Date: Tue, 1 Oct 1996 03:57:28 -0400 (EDT) From: "Marc G. Fournier" To: "Christopher H. Taylor" cc: FreeBSD ISP , freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Portmaster dillema! In-Reply-To: Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-isp@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Mon, 30 Sep 1996, Christopher H. Taylor wrote: > Hi all, > > I just started my ISP, using FreeBSD-2.1.5..... I got my Portmaster, and > configured everything properly. However, I noticed that another local ISP > running SunOS, has something calld in.pmd - portmaster daemon. I can't > seem to figure out how to use it with FreeBSD, or the importance of it > for that matter! It says I can only use it with SunOS or Linux. Now, it > hasn't been a problem, but am I supposed to be adding all of my users into > the Portmaster user table? I figured the portmaster would read my > /etc/passwd database, but I guess not! This is getting to be a pain > adding new users to my passwd table, then to the portmaster user table! > Isn't there a limit on the amount of users I can have in the table? What > if I get another Portmaster, will I have to add all of the users from the > first one, into that one too? > Ignore in.pmd...that isn't what you are looking for... What you are looking for is radiusd, which is available at ftp.livingston.com. this is what allows you to do authentication based on your Unix passwd file... Marc G. Fournier scrappy@ki.net Systems Administrator @ ki.net scrappy@freebsd.org From owner-freebsd-isp Tue Oct 1 01:08:26 1996 Return-Path: owner-isp Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id BAA05295 for isp-outgoing; Tue, 1 Oct 1996 01:08:26 -0700 (PDT) Received: from time.cdrom.com (time.cdrom.com [204.216.27.226]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with ESMTP id BAA05277; Tue, 1 Oct 1996 01:08:20 -0700 (PDT) Received: from time.cdrom.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by time.cdrom.com (8.7.6/8.6.9) with ESMTP id BAA29142; Tue, 1 Oct 1996 01:08:12 -0700 (PDT) To: "Marc G. Fournier" cc: "Christopher H. Taylor" , FreeBSD ISP , freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Portmaster dillema! In-reply-to: Your message of "Tue, 01 Oct 1996 03:57:28 EDT." Date: Tue, 01 Oct 1996 01:08:12 -0700 Message-ID: <29140.844157292@time.cdrom.com> From: "Jordan K. Hubbard" Sender: owner-isp@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > What you are looking for is radiusd, which is available at > ftp.livingston.com. this is what allows you to do authentication Also /usr/ports/net/radius Jordan From owner-freebsd-isp Tue Oct 1 04:19:51 1996 Return-Path: owner-isp Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id EAA12883 for isp-outgoing; Tue, 1 Oct 1996 04:19:51 -0700 (PDT) Received: from pegasus.com (pegasus.com [140.174.243.13]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id EAA12864; Tue, 1 Oct 1996 04:19:46 -0700 (PDT) Received: by pegasus.com (8.6.8/PEGASUS-2.2) id BAA13309; Tue, 1 Oct 1996 01:19:11 -1000 Date: Tue, 1 Oct 1996 01:19:11 -1000 From: richard@pegasus.com (Richard Foulk) Message-Id: <199610011119.BAA13309@pegasus.com> In-Reply-To: "Marc G. Fournier" "Re: Portmaster dillema!" (Oct 1, 3:57am) X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.2.5 10/14/92) To: "Marc G. Fournier" , "Christopher H. Taylor" Subject: Re: Portmaster dillema! Cc: FreeBSD ISP , freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.org Sender: owner-isp@FreeBSD.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk } Ignore in.pmd...that isn't what you are looking for... } } What you are looking for is radiusd, which is available at } ftp.livingston.com. this is what allows you to do authentication } based on your Unix passwd file... } Or for the simplest case just rlogin default to a specific host. Not as secure as radius, but much simpler. From owner-freebsd-isp Tue Oct 1 08:54:57 1996 Return-Path: owner-isp Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id IAA25475 for isp-outgoing; Tue, 1 Oct 1996 08:54:57 -0700 (PDT) Received: from apollo.it.hq.nasa.gov (apollo.it.hq.nasa.gov [131.182.119.87]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id IAA25462 for ; Tue, 1 Oct 1996 08:54:54 -0700 (PDT) Received: from wirehead.it.hq.nasa.gov (wirehead.it.hq.nasa.gov [131.182.119.88]) by apollo.it.hq.nasa.gov (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id PAA10315; Tue, 1 Oct 1996 15:54:53 GMT Received: from localhost (cshenton@localhost) by wirehead.it.hq.nasa.gov (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id PAA06712; Tue, 1 Oct 1996 15:52:06 GMT Message-Id: <199610011552.PAA06712@wirehead.it.hq.nasa.gov> X-Authentication-Warning: wirehead.it.hq.nasa.gov: cshenton owned process doing -bs X-Authentication-Warning: wirehead.it.hq.nasa.gov: Host localhost didn't use HELO protocol To: questions@freefall.freebsd.org cc: isp@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Portmaster dillema! In-Reply-To: Your message of "Tue, 1 Oct 1996 07:06:21 -0700 (PDT)" References: <199610011406.HAA18777@freefall.freebsd.org> X-Mailer: Mew version 1.03 on Emacs 19.31.8 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: Text/Plain; charset=us-ascii Date: Tue, 01 Oct 1996 11:52:06 -0400 From: Chris Shenton Sender: owner-isp@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Mon, 30 Sep 1996, Christopher H. Taylor wrote: > I just started my ISP, using FreeBSD-2.1.5..... I got my Portmaster, and > configured everything properly. > ... am I supposed to be adding all of my users into > the Portmaster user table? I figured the portmaster would read my > /etc/passwd database, but I guess not! This is getting to be a pain > adding new users to my passwd table, then to the portmaster user table! > Isn't there a limit on the amount of users I can have in the table? What > if I get another Portmaster, will I have to add all of the users from the > first one, into that one too? Yeah, the manual indicates the user table is only good for about 50-100 users. What you want is RADIUS, a protocol which allows portmasters (and other network access servers) to authenticate username/password with a separate server. This is cool because then you can have dozens of PortMasters (or Ascends, or...) all querying the same RADIUS servers. You can download the radius daemon from ftp.livingston.com, or build the one in FreeBSD's ports collection. You then configure the RADIUS server. There's two basic ways to configure users: 1. add username/password into the RADIUS "users" table, or 2. tell radius daemon to validate against the UNIX /etc/passwd file. I took latter approach, because I only wanted to have the sysadms create user "accounts" once. Since most of the users were going to be dial-in PPP only (non-shell), I modified the "adduser" script config to set the default shell offered when creating accounts to "/NoShell". So radiusd looks in the "users" file, finds only one user: ############################################################################### # If no username match above, use UNIX /etc/passwd authentication method. # This allows us to use our existing user account name/password for dialup # PPP username/passwords. Thus, we don't need to maintain separate accounts. DEFAULT Password = "UNIX" User-Service-Type = Framed-User, Framed-Protocol = PPP If anyone else has comments on the wisdom of doing it this way, I'd be happy to hear from you. You might wanna subscribe to the freebsd-isp mailing list for questions of this type; cc'd here. Later. From owner-freebsd-isp Tue Oct 1 09:19:47 1996 Return-Path: owner-isp Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id JAA27691 for isp-outgoing; Tue, 1 Oct 1996 09:19:47 -0700 (PDT) Received: from quagmire.ki.net (root@quagmire.ki.net [205.150.102.1]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with ESMTP id JAA27681; Tue, 1 Oct 1996 09:19:36 -0700 (PDT) Received: from spirit.ki.net (root@spirit.ki.net [205.150.102.51]) by quagmire.ki.net (8.7.5/8.7.5) with ESMTP id MAA25322; Tue, 1 Oct 1996 12:19:34 -0400 (EDT) Received: from localhost (scrappy@localhost) by spirit.ki.net (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id MAA04613; Tue, 1 Oct 1996 12:19:31 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: spirit.ki.net: scrappy owned process doing -bs Date: Tue, 1 Oct 1996 12:19:29 -0400 (EDT) From: "Marc G. Fournier" To: Richard Foulk cc: "Christopher H. Taylor" , FreeBSD ISP , freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: Portmaster dillema! In-Reply-To: <199610011119.BAA13309@pegasus.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-isp@FreeBSD.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Tue, 1 Oct 1996, Richard Foulk wrote: > } Ignore in.pmd...that isn't what you are looking for... > } > } What you are looking for is radiusd, which is available at > } ftp.livingston.com. this is what allows you to do authentication > } based on your Unix passwd file... > } > > Or for the simplest case just rlogin default to a specific host. Not > as secure as radius, but much simpler. > Erk...then you lose all the fine accounting data that the portmaster generates for you, and kinda makes using a portmaster for doing SLIP/PPP :) Marc G. Fournier scrappy@ki.net Systems Administrator @ ki.net scrappy@freebsd.org From owner-freebsd-isp Tue Oct 1 13:51:14 1996 Return-Path: owner-isp Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id NAA23854 for isp-outgoing; Tue, 1 Oct 1996 13:51:14 -0700 (PDT) Received: from ra.mscnet.net (mscnet.net [207.100.82.2]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with ESMTP id NAA23833; Tue, 1 Oct 1996 13:51:05 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from freebsd@localhost) by ra.mscnet.net (8.7.5/8.6.12) id QAA13810; Tue, 1 Oct 1996 16:57:07 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 1 Oct 1996 16:57:07 -0400 (EDT) From: FreeBSD Mailing List Recieving Account To: "Christopher H. Taylor" cc: FreeBSD ISP , freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Portmaster dillema! In-Reply-To: Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-isp@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Hello, I have the same setup here. Running FreeBSD 2.1.5 with Portmasters among other demonic components... :) You might want to look into Radius for authentication, especially if your user table gets to be around 200 or more. Radius runs on your FreeBSD server and uses udp ports for authentication. You can check out more info on it at Livingston's web site. If you want, you can set it up to user the /etc/passwd file, or in this case, the /etc/master.passwd file for verification, but you still will have to add the usernames to the radius users file. A lot better than user tables. Never bothered to read up on the in.pmd daemon though. Hope this helps, J On Mon, 30 Sep 1996, Christopher H. Taylor wrote: > Hi all, > > I just started my ISP, using FreeBSD-2.1.5..... I got my Portmaster, and > configured everything properly. However, I noticed that another local ISP > running SunOS, has something calld in.pmd - portmaster daemon. I can't > seem to figure out how to use it with FreeBSD, or the importance of it > for that matter! It says I can only use it with SunOS or Linux. Now, it > hasn't been a problem, but am I supposed to be adding all of my users into > the Portmaster user table? I figured the portmaster would read my > /etc/passwd database, but I guess not! This is getting to be a pain > adding new users to my passwd table, then to the portmaster user table! > Isn't there a limit on the amount of users I can have in the table? What > if I get another Portmaster, will I have to add all of the users from the > first one, into that one too? > > TIA for any help anybody can give me! > > +=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=+ > o Christopher Taylor - Owner - Kiwi Computer Services o > o 3410 Lasierra Ave. Suite F-170 Riverside, Ca 92503-5205 o > o VOICE: 909-274-7800 BBS: 909-274-7803 o > +=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=+ > > PGP Fingerprint: 0D 47 98 16 74 DC 3D 7E 1E 6E 6C 2B D9 A5 C7 1B > Public Keyring Available Upon Request! > From owner-freebsd-isp Tue Oct 1 16:06:55 1996 Return-Path: owner-isp Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id QAA07264 for isp-outgoing; Tue, 1 Oct 1996 16:06:55 -0700 (PDT) Received: from patty.loop.net (patty.loop.net [204.179.169.20]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id QAA07258 for ; Tue, 1 Oct 1996 16:06:53 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from cassy@localhost) by patty.loop.net (8.6.12/8.6.12) id QAA20601; Tue, 1 Oct 1996 16:05:41 -0700 Date: Tue, 1 Oct 1996 16:05:41 -0700 (PDT) From: Cassandra Perkins X-Sender: cassy@patty.loop.net To: freebsd-isp@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: RAID Controller Product Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-isp@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Hello.... Does anyone know of a good scsi-to-scsi RAID controller that can do RAID level 5 and that would be great for a file server application. I'm presently using disk ccd for our news servers. Each server carries the same information, so I'm looking to consoladate the information on one fileserver. Looking into Mylex's DAC960SI, which seems to be a good product (on paper). Has anyone had experience with the Mylex product or any other that you might want to recommend. Thanks in advance. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Cassandra M. Perkins | People usually get what's coming to | | Network Operations | them... unless it's been mailed. | | The Loop Internet Switch Co., LLC | -fortune | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From owner-freebsd-isp Tue Oct 1 16:27:07 1996 Return-Path: owner-isp Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id QAA09419 for isp-outgoing; Tue, 1 Oct 1996 16:27:07 -0700 (PDT) Received: from odin.egate.net (odin.egate.net [207.34.206.2]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id QAA09410 for ; Tue, 1 Oct 1996 16:27:02 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from paul-ml@localhost) by odin.egate.net (8.6.12/8.6.12) id TAA28520; Tue, 1 Oct 1996 19:25:44 -0400 Date: Tue, 1 Oct 1996 19:25:42 -0400 (EDT) From: "Paul Andersen (ML)" To: "Marc G. Fournier" cc: Richard Foulk , FreeBSD ISP Subject: Re: Portmaster dillema! In-Reply-To: Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-isp@FreeBSD.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Tue, 1 Oct 1996, Marc G. Fournier wrote: > > Or for the simplest case just rlogin default to a specific host. Not > > as secure as radius, but much simpler. > > > Erk...then you lose all the fine accounting data that the > portmaster generates for you, and kinda makes using a portmaster > for doing SLIP/PPP :) If you mean the default line in the radius file.. You don't.. RadiusD from Livingston still logs the username and all the wonderful accounting data even if they end up using the DEFAULT entry (at least mine does!) Cheers, Paul ----------- Paul Andersen paul@egate.net System Administrator T: +1 (416) 447-8505x23 E-Gate Communications Inc. F: +1 (416) 447-6447 Toronto, Ontario P: +1 (416) 382-9316 From owner-freebsd-isp Tue Oct 1 16:29:14 1996 Return-Path: owner-isp Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id QAA09659 for isp-outgoing; Tue, 1 Oct 1996 16:29:14 -0700 (PDT) Received: from odin.egate.net (odin.egate.net [207.34.206.2]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id QAA09650; Tue, 1 Oct 1996 16:29:10 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from paul-ml@localhost) by odin.egate.net (8.6.12/8.6.12) id TAA02290; Tue, 1 Oct 1996 19:28:00 -0400 Date: Tue, 1 Oct 1996 19:27:59 -0400 (EDT) From: "Paul Andersen (ML)" To: FreeBSD Mailing List Recieving Account cc: "Christopher H. Taylor" , FreeBSD ISP , freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Portmaster dillema! In-Reply-To: Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-isp@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Tue, 1 Oct 1996, FreeBSD Mailing List Recieving Account wrote: > A lot better than user tables. Never bothered to read up on the in.pmd > daemon though. Of course there is always the point that in.pmd is not compatible with FreeBSD last I heard *prod Livingston people* for those of us who DO want it. Cheers, Paul ----------- Paul Andersen paul@egate.net System Administrator T: +1 (416) 447-8505x23 E-Gate Communications Inc. F: +1 (416) 447-6447 Toronto, Ontario P: +1 (416) 382-9316 From owner-freebsd-isp Tue Oct 1 17:23:18 1996 Return-Path: owner-isp Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id RAA14574 for isp-outgoing; Tue, 1 Oct 1996 17:23:18 -0700 (PDT) Received: from DNS.Lamb.net (root@DNS.Lamb.net [206.169.44.1]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with ESMTP id RAA14565 for ; Tue, 1 Oct 1996 17:23:16 -0700 (PDT) Received: from Gatekeeper.Lamb.net (ulf@Gatekeeper.Lamb.net [206.169.44.2]) by DNS.Lamb.net (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id RAA16244; Tue, 1 Oct 1996 17:27:33 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from ulf@localhost) by Gatekeeper.Lamb.net (8.7.6/8.7.6) id RAA15332; Tue, 1 Oct 1996 17:23:36 -0700 (PDT) From: Ulf Zimmermann Message-Id: <199610020023.RAA15332@Gatekeeper.Lamb.net> Subject: Re: RAID Controller Product To: cassy@loop.com (Cassandra Perkins) Date: Tue, 1 Oct 1996 17:23:36 -0700 (PDT) Cc: freebsd-isp@freebsd.org In-Reply-To: from Cassandra Perkins at "Oct 1, 96 04:05:41 pm" X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL22 (25)] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-isp@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > Hello.... > > Does anyone know of a good scsi-to-scsi RAID controller that can do RAID > level 5 and that would be great for a file server application. I'm > presently using disk ccd for our news servers. Each server carries the > same information, so I'm looking to consoladate the information on one > fileserver. > > Looking into Mylex's DAC960SI, which seems to be a good product (on > paper). Has anyone had experience with the Mylex product or any other > that you might want to recommend. > > Thanks in advance. > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > | Cassandra M. Perkins | People usually get what's coming to | > | Network Operations | them... unless it's been mailed. | > | The Loop Internet Switch Co., LLC | -fortune | > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > > I used the Mylex EISA and PCI controller. They work very good. I would also look into the CMD products, as many OEM use their stuff. Ulf. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ulf Zimmermann, 1525 Pacific Ave., Alameda, CA-94501, #: 510-865-0204 Lamb Art Internet Services | http://www.Lamb.net/ | http://www.Alameda.net From owner-freebsd-isp Tue Oct 1 18:50:35 1996 Return-Path: owner-isp Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id SAA19926 for isp-outgoing; Tue, 1 Oct 1996 18:50:35 -0700 (PDT) Received: from itchy.mosquito.com (itchy.mosquito.com [206.205.132.2]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with ESMTP id SAA19920 for ; Tue, 1 Oct 1996 18:50:33 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from boot@localhost) by itchy.mosquito.com (8.7.5/8.6.12) id VAA01131; Tue, 1 Oct 1996 21:50:24 -0400 (EDT) From: Bruce Bauman Message-Id: <199610020150.VAA01131@itchy.mosquito.com> Subject: out of sockets? To: freebsd-isp@freebsd.org Date: Tue, 1 Oct 1996 21:50:23 -0400 (EDT) Cc: portmaster-users@livingston.com X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] Content-Type: text Sender: owner-isp@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk We're a small ISP using Livingston portmasters and running radius on a single FreeBSD 2.1.5 box (along with e-mail, web server, and most other services). We recently started having customers complain that they were getting "Host is currently unavailable" messages when they tried to connect to our Portmasters. I'm assuming we've exhausted some networking resource. We've supped -stable, built a new kernel, and rebooted, but we're not sure whether the problem still exists. Is there any particular options in the kernel that should be tweaked? Any suggestions on where to look? -- Bruce From owner-freebsd-isp Tue Oct 1 19:11:42 1996 Return-Path: owner-isp Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id TAA21362 for isp-outgoing; Tue, 1 Oct 1996 19:11:42 -0700 (PDT) Received: from patty.loop.net (patty.loop.net [204.179.169.20]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id TAA21355 for ; Tue, 1 Oct 1996 19:11:39 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from cassy@localhost) by patty.loop.net (8.6.12/8.6.12) id TAA13964; Tue, 1 Oct 1996 19:10:25 -0700 Date: Tue, 1 Oct 1996 19:10:25 -0700 (PDT) From: Cassandra Perkins X-Sender: cassy@patty.loop.net To: Ulf Zimmermann cc: freebsd-isp@freebsd.org Subject: Re: RAID Controller Product In-Reply-To: <199610020023.RAA15332@Gatekeeper.Lamb.net> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-isp@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Thanks for the info. Do you use the Mylex EISA and PCI controller with your freebsd box and if so, what version. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Cassandra M. Perkins | People usually get what's coming to | | Network Operations | them... unless it's been mailed. | | The Loop Internet Switch Co., LLC | -fortune | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- On Tue, 1 Oct 1996, Ulf Zimmermann wrote: > > Hello.... > > > > Does anyone know of a good scsi-to-scsi RAID controller that can do RAID > > level 5 and that would be great for a file server application. I'm > > presently using disk ccd for our news servers. Each server carries the > > same information, so I'm looking to consoladate the information on one > > fileserver. > > > > Looking into Mylex's DAC960SI, which seems to be a good product (on > > paper). Has anyone had experience with the Mylex product or any other > > that you might want to recommend. > > > > Thanks in advance. > > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > | Cassandra M. Perkins | People usually get what's coming to | > > | Network Operations | them... unless it's been mailed. | > > | The Loop Internet Switch Co., LLC | -fortune | > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > > > > > > > I used the Mylex EISA and PCI controller. They work very good. I would > also look into the CMD products, as many OEM use their stuff. > > Ulf. > > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Ulf Zimmermann, 1525 Pacific Ave., Alameda, CA-94501, #: 510-865-0204 > Lamb Art Internet Services | http://www.Lamb.net/ | http://www.Alameda.net > From owner-freebsd-isp Tue Oct 1 19:26:36 1996 Return-Path: owner-isp Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id TAA22505 for isp-outgoing; Tue, 1 Oct 1996 19:26:36 -0700 (PDT) Received: from login.bigblue.no (root@login.bigblue.no [194.19.68.12]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with ESMTP id TAA22499 for ; Tue, 1 Oct 1996 19:26:34 -0700 (PDT) Received: from eagle.bigblue.no (froden@eagle.bigblue.no [194.19.68.13]) by login.bigblue.no (8.7.6/8.7.3) with SMTP id EAA20893; Wed, 2 Oct 1996 04:26:28 +0200 (MET DST) Message-Id: <199610020226.EAA20893@login.bigblue.no> From: "Frode Nordahl" To: "Cassandra Perkins" Cc: "isp@freebsd.org" Date: Wed, 02 Oct 96 04:23:07 Reply-To: "Frode Nordahl" Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Frode Nordahl's Registered PMMail 1.53 For OS/2 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: Re: RAID Controller Product Sender: owner-isp@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Tue, 1 Oct 1996 16:05:41 -0700 (PDT), Cassandra Perkins wrote: >Hello.... > >Does anyone know of a good scsi-to-scsi RAID controller that can do RAID >level 5 and that would be great for a file server application. I'm >presently using disk ccd for our news servers. Each server carries the >same information, so I'm looking to consoladate the information on one >fileserver. > >Looking into Mylex's DAC960SI, which seems to be a good product (on >paper). Has anyone had experience with the Mylex product or any other >that you might want to recommend. Mylex controllers are indeed very good. You should also take a look at DPT who create very good RAID controllers, pretty inexpesive too. None of them are supported by FreeBSD yet thogh, but I've heard rumours of that a DPT driver is under development. --------------------------------- Frode Nordahl From owner-freebsd-isp Tue Oct 1 19:40:14 1996 Return-Path: owner-isp Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id TAA23682 for isp-outgoing; Tue, 1 Oct 1996 19:40:14 -0700 (PDT) Received: from DNS.Lamb.net (root@DNS.Lamb.net [206.169.44.1]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with ESMTP id TAA23677 for ; Tue, 1 Oct 1996 19:40:11 -0700 (PDT) Received: from Gatekeeper.Lamb.net (ulf@Gatekeeper.Lamb.net [206.169.44.2]) by DNS.Lamb.net (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id TAA16523; Tue, 1 Oct 1996 19:44:30 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from ulf@localhost) by Gatekeeper.Lamb.net (8.7.6/8.7.6) id TAA15552; Tue, 1 Oct 1996 19:40:32 -0700 (PDT) From: Ulf Zimmermann Message-Id: <199610020240.TAA15552@Gatekeeper.Lamb.net> Subject: Re: RAID Controller Product To: cassy@loop.com (Cassandra Perkins) Date: Tue, 1 Oct 1996 19:40:32 -0700 (PDT) Cc: ulf@Lamb.net, freebsd-isp@freebsd.org In-Reply-To: from Cassandra Perkins at "Oct 1, 96 07:10:25 pm" X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL22 (25)] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-isp@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk No, I never used them with FreeBSD because of no driver. Mylex wanted at some point give me the information, but I never got it And I didn't called again. Ulf. > Thanks for the info. Do you use the Mylex EISA and PCI controller with > your freebsd box and if so, what version. > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > | Cassandra M. Perkins | People usually get what's coming to | > | Network Operations | them... unless it's been mailed. | > | The Loop Internet Switch Co., LLC | -fortune | > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > On Tue, 1 Oct 1996, Ulf Zimmermann wrote: > > > > Hello.... > > > > > > Does anyone know of a good scsi-to-scsi RAID controller that can do RAID > > > level 5 and that would be great for a file server application. I'm > > > presently using disk ccd for our news servers. Each server carries the > > > same information, so I'm looking to consoladate the information on one > > > fileserver. > > > > > > Looking into Mylex's DAC960SI, which seems to be a good product (on > > > paper). Has anyone had experience with the Mylex product or any other > > > that you might want to recommend. > > > > > > Thanks in advance. > > > > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > > | Cassandra M. Perkins | People usually get what's coming to | > > > | Network Operations | them... unless it's been mailed. | > > > | The Loop Internet Switch Co., LLC | -fortune | > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > > > > > > > > > > > > I used the Mylex EISA and PCI controller. They work very good. I would > > also look into the CMD products, as many OEM use their stuff. > > > > Ulf. > > > > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Ulf Zimmermann, 1525 Pacific Ave., Alameda, CA-94501, #: 510-865-0204 > > Lamb Art Internet Services | http://www.Lamb.net/ | http://www.Alameda.net > > > Ulf. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ulf Zimmermann, 1525 Pacific Ave., Alameda, CA-94501, #: 510-865-0204 Lamb Art Internet Services | http://www.Lamb.net/ | http://www.Alameda.net From owner-freebsd-isp Wed Oct 2 00:06:44 1996 Return-Path: owner-isp Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id AAA13783 for isp-outgoing; Wed, 2 Oct 1996 00:06:44 -0700 (PDT) Received: from pegasus.com (pegasus.com [140.174.243.13]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id AAA13777 for ; Wed, 2 Oct 1996 00:06:39 -0700 (PDT) Received: by pegasus.com (8.6.8/PEGASUS-2.2) id VAA23776; Tue, 1 Oct 1996 21:06:18 -1000 Date: Tue, 1 Oct 1996 21:06:18 -1000 From: richard@pegasus.com (Richard Foulk) Message-Id: <199610020706.VAA23776@pegasus.com> In-Reply-To: Cassandra Perkins "RAID Controller Product" (Oct 1, 4:05pm) X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.2.5 10/14/92) To: freebsd-isp@freebsd.org Subject: Re: RAID Controller Product Sender: owner-isp@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk } Does anyone know of a good scsi-to-scsi RAID controller that can do RAID } level 5 and that would be great for a file server application. I'm } presently using disk ccd for our news servers. Each server carries the } same information, so I'm looking to consoladate the information on one } fileserver. } } Looking into Mylex's DAC960SI, which seems to be a good product (on } paper). Has anyone had experience with the Mylex product or any other } that you might want to recommend. } Be careful. From what I've heard here ccd does a good job of increasing performance. Don't expect that from your average cheap RAID controller. RAID 5 is a compute-intensive system. It can be made fast, but at this stage many aren't. Mylex RAIDs I've looked at haven't been any faster than the component drives. Richard From owner-freebsd-isp Wed Oct 2 02:41:08 1996 Return-Path: owner-isp Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id CAA24584 for isp-outgoing; Wed, 2 Oct 1996 02:41:08 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mail-01.telis.org (mail-01.telis.org [204.71.75.211]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with ESMTP id CAA24578 for ; Wed, 2 Oct 1996 02:41:06 -0700 (PDT) From: dkiel@MAIL.TELIS.ORG Received: from David (s14-pm01-movia-t.telis.org [206.99.86.43]) by mail-01.telis.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id CAA14590 for ; Wed, 2 Oct 1996 02:39:52 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <199610020939.CAA14590@mail-01.telis.org> X-Sender: dkiel@mail.telis.org X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Wed, 02 Oct 1996 02:42:13 -0700 To: freebsd-isp@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: How to set portmaster so radiusd can find client name? Sender: owner-isp@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Got and compiled radiusd, set sysname pm1, set secret ... in portmaster, line in clients pm1 .... added hosts line with 198.147.115.7 pm1 but running radiusd -x shows queries but no response 10 times until it times out. I'm guessing it won't map ip to name ? From owner-freebsd-isp Wed Oct 2 05:13:41 1996 Return-Path: owner-isp Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id FAA01791 for isp-outgoing; Wed, 2 Oct 1996 05:13:41 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mercury.jorsm.com (jeff@mercury.jorsm.com [207.112.128.2]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id FAA01785 for ; Wed, 2 Oct 1996 05:13:39 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from jeff@localhost) by mercury.jorsm.com (8.6.12/8.6.10) id HAA05554; Wed, 2 Oct 1996 07:17:21 -0500 Date: Wed, 2 Oct 1996 07:17:21 -0500 (CDT) From: "Jeff.Lynch-JORSM.Internet" To: dkiel@MAIL.TELIS.ORG cc: freebsd-isp@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: How to set portmaster so radiusd can find client name? In-Reply-To: <199610020939.CAA14590@mail-01.telis.org> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-isp@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk See /etc/raddb/clients systemname secret ^^^^^^^^^^ name is ok, but IP saves the reverse lookup. ========================================================================= Jeffrey A. Lynch, President JORSM Internet email: jeff@jorsm.com Northwest Indiana's Full-Service Provider Voice: (219)322-2180 927 Sheffield Avenue, Dyer, IN 46311 Autoresponse: info@jorsm.com http://www.jorsm.com On Wed, 2 Oct 1996 dkiel@MAIL.TELIS.ORG wrote: > > Got and compiled radiusd, set sysname pm1, set secret ... in portmaster, > line in clients pm1 .... > added hosts line with 198.147.115.7 pm1 but running radiusd -x > shows queries but no response 10 times until it times out. > > I'm guessing it won't map ip to name ? > From owner-freebsd-isp Wed Oct 2 06:28:51 1996 Return-Path: owner-isp Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id GAA06207 for isp-outgoing; Wed, 2 Oct 1996 06:28:51 -0700 (PDT) Received: from brasil.moneng.mei.com (brasil.moneng.mei.com [151.186.109.160]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with ESMTP id GAA06185 for ; Wed, 2 Oct 1996 06:28:48 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from jgreco@localhost) by brasil.moneng.mei.com (8.7.Beta.1/8.7.Beta.1) id IAA05083; Wed, 2 Oct 1996 08:27:44 -0500 From: Joe Greco Message-Id: <199610021327.IAA05083@brasil.moneng.mei.com> Subject: Re: RAID Controller Product To: cassy@loop.com (Cassandra Perkins) Date: Wed, 2 Oct 1996 08:27:44 -0500 (CDT) Cc: freebsd-isp@freebsd.org In-Reply-To: from "Cassandra Perkins" at Oct 1, 96 04:05:41 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] Content-Type: text Sender: owner-isp@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > Hello.... > > Does anyone know of a good scsi-to-scsi RAID controller that can do RAID > level 5 and that would be great for a file server application. I'm > presently using disk ccd for our news servers. Each server carries the > same information, so I'm looking to consoladate the information on one > fileserver. I am curious as to why you would choose to do this. If you currently have your I/O spread amongst several machines, you gain from having the data replicated. If you have N machines, you have approximately N times the I/O bandwidth available as compared to a solution where you only have the main system's I/O bandwidth available. Put another way: Consider a system with redundant disks (let's say two). For read operations, each disk is allowed to perform operations simultaneously - and they certainly do not have to be participating in the _same_ operation. Assuming that you are using GigaWonder disk drives capable of fetching 1000 articles per second.. You have essentially: 1) increased your potential I/O transfers per second (2 drives = 2000 articles per second). 2) Reduced your average time to complete a request ("latency") by reducing contention. One drive would be busier than two and ultimately gets saturated. 3) The saturation point essentially doubles. These are all important factors in news processing. Now... this on the surface should appear to have no real relation to your problem. However... I contend that if you currently have two complete news servers with two complete sets of disks, you have the _exact_ _same_ _advantages_... but you have even replicated the hardware, so you gain a hidden bonus - reliability. If one news server fails, you still have fallback ability with the second one. Therefore: I do not think what you are trying to do is a particularly good idea. Easier, yes, better, well I remain unconvinced. Incidental: I have set up a client with such a distributed news system and it works extremely well, is very scalable, and it is really cool to be able to take a machine out of the DNS roundrobin when it needs to be serviced, etc... (the cluster is carefully overengineered so that they have 'N+1' news servers where N is the number they really need). Can you say 'zero service interruption'. ... JG From owner-freebsd-isp Wed Oct 2 08:19:31 1996 Return-Path: owner-isp Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id IAA14700 for isp-outgoing; Wed, 2 Oct 1996 08:19:31 -0700 (PDT) Received: from blacksun.reef.com (blacksun.REEF.COM [199.2.91.3]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with ESMTP id IAA14692 for ; Wed, 2 Oct 1996 08:19:28 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from james@localhost) by blacksun.reef.com (8.7.5/8.7.3) id IAA08479; Wed, 2 Oct 1996 08:15:27 -0700 (PDT) From: james@blacksun.reef.com (James Buszard-Welcher) Message-Id: <9610020815.ZM8477@blacksun.reef.com> Date: Wed, 2 Oct 1996 08:15:26 -0700 In-Reply-To: Joe Greco "Re: RAID Controller Product" (Oct 2, 6:36am) References: <199610021327.IAA05083@brasil.moneng.mei.com> X-Mailer: Z-Mail (3.2.1 10apr95) To: Joe Greco , cassy@loop.com (Cassandra Perkins) Subject: Re: RAID Controller Product Cc: freebsd-isp@freebsd.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Sender: owner-isp@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Wouldn't there be a delay for clients still trying to reach your news server? If they have cached an IP address for news.wherever.com, and then you took it out of Round Robin, would there still be a finite number of clients trying to reach that IP address? (Assuming they aren't looking to your nameserver and you didn't HUP it). I'm pretty sure that Netscape doesn't (or at least didn't with 2.0) query the nameserver each time... On Oct 2, 6:36am, Joe Greco wrote: > Subject: Re: RAID Controller Product > > Hello.... > > [snip] > > Incidental: I have set up a client with such a distributed news system > and it works extremely well, is very scalable, and it is really cool > to be able to take a machine out of the DNS roundrobin when it needs > to be serviced, etc... (the cluster is carefully overengineered so that > they have 'N+1' news servers where N is the number they really need). > > Can you say 'zero service interruption'. > > ... JG >-- End of excerpt from Joe Greco -- James Buszard-Welcher | ph. (847) 729-8600 | "There is water on the bottom Silicon Reef, Inc. | FAX (847) 729-1560 | of the ocean" - David Byrne From owner-freebsd-isp Wed Oct 2 08:24:50 1996 Return-Path: owner-isp Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id IAA15257 for isp-outgoing; Wed, 2 Oct 1996 08:24:50 -0700 (PDT) Received: from brasil.moneng.mei.com (brasil.moneng.mei.com [151.186.109.160]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with ESMTP id IAA15249 for ; Wed, 2 Oct 1996 08:24:44 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from jgreco@localhost) by brasil.moneng.mei.com (8.7.Beta.1/8.7.Beta.1) id KAA05382; Wed, 2 Oct 1996 10:23:08 -0500 From: Joe Greco Message-Id: <199610021523.KAA05382@brasil.moneng.mei.com> Subject: Re: RAID Controller Product To: james@blacksun.reef.com (James Buszard-Welcher) Date: Wed, 2 Oct 1996 10:23:07 -0500 (CDT) Cc: jgreco@brasil.moneng.mei.com, cassy@loop.com, freebsd-isp@freebsd.org In-Reply-To: <9610020815.ZM8477@blacksun.reef.com> from "James Buszard-Welcher" at Oct 2, 96 08:15:26 am X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] Content-Type: text Sender: owner-isp@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > Wouldn't there be a delay for clients still trying to reach > your news server? If they have cached an IP address for > news.wherever.com, and then you took it out of Round Robin, > would there still be a finite number of clients trying to > reach that IP address? (Assuming they aren't looking to your > nameserver and you didn't HUP it). > > I'm pretty sure that Netscape doesn't (or at least didn't with > 2.0) query the nameserver each time... Netscape's loss, not mine. If they do not honour my TTL, that is their own freaking problem. Question: Would you rather have your service entirely unavailable because something strange happened and your box panicked and locked up? Because some malicious soul hacked their way in and decided to newfs your root filesystem? Etc.? I would rather have total redundancy :-) ... JG From owner-freebsd-isp Wed Oct 2 08:51:04 1996 Return-Path: owner-isp Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id IAA16944 for isp-outgoing; Wed, 2 Oct 1996 08:51:04 -0700 (PDT) Received: from blacksun.reef.com (blacksun.REEF.COM [199.2.91.3]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with ESMTP id IAA16939 for ; Wed, 2 Oct 1996 08:51:01 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from james@localhost) by blacksun.reef.com (8.7.5/8.7.3) id IAA09041; Wed, 2 Oct 1996 08:47:13 -0700 (PDT) From: james@blacksun.reef.com (James Buszard-Welcher) Message-Id: <9610020847.ZM9039@blacksun.reef.com> Date: Wed, 2 Oct 1996 08:47:12 -0700 In-Reply-To: Joe Greco "Re: RAID Controller Product" (Oct 2, 8:23am) References: <199610021523.KAA05382@brasil.moneng.mei.com> X-Mailer: Z-Mail (3.2.1 10apr95) To: Joe Greco , james@blacksun.reef.com (James Buszard-Welcher) Subject: Re: RAID Controller Product Cc: cassy@loop.com, freebsd-isp@freebsd.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Sender: owner-isp@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk OK, this is now officially a DNS question... On Oct 2, 8:23am, Joe Greco wrote: > Subject: Re: RAID Controller Product > > Wouldn't there be a delay for clients still trying to reach > > your news server? If they have cached an IP address for > > news.wherever.com, and then you took it out of Round Robin, > > would there still be a finite number of clients trying to > > reach that IP address? (Assuming they aren't looking to your > > nameserver and you didn't HUP it). > > > > I'm pretty sure that Netscape doesn't (or at least didn't with > > 2.0) query the nameserver each time... > > Netscape's loss, not mine. If they do not honour my TTL, that is > their own freaking problem. Gotcha. But for the length of your TTL, would there be some of your clients going to the wrong IP address? The one that's down? > Question: > > Would you rather have your service entirely unavailable because > something strange happened and your box panicked and locked up? > Because some malicious soul hacked their way in and decided to > newfs your root filesystem? Etc.? > > I would rather have total redundancy :-) > > ... JG >-- End of excerpt from Joe Greco I'm with ya. I would rather have total redundancy. But it seems like there would be a period where you *didn't* have total redundancy because some clients would still hit the bad IP address because their local-nameserver (for instance) has cached RR A record... do you just lower your TTL to a small number? -- James Buszard-Welcher | ph. (847) 729-8600 | "There is water on the bottom Silicon Reef, Inc. | FAX (847) 729-1560 | of the ocean" - David Byrne From owner-freebsd-isp Wed Oct 2 09:04:00 1996 Return-Path: owner-isp Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id JAA17714 for isp-outgoing; Wed, 2 Oct 1996 09:04:00 -0700 (PDT) Received: from brasil.moneng.mei.com (brasil.moneng.mei.com [151.186.109.160]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with ESMTP id JAA17706 for ; Wed, 2 Oct 1996 09:03:56 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from jgreco@localhost) by brasil.moneng.mei.com (8.7.Beta.1/8.7.Beta.1) id LAA05494; Wed, 2 Oct 1996 11:02:15 -0500 From: Joe Greco Message-Id: <199610021602.LAA05494@brasil.moneng.mei.com> Subject: Re: RAID Controller Product To: james@blacksun.reef.com (James Buszard-Welcher) Date: Wed, 2 Oct 1996 11:02:15 -0500 (CDT) Cc: jgreco@brasil.moneng.mei.com, james@blacksun.reef.com, cassy@loop.com, freebsd-isp@freebsd.org In-Reply-To: <9610020847.ZM9039@blacksun.reef.com> from "James Buszard-Welcher" at Oct 2, 96 08:47:12 am X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] Content-Type: text Sender: owner-isp@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > OK, this is now officially a DNS question... > > On Oct 2, 8:23am, Joe Greco wrote: > > Subject: Re: RAID Controller Product > > > Wouldn't there be a delay for clients still trying to reach > > > your news server? If they have cached an IP address for > > > news.wherever.com, and then you took it out of Round Robin, > > > would there still be a finite number of clients trying to > > > reach that IP address? (Assuming they aren't looking to your > > > nameserver and you didn't HUP it). > > > > > > I'm pretty sure that Netscape doesn't (or at least didn't with > > > 2.0) query the nameserver each time... > > > > Netscape's loss, not mine. If they do not honour my TTL, that is > > their own freaking problem. > > Gotcha. But for the length of your TTL, would there > be some of your clients going to the wrong IP address? > The one that's down? In a crash? That is acceptable. If I have a TTL of one minute, it is also not too big a deal. They will get a connection time out, and then the next time they try, round robin will cause them to pick a different machine. During a downtime? Remove the machine from the round robin pool in advance. Simple fix. > > Question: > > > > Would you rather have your service entirely unavailable because > > something strange happened and your box panicked and locked up? > > Because some malicious soul hacked their way in and decided to > > newfs your root filesystem? Etc.? > > > > I would rather have total redundancy :-) > > > > ... JG > >-- End of excerpt from Joe Greco > > > I'm with ya. I would rather have total redundancy. > But it seems like there would be a period where you > *didn't* have total redundancy because some clients > would still hit the bad IP address because their > local-nameserver (for instance) has cached RR A > record... do you just lower your TTL to a small number? You still have total redundancy. You just do not necessarily have 100% guaranteed connection attempts. But as far as I am concerned, if I have a crash and people can not connect every 1 out of N times (where N >= 2) then I am better off than if I have a crash and people can not connect every 1 out of 1 times. So you do everything you can to minimize the chance of them connecting to a dead address. ... JG From owner-freebsd-isp Wed Oct 2 10:25:34 1996 Return-Path: owner-isp Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id KAA22527 for isp-outgoing; Wed, 2 Oct 1996 10:25:34 -0700 (PDT) Received: from cozumel.saidev.com (cozumel.saidev.com [207.67.52.5]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with ESMTP id KAA22468; Wed, 2 Oct 1996 10:25:30 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <199610021725.KAA22468@freefall.freebsd.org> Received: by cozumel.saidev.com (1.39.111.2/16.2) id AA055567359; Wed, 2 Oct 1996 12:29:19 -0500 From: Derek Inksetter Subject: FreeBSD as a PPP server To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org, freebsd-isp@freebsd.org Date: Wed, 2 Oct 1996 12:29:19 -0500 (CDT) X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL25] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-isp@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Forgive me if this is a FAQ I want to use FreeBSD as a dial-up PPP server, with 4-8 modems hanging off the back end. Most (all?) of the users would be using Windows 95 or NT, but there may be a few others. What I need to know is: 1. What multiport serial board will incur the least overhead? Do they all incur about the same interrupt overhead or is there some "smartness" that the kernel can take advantage of with some? There's also the question of reliability. 2. Is there a real difference between user-mode ppp (iijppp?) and kernel-mode WRT performance? I would think it would, especially as you add more serial ports. 3. What kind of machine will do the job? I'd think a 486/66 will handle a few ports simultaneously, but where's the cutoff point? Maybe the answers to questions 1&2 affect this one. There must be lots of people out there who use FreeBSD for this purpose. Maybe someone can relate their experiences with some particular hardware. Derek -- Derek Inksetter mailto:D.Inksetter@saidev.com Systems Consultant http://www.dct.com/~derek Software Architects, Inc. PGP Key:(finger derek@dct.com) From owner-freebsd-isp Wed Oct 2 10:57:41 1996 Return-Path: owner-isp Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id KAA24674 for isp-outgoing; Wed, 2 Oct 1996 10:57:41 -0700 (PDT) Received: from house.multinet.net (house.multinet.net [204.138.173.37]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id KAA24668 for ; Wed, 2 Oct 1996 10:57:38 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from graydon@localhost) by house.multinet.net (8.6.12/8.6.12) id NAA18140; Wed, 2 Oct 1996 13:57:36 -0400 Date: Wed, 2 Oct 1996 13:57:36 -0400 (EDT) From: "Graydon Hoare ()" To: freebsd-isp@freebsd.org Subject: redundant news systems In-Reply-To: <199610021602.LAA05494@brasil.moneng.mei.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-isp@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Wed, 2 Oct 1996, Joe Greco wrote: > You still have total redundancy. You just do not necessarily have > 100% guaranteed connection attempts. But as far as I am concerned, > if I have a crash and people can not connect every 1 out of N times > (where N >= 2) then I am better off than if I have a crash and people > can not connect every 1 out of 1 times. > > So you do everything you can to minimize the chance of them > connecting to a dead address. question: why not ifconfig -alias the IP if/when a server dies? < 1 min DNS ttl = more anguish on the nameserver, non? I guess it would disturb the distribution of the round-robin... but for the length of your ttl, is it going to choke up #2? How big is this client? ;) -graydon ___________________________________________________________________________ There are no moral or intellectual merits. Homer composed the Odyssey; if we postulate an infinite period of time, with infinite circumstances and changes, the impossible thing is not to compose the Odyssey, at least once. From owner-freebsd-isp Wed Oct 2 11:10:07 1996 Return-Path: owner-isp Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id LAA25462 for isp-outgoing; Wed, 2 Oct 1996 11:10:07 -0700 (PDT) Received: from pegasus.com (pegasus.com [140.174.243.13]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id LAA25456 for ; Wed, 2 Oct 1996 11:10:04 -0700 (PDT) Received: by pegasus.com (8.6.8/PEGASUS-2.2) id IAA02791; Wed, 2 Oct 1996 08:09:42 -1001 Date: Wed, 2 Oct 1996 08:09:42 -1001 From: richard@pegasus.com (Richard Foulk) Message-Id: <199610021810.IAA02791@pegasus.com> In-Reply-To: james@blacksun.reef.com (James Buszard-Welcher) "Re: RAID Controller Product" (Oct 2, 8:15am) X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.2.5 10/14/92) To: freebsd-isp@freebsd.org Subject: Re: RAID Controller Product Sender: owner-isp@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk } Wouldn't there be a delay for clients still trying to reach } your news server? If they have cached an IP address for } news.wherever.com, and then you took it out of Round Robin, } would there still be a finite number of clients trying to } reach that IP address? (Assuming they aren't looking to your } nameserver and you didn't HUP it). } } I'm pretty sure that Netscape doesn't (or at least didn't with } 2.0) query the nameserver each time... } A quick alias addition could fix that. One box could check periodically to see that another is still up, when it stops responding you take over for its IP address too. Richard From owner-freebsd-isp Wed Oct 2 12:06:31 1996 Return-Path: owner-isp Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id MAA28463 for isp-outgoing; Wed, 2 Oct 1996 12:06:31 -0700 (PDT) Received: from patty.loop.net (patty.loop.net [204.179.169.20]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id MAA28458 for ; Wed, 2 Oct 1996 12:06:27 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from cassy@localhost) by patty.loop.net (8.6.12/8.6.12) id MAA16238; Wed, 2 Oct 1996 12:03:50 -0700 Date: Wed, 2 Oct 1996 12:03:39 -0700 (PDT) From: Cassandra Perkins X-Sender: cassy@patty.loop.net To: Joe Greco cc: freebsd-isp@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: RAID Controller Product In-Reply-To: <199610021327.IAA05083@brasil.moneng.mei.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-isp@FreeBSD.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Wed, 2 Oct 1996, Joe Greco wrote: > > > > I am curious as to why you would choose to do this. > > If you currently have your I/O spread amongst several machines, you gain > from having the data replicated. If you have N machines, you have > approximately N times the I/O bandwidth available as compared to a > solution where you only have the main system's I/O bandwidth available. > [snip] Considering the constant growth of Usenet, it seemed better to use the extra drives, required to duplicate the number of articles, to increase storage and time articles are kept on the server. We would still have multiple machines handling news request, however, the articles would be on the raid-controlled fileserver. As for the fault tolerance issue, must problems I've seen with servers going down are due to failed drives. So using RAID level 5 I hoped would reduce the down time considerably. Although, this is less of a benefit if the RAID controller had poor or non-comparable I/O performance than concatenated drives (ccd). ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Cassandra M. Perkins | People usually get what's coming to | | Network Operations | them... unless it's been mailed. | | The Loop Internet Switch Co., LLC | -fortune | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From owner-freebsd-isp Wed Oct 2 12:09:32 1996 Return-Path: owner-isp Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id MAA28770 for isp-outgoing; Wed, 2 Oct 1996 12:09:32 -0700 (PDT) Received: from brasil.moneng.mei.com (brasil.moneng.mei.com [151.186.109.160]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with ESMTP id MAA28752 for ; Wed, 2 Oct 1996 12:09:27 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from jgreco@localhost) by brasil.moneng.mei.com (8.7.Beta.1/8.7.Beta.1) id OAA05796; Wed, 2 Oct 1996 14:08:09 -0500 From: Joe Greco Message-Id: <199610021908.OAA05796@brasil.moneng.mei.com> Subject: Re: redundant news systems To: admin@multinet.net (Graydon Hoare) Date: Wed, 2 Oct 1996 14:08:09 -0500 (CDT) Cc: freebsd-isp@freebsd.org In-Reply-To: from "Graydon Hoare" at Oct 2, 96 01:57:36 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] Content-Type: text Sender: owner-isp@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > On Wed, 2 Oct 1996, Joe Greco wrote: > > > You still have total redundancy. You just do not necessarily have > > 100% guaranteed connection attempts. But as far as I am concerned, > > if I have a crash and people can not connect every 1 out of N times > > (where N >= 2) then I am better off than if I have a crash and people > > can not connect every 1 out of 1 times. > > > > So you do everything you can to minimize the chance of them > > connecting to a dead address. > > question: why not ifconfig -alias the IP if/when a server dies? Because I've had headaches with that kind of stuff in the past. I've seen at least two instances of "mystery ARP reappearances" and have generally rebooted to get around them. > < 1 min DNS ttl = more anguish on the nameserver, non? I guess it would > disturb the distribution of the round-robin... but for the length of > your ttl, is it going to choke up #2? > How big is this client? ;) I don't care too much about anguish on the nameserver, if it can't handle a dozen lookups per second (of the same record!) it needs to be rewritten anyways. ... JG From owner-freebsd-isp Wed Oct 2 12:20:11 1996 Return-Path: owner-isp Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id MAA29558 for isp-outgoing; Wed, 2 Oct 1996 12:20:11 -0700 (PDT) Received: from brasil.moneng.mei.com (brasil.moneng.mei.com [151.186.109.160]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with ESMTP id MAA29546 for ; Wed, 2 Oct 1996 12:20:08 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from jgreco@localhost) by brasil.moneng.mei.com (8.7.Beta.1/8.7.Beta.1) id OAA05825; Wed, 2 Oct 1996 14:18:58 -0500 From: Joe Greco Message-Id: <199610021918.OAA05825@brasil.moneng.mei.com> Subject: Re: RAID Controller Product To: cassy@loop.com (Cassandra Perkins) Date: Wed, 2 Oct 1996 14:18:58 -0500 (CDT) Cc: freebsd-isp@FreeBSD.org In-Reply-To: from "Cassandra Perkins" at Oct 2, 96 12:03:39 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] Content-Type: text Sender: owner-isp@FreeBSD.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > On Wed, 2 Oct 1996, Joe Greco wrote: > > > > > > > > I am curious as to why you would choose to do this. > > > > If you currently have your I/O spread amongst several machines, you gain > > from having the data replicated. If you have N machines, you have > > approximately N times the I/O bandwidth available as compared to a > > solution where you only have the main system's I/O bandwidth available. > > > [snip] > > Considering the constant growth of Usenet, it seemed better to use the > extra drives, required to duplicate the number of articles, to increase > storage and time articles are kept on the server. We would still have > multiple machines handling news request, however, the articles would be on > the raid-controlled fileserver. > > As for the fault tolerance issue, must problems I've seen with servers > going down are due to failed drives. So using RAID level 5 I hoped would > reduce the down time considerably. Although, this is less of a benefit if > the RAID controller had poor or non-comparable I/O performance than > concatenated drives (ccd). How do you intend to deal with the transaction per second demands imposed by anything more than a few hundred readers? I've seen as little as 250 simultaneous readers max out a spool built out of a few Barracuda drives. It is truly cool to see the drive lights on solid and hear the heads chattering like its the end of the world. I expect DG's noatime patch helps some. I also expect that the fact that I started striping spools at that point helped considerably. Even so, just how hard do you want to push? You will start to fall behind in your news processing. Your INN daemon will not be able to get the disk timeslices necessary to process a few articles per second. You will become a Slow Site(tm). I have seen it happen... a customer who thought they knew better... they were very sorry in the end :-( ... JG From owner-freebsd-isp Wed Oct 2 12:53:29 1996 Return-Path: owner-isp Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id MAA01596 for isp-outgoing; Wed, 2 Oct 1996 12:53:29 -0700 (PDT) Received: from blacksun.reef.com (blacksun.REEF.COM [199.2.91.3]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with ESMTP id MAA01584 for ; Wed, 2 Oct 1996 12:53:23 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from james@localhost) by blacksun.reef.com (8.7.5/8.7.3) id MAA13918; Wed, 2 Oct 1996 12:47:52 -0700 (PDT) From: james@blacksun.reef.com (James Buszard-Welcher) Message-Id: <9610021247.ZM13916@blacksun.reef.com> Date: Wed, 2 Oct 1996 12:47:51 -0700 In-Reply-To: Joe Greco "Re: redundant news systems" (Oct 2, 12:15pm) References: <199610021908.OAA05796@brasil.moneng.mei.com> X-Mailer: Z-Mail (3.2.1 10apr95) To: Joe Greco , admin@multinet.net (Graydon Hoare) Subject: Re: redundant news systems Cc: freebsd-isp@freebsd.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Sender: owner-isp@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Oct 2, 12:15pm, Joe Greco wrote: > Subject: Re: redundant news systems > > On Wed, 2 Oct 1996, Joe Greco wrote: > > > > > You still have total redundancy. You just do not necessarily have > > > 100% guaranteed connection attempts. But as far as I am concerned, > > > if I have a crash and people can not connect every 1 out of N times > > > (where N >= 2) then I am better off than if I have a crash and people > > > can not connect every 1 out of 1 times. > > > > > > So you do everything you can to minimize the chance of them > > > connecting to a dead address. > > > > question: why not ifconfig -alias the IP if/when a server dies? > > Because I've had headaches with that kind of stuff in the past. I've > seen at least two instances of "mystery ARP reappearances" and have > generally rebooted to get around them. The ifconfig -alias option won't help if your Round Robin servers are on different LANs either... I guess ultimately, as Joe pointed out, you can only minimize the downtime caused by a crash and limit the users affected. > > < 1 min DNS ttl = more anguish on the nameserver, non? I guess it would > > disturb the distribution of the round-robin... but for the length of > > your ttl, is it going to choke up #2? > > How big is this client? ;) > > I don't care too much about anguish on the nameserver, if it can't handle > a dozen lookups per second (of the same record!) it needs to be rewritten > anyways. > > ... JG >-- End of excerpt from Joe Greco -- James Buszard-Welcher | ph. (847) 729-8600 | "There is water on the bottom Silicon Reef, Inc. | FAX (847) 729-1560 | of the ocean" - David Byrne From owner-freebsd-isp Wed Oct 2 12:57:56 1996 Return-Path: owner-isp Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id MAA01921 for isp-outgoing; Wed, 2 Oct 1996 12:57:56 -0700 (PDT) Received: from brasil.moneng.mei.com (brasil.moneng.mei.com [151.186.109.160]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with ESMTP id MAA01837 for ; Wed, 2 Oct 1996 12:56:32 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from jgreco@localhost) by brasil.moneng.mei.com (8.7.Beta.1/8.7.Beta.1) id OAA05911; Wed, 2 Oct 1996 14:52:54 -0500 From: Joe Greco Message-Id: <199610021952.OAA05911@brasil.moneng.mei.com> Subject: Re: redundant news systems To: james@blacksun.reef.com (James Buszard-Welcher) Date: Wed, 2 Oct 1996 14:52:54 -0500 (CDT) Cc: jgreco@brasil.moneng.mei.com, admin@multinet.net, freebsd-isp@freebsd.org In-Reply-To: <9610021247.ZM13916@blacksun.reef.com> from "James Buszard-Welcher" at Oct 2, 96 12:47:51 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] Content-Type: text Sender: owner-isp@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > The ifconfig -alias option won't help if your Round Robin servers > are on different LANs either... > > I guess ultimately, as Joe pointed out, you can only minimize > the downtime caused by a crash and limit the users affected. You can do more than that, but complexity increases dramatically. I prefer to conform to "K.I.S.S." engineering principles when I can. ... JG From owner-freebsd-isp Wed Oct 2 14:05:58 1996 Return-Path: owner-isp Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id OAA07211 for isp-outgoing; Wed, 2 Oct 1996 14:05:58 -0700 (PDT) Received: from pegasus.com (pegasus.com [140.174.243.13]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id OAA07204 for ; Wed, 2 Oct 1996 14:05:54 -0700 (PDT) Received: by pegasus.com (8.6.8/PEGASUS-2.2) id LAA03619; Wed, 2 Oct 1996 11:05:32 -1000 Date: Wed, 2 Oct 1996 11:05:32 -1000 From: richard@pegasus.com (Richard Foulk) Message-Id: <199610022105.LAA03619@pegasus.com> In-Reply-To: Joe Greco "Re: redundant news systems" (Oct 2, 2:08pm) X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.2.5 10/14/92) To: freebsd-isp@freebsd.org Subject: Re: redundant news systems Sender: owner-isp@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk } } > < 1 min DNS ttl = more anguish on the nameserver, non? I guess it would } > disturb the distribution of the round-robin... but for the length of } > your ttl, is it going to choke up #2? } > How big is this client? ;) } } I don't care too much about anguish on the nameserver, if it can't handle } a dozen lookups per second (of the same record!) it needs to be rewritten } anyways. } Everyone should be concerned with reducing network traffic. DNS is cached by everyone and everything, because although it seems short and sweet, it's often slow. Loading down nameservers unnecessarily makes matters worse. You and your systems aren't the only ones affected. Richard From owner-freebsd-isp Wed Oct 2 15:50:17 1996 Return-Path: owner-isp Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id PAA12622 for isp-outgoing; Wed, 2 Oct 1996 15:50:17 -0700 (PDT) Received: from ns2.harborcom.net (root@ns2.harborcom.net [206.158.4.4]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with ESMTP id PAA12589 for ; Wed, 2 Oct 1996 15:49:55 -0700 (PDT) Received: from majestic.dunn.org (majestic.dunn.org [206.158.7.242]) by ns2.harborcom.net (8.7.6/8.6.12) with ESMTP id SAA28056 for ; Wed, 2 Oct 1996 18:49:51 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <199610022249.SAA28056@ns2.harborcom.net> From: "Bradley Dunn" To: Subject: Re: redundant news systems Date: Wed, 2 Oct 1996 18:50:22 -0400 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Priority: 3 X-Mailer: Microsoft Internet Mail 4.70.1155 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-isp@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > Everyone should be concerned with reducing network traffic. > > DNS is cached by everyone and everything, because although it seems > short and sweet, it's often slow. Loading down nameservers unnecessarily > makes matters worse. > > You and your systems aren't the only ones affected. Then whose are? Remember, we are talking about news here. News servers are typically located on the same LAN as the DNS server and the dialup servers. Typically the people accessing the news servers are people dialed into the access servers. I don't buy the argument that a low ttl will load a name server either. A 32MB Pentium will handle hundreds of queries per second, provided it isn't doing anything other than DNS. > > > Richard -BD From owner-freebsd-isp Thu Oct 3 01:08:52 1996 Return-Path: owner-isp Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id BAA11401 for isp-outgoing; Thu, 3 Oct 1996 01:08:52 -0700 (PDT) Received: from al.imforei.apana.org.au (pjchilds@al.imforei.apana.org.au [202.12.89.41]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with ESMTP id BAA11363 for ; Thu, 3 Oct 1996 01:08:39 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from pjchilds@localhost) by al.imforei.apana.org.au (8.8.0/8.7.3) id RAA25042; Thu, 3 Oct 1996 17:38:34 +0930 (CST) Date: Thu, 3 Oct 1996 17:38:34 +0930 (CST) From: Peter Childs Message-Id: <199610030808.RAA25042@al.imforei.apana.org.au> To: D.Inksetter@saidev.com (Derek Inksetter), freebsd-isp@freebsd.org Subject: Re: FreeBSD as a PPP server X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2] Sender: owner-isp@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk In article <52uk4s$hms@al.imforei.apana.org.au> you wrote: : Forgive me if this is a FAQ It should probably be in the handbook as a server-ppp setup.. but it isn't yet :) : I want to use FreeBSD as a dial-up PPP server, with 4-8 modems hanging : off the back end. Most (all?) of the users would be using Windows 95 or : NT, but there may be a few others. : What I need to know is: : 1. What multiport serial board will incur the least overhead? Do they all : incur about the same interrupt overhead or is there some "smartness" : that the kernel can take advantage of with some? There's also the : question of reliability. Ok.. i'll give you a run down of what we use... 2x Cyclades Cyclom 16Ye ISA boards (16 ports each) and a AST type 4 port to make a total of 38 ports on our dialup server. : 2. Is there a real difference between user-mode ppp (iijppp?) and : kernel-mode WRT performance? I would think it would, especially as you : add more serial ports. I guess so... The userland ppp code is quite slick but i haven't used the kernel land stuff. : 3. What kind of machine will do the job? I'd think a 486/66 will handle a : few ports simultaneously, but where's the cutoff point? Maybe the : answers to questions 1&2 affect this one. We have a 486dx33 with 8mb RAM and a pretty small disk. All it does is service the dialup lines.. and it works a treat. Before someone cut the power we had 51 days up no sweat :) : There must be lots of people out there who use FreeBSD for this purpose. : Maybe someone can relate their experiences with some particular hardware. For using with win95 dialup I suggest taking a look at the work i did with userland ppp. http://www.freebsd.org/cgi-bin/query-pr.cgi?pr=1494 contains the patches to 2.1-stable's ppp to allow autonegotiation of NetBIOS nameservers and DNS servers with win95 clients. Alternatively i've packaged up some "distributions" with sample config files etc at (slow site.. really slow.. :) ftp://ftp.imforei.apana.org.au/pub/freebsd/ppp-plus (versions for 2.1.x and 2.2-current.. including a diff against -current) Peter -- Peter Childs --- http://www.imforei.apana.org.au/~pjchilds Finger pjchilds@al.imforei.apana.org.au for public PGP key Drag me, drop me, treat me like an object! From owner-freebsd-isp Thu Oct 3 07:09:08 1996 Return-Path: owner-isp Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id HAA28798 for isp-outgoing; Thu, 3 Oct 1996 07:09:08 -0700 (PDT) Received: from house.multinet.net (house.multinet.net [204.138.173.37]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id HAA28793 for ; Thu, 3 Oct 1996 07:09:04 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from graydon@localhost) by house.multinet.net (8.6.12/8.6.12) id KAA28733; Thu, 3 Oct 1996 10:08:59 -0400 Date: Thu, 3 Oct 1996 10:08:59 -0400 (EDT) From: "Graydon Hoare ()" To: freebsd-isp@freebsd.org Subject: Re: FreeBSD as a PPP server In-Reply-To: <199610030808.RAA25042@al.imforei.apana.org.au> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-isp@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Thu, 3 Oct 1996, Peter Childs wrote: > In article <52uk4s$hms@al.imforei.apana.org.au> you wrote: > > : 2. Is there a real difference between user-mode ppp (iijppp?) and > : kernel-mode WRT performance? I would think it would, especially as you > : add more serial ports. > > I guess so... The userland ppp code is quite slick but i haven't used > the kernel land stuff. I can't argue with the case for uptime, but have you measured the data rate your clients are capable of using user mode PPP? I have no experience in this department cause there were already netblazers when I got here, but I'm hazarding a guess that it will frustrate users to have high-priority system management tasks taking user-mode runtime away from their traffic. Doesn't it make better sense for Syslog, radiusd and getty to be scheduled around the packet flow, not in with it? I mean, bearing in mind that TCP has pretty hefty acknowledge cycles, and a "little delay" in the last mile can cut the effective throughput dramatically... Check it out, Unless the user code is vastly superior (and here again I profess ignorance. I haven't read it, and am not smart enough to know one way or another even if I had ;) I'll bet a carefully configured PPP-server-kernel will give you much nicer results. As an aside to super ISP fogies: have you found your way toward optimized kernel configurations / driver configurations that could be added to fbsd FAQ/handbook under an "ISP" section? Might be nice. -graydon From owner-freebsd-isp Thu Oct 3 07:18:45 1996 Return-Path: owner-isp Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id HAA29391 for isp-outgoing; Thu, 3 Oct 1996 07:18:45 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mercury.jorsm.com (jeff@mercury.jorsm.com [207.112.128.2]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id HAA29385 for ; Thu, 3 Oct 1996 07:18:42 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from jeff@localhost) by mercury.jorsm.com (8.6.12/8.6.10) id JAA09707; Thu, 3 Oct 1996 09:22:21 -0500 Date: Thu, 3 Oct 1996 09:22:21 -0500 (CDT) From: "Jeff.Lynch-JORSM.Internet" To: Richard Foulk cc: freebsd-isp@freebsd.org Subject: Re: RAID Controller Product In-Reply-To: <199610021810.IAA02791@pegasus.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-isp@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Wed, 2 Oct 1996, Richard Foulk wrote: > A quick alias addition could fix that. One box could check periodically > to see that another is still up, when it stops responding you take over > for its IP address too. > > > Richard > This looks like the closest thing to a perfect solution. After human intervention on the dead machine, you just delete the alias on the backup news server! Not sure, but you also might need to modify the arp tables on all the locally connected machines though for a smooth transition. ========================================================================= Jeffrey A. Lynch, President JORSM Internet email: jeff@jorsm.com Northwest Indiana's Full-Service Provider Voice: (219)322-2180 927 Sheffield Avenue, Dyer, IN 46311 Autoresponse: info@jorsm.com http://www.jorsm.com From owner-freebsd-isp Thu Oct 3 08:43:55 1996 Return-Path: owner-isp Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id IAA03775 for isp-outgoing; Thu, 3 Oct 1996 08:43:55 -0700 (PDT) Received: from genesis.ximango.com.br (root@genesis.ximango.com.br [200.238.54.1]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with ESMTP id IAA03760 for ; Thu, 3 Oct 1996 08:43:44 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from jdt@localhost) by genesis.ximango.com.br (8.7.5/8.7.3) id MAA02110; Thu, 3 Oct 1996 12:33:31 GMT Date: Thu, 3 Oct 1996 12:33:31 +0000 () From: Joao Daniel Togni To: "Graydon Hoare ()" cc: freebsd-isp@freebsd.org Subject: Re: FreeBSD as a PPP server In-Reply-To: Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-isp@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Thu, 3 Oct 1996, Graydon Hoare () wrote: > On Thu, 3 Oct 1996, Peter Childs wrote: > > > In article <52uk4s$hms@al.imforei.apana.org.au> you wrote: > > > > : 2. Is there a real difference between user-mode ppp (iijppp?) and > > : kernel-mode WRT performance? I would think it would, especially as you > > : add more serial ports. > > > > I guess so... The userland ppp code is quite slick but i haven't used > > the kernel land stuff. > > I can't argue with the case for uptime, but have you measured the data rate > your clients are capable of using user mode PPP? I have no experience in this > department cause there were already netblazers when I got here, but I'm > hazarding a guess that it will frustrate users to have high-priority system > management tasks taking user-mode runtime away from their traffic. Doesn't > it make better sense for Syslog, radiusd and getty to be scheduled around the > packet flow, not in with it? I mean, bearing in mind that TCP has pretty > hefty acknowledge cycles, and a "little delay" in the last mile can cut the > effective throughput dramatically... Check it out, Unless the user code is > vastly superior (and here again I profess ignorance. I haven't read it, and > am not smart enough to know one way or another even if I had ;) I'll bet a > carefully configured PPP-server-kernel will give you much nicer results. > PPP is better than SLIP? Faster? Thanks, Daniel From owner-freebsd-isp Thu Oct 3 09:28:01 1996 Return-Path: owner-isp Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id JAA06595 for isp-outgoing; Thu, 3 Oct 1996 09:28:01 -0700 (PDT) Received: from brasil.moneng.mei.com (brasil.moneng.mei.com [151.186.109.160]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with ESMTP id JAA06575 for ; Thu, 3 Oct 1996 09:27:59 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from jgreco@localhost) by brasil.moneng.mei.com (8.7.Beta.1/8.7.Beta.1) id LAA06978; Thu, 3 Oct 1996 11:26:49 -0500 From: Joe Greco Message-Id: <199610031626.LAA06978@brasil.moneng.mei.com> Subject: Re: RAID Controller Product To: jeff@mercury.jorsm.com (Jeff.Lynch-JORSM.Internet) Date: Thu, 3 Oct 1996 11:26:48 -0500 (CDT) Cc: richard@pegasus.com, freebsd-isp@FreeBSD.ORG In-Reply-To: from "Jeff.Lynch-JORSM.Internet" at Oct 3, 96 09:22:21 am X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] Content-Type: text Sender: owner-isp@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > On Wed, 2 Oct 1996, Richard Foulk wrote: > > A quick alias addition could fix that. One box could check periodically > > to see that another is still up, when it stops responding you take over > > for its IP address too. > > > > > > Richard > > This looks like the closest thing to a perfect solution. After > human intervention on the dead machine, you just delete the > alias on the backup news server! Not sure, but you also might > need to modify the arp tables on all the locally connected machines > though for a smooth transition. The other non-obvious downside to this is that the reason you are doing it in the first place is so that newsreaders can connect. However once connected they like to stay connected for a long time... and when you bring the other machine back online, you are going to have a SECOND service disruption. Eccch. ... JG From owner-freebsd-isp Thu Oct 3 09:39:53 1996 Return-Path: owner-isp Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id JAA07289 for isp-outgoing; Thu, 3 Oct 1996 09:39:53 -0700 (PDT) Received: from brasil.moneng.mei.com (brasil.moneng.mei.com [151.186.109.160]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with ESMTP id JAA07282 for ; Thu, 3 Oct 1996 09:39:51 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from jgreco@localhost) by brasil.moneng.mei.com (8.7.Beta.1/8.7.Beta.1) id LAA06994; Thu, 3 Oct 1996 11:38:42 -0500 From: Joe Greco Message-Id: <199610031638.LAA06994@brasil.moneng.mei.com> Subject: Re: redundant news systems To: richard@pegasus.com (Richard Foulk) Date: Thu, 3 Oct 1996 11:38:41 -0500 (CDT) Cc: freebsd-isp@freebsd.org In-Reply-To: <199610022105.LAA03619@pegasus.com> from "Richard Foulk" at Oct 2, 96 11:05:32 am X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] Content-Type: text Sender: owner-isp@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > } > < 1 min DNS ttl = more anguish on the nameserver, non? I guess it would > } > disturb the distribution of the round-robin... but for the length of > } > your ttl, is it going to choke up #2? > } > How big is this client? ;) > } > } I don't care too much about anguish on the nameserver, if it can't handle > } a dozen lookups per second (of the same record!) it needs to be rewritten > } anyways. > > Everyone should be concerned with reducing network traffic. > > DNS is cached by everyone and everything, because although it seems > short and sweet, it's often slow. Loading down nameservers unnecessarily > makes matters worse. > > You and your systems aren't the only ones affected. Why would anybody else's systems be doing dozens of name lookups per second for my news server? They are not allowed to use my news server. Maybe they are just looking for a good time. In any case, why should I worry about it? Think about that for a bit and then get back to me, eh? :-) (sorry, there should be more :-)'s in there) ... JG From owner-freebsd-isp Thu Oct 3 11:16:57 1996 Return-Path: owner-isp Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id LAA12465 for isp-outgoing; Thu, 3 Oct 1996 11:16:57 -0700 (PDT) Received: from pegasus.com (pegasus.com [140.174.243.13]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id LAA12458 for ; Thu, 3 Oct 1996 11:16:51 -0700 (PDT) Received: by pegasus.com (8.6.8/PEGASUS-2.2) id IAA13726; Thu, 3 Oct 1996 08:14:46 -1001 Date: Thu, 3 Oct 1996 08:14:46 -1001 From: richard@pegasus.com (Richard Foulk) Message-Id: <199610031815.IAA13726@pegasus.com> In-Reply-To: Joe Greco "Re: RAID Controller Product" (Oct 3, 11:26am) X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.2.5 10/14/92) To: Joe Greco , jeff@mercury.jorsm.com (Jeff.Lynch-JORSM.Internet) Subject: Re: RAID Controller Product Cc: freebsd-isp@FreeBSD.ORG Sender: owner-isp@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk } > On Wed, 2 Oct 1996, Richard Foulk wrote: } > > A quick alias addition could fix that. One box could check periodically } > > to see that another is still up, when it stops responding you take over } > > for its IP address too. } > > } > > } > > Richard } > } > This looks like the closest thing to a perfect solution. After } > human intervention on the dead machine, you just delete the } > alias on the backup news server! Not sure, but you also might } > need to modify the arp tables on all the locally connected machines } > though for a smooth transition. } } The other non-obvious downside to this is that the reason you are } doing it in the first place is so that newsreaders can connect. However } once connected they like to stay connected for a long time... and when } you bring the other machine back online, you are going to have a SECOND } service disruption. Hadn't thought of that. In that light, more reliable servers (with RAID, etc.) may be more appropriate than multiple/redundant servers (since that's where this thread started.) Richard From owner-freebsd-isp Thu Oct 3 11:26:39 1996 Return-Path: owner-isp Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id LAA13147 for isp-outgoing; Thu, 3 Oct 1996 11:26:39 -0700 (PDT) Received: from brasil.moneng.mei.com (brasil.moneng.mei.com [151.186.109.160]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with ESMTP id LAA13137 for ; Thu, 3 Oct 1996 11:26:34 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from jgreco@localhost) by brasil.moneng.mei.com (8.7.Beta.1/8.7.Beta.1) id NAA07158; Thu, 3 Oct 1996 13:25:24 -0500 From: Joe Greco Message-Id: <199610031825.NAA07158@brasil.moneng.mei.com> Subject: Re: RAID Controller Product To: richard@pegasus.com (Richard Foulk) Date: Thu, 3 Oct 1996 13:25:23 -0500 (CDT) Cc: jgreco@brasil.moneng.mei.com, jeff@mercury.jorsm.com, freebsd-isp@FreeBSD.ORG In-Reply-To: <199610031815.IAA13726@pegasus.com> from "Richard Foulk" at Oct 3, 96 08:14:46 am X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] Content-Type: text Sender: owner-isp@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > } The other non-obvious downside to this is that the reason you are > } doing it in the first place is so that newsreaders can connect. However > } once connected they like to stay connected for a long time... and when > } you bring the other machine back online, you are going to have a SECOND > } service disruption. > > Hadn't thought of that. In that light, more reliable servers (with > RAID, etc.) may be more appropriate than multiple/redundant servers > (since that's where this thread started.) Is it, though? If you take a machine from 98% to 99% reliability by introducing RAID, etc., you have just halved your downtime. That is good. However, you still have 1% to worry about. If you have completely redundant servers, as long as they do not all go down simultaneously, you have 0% to worry about BUT you may have some minor transitional hiccups due to cached DNS entries, etc. Therefore... The way I look at it: More reliable single machine = good chance for occasional total failures Multiple machines = small chance for total failures, but there may be a few bumps along the way through the transition due to caching DNS, crappy clients, etc. So, it would seem to me that the latter is preferable particularly if you minimize the "bumps" by reducing TTL, etc. I would rather be able to tell a customer that they simply need to try to connect again than have to tell them the news server is dead and the ETA is 18 hours because an expensive RAID SCSI controller failed. ... JG From owner-freebsd-isp Thu Oct 3 13:03:29 1996 Return-Path: owner-isp Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id NAA19028 for isp-outgoing; Thu, 3 Oct 1996 13:03:29 -0700 (PDT) Received: from house.multinet.net (house.multinet.net [204.138.173.37]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id NAA19021 for ; Thu, 3 Oct 1996 13:03:26 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from graydon@localhost) by house.multinet.net (8.6.12/8.6.12) id QAA00978; Thu, 3 Oct 1996 16:03:18 -0400 Date: Thu, 3 Oct 1996 16:03:18 -0400 (EDT) From: "Graydon Hoare ()" To: freebsd-isp@freebsd.org Subject: Re: RAID Controller Product In-Reply-To: <199610031815.IAA13726@pegasus.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-isp@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Thu, 3 Oct 1996, Richard Foulk wrote: > Hadn't thought of that. In that light, more reliable servers (with > RAID, etc.) may be more appropriate than multiple/redundant servers > (since that's where this thread started.) these newsserver threads are weird. We don't run netnews here because the hardware overhead is too high. But netnews is designed to be a peer-to-peer thing, right? Where you select where you get your feeds from, and who else you are willing to feed, ja? So, if (big IF here) IP6 is designed to make autoconfiguration a reality and people start having more than just IP numbers in their homes, but actually running some services as well, isn't it likely that a consumer firmware netnews server will show up to relieve the centralized points of failure, and ease the pressure on every site having to carry all of its users' possible intrests all the time? i.e. one newsserver, one user, that sorts thing? I know there are already condominiums going up with ethernets & ISDN wirings. Why should NETCOM's ability to keep their servers running dictate who, in a whole city, gets to use netnews? Just thinkin... -graydon From owner-freebsd-isp Thu Oct 3 15:37:38 1996 Return-Path: owner-isp Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id PAA04459 for isp-outgoing; Thu, 3 Oct 1996 15:37:38 -0700 (PDT) Received: from falcon.tioga.com (root@falcon.tioga.com [205.146.65.5]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with ESMTP id PAA04445 for ; Thu, 3 Oct 1996 15:37:34 -0700 (PDT) Received: from localhost (tbalfe@localhost) by falcon.tioga.com (8.7.6/8.6.12) with SMTP id SAA00563 for ; Thu, 3 Oct 1996 18:37:31 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 3 Oct 1996 18:37:30 -0400 (EDT) From: Thomas J Balfe To: freebsd-isp@freebsd.org Subject: pppd Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-isp@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Anyone use kernel ppp for dialing in to their FreeBSD boxes? I don't see a kermit.noans listed in the handbook on freefall. ======================================================================== Thomas J Balfe tbalfe@tioga.com President http://www.tioga.com/ Tioga Communications, Inc 814-861-2100 ======================================================================== "Humanity has been compared...to a sleeper who handles matches in his sleep and wakes to find himself in flames." - H.G. Wells The World Set Free 1914 From owner-freebsd-isp Thu Oct 3 16:36:40 1996 Return-Path: owner-isp Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id QAA09559 for isp-outgoing; Thu, 3 Oct 1996 16:36:40 -0700 (PDT) Received: from www.trifecta.com (www.trifecta.com [206.245.150.3]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with ESMTP id QAA09554 for ; Thu, 3 Oct 1996 16:36:38 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from dev@localhost) by www.trifecta.com (8.7.5/8.6.12) id TAA02722; Thu, 3 Oct 1996 19:37:37 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 3 Oct 1996 19:37:36 -0400 (EDT) From: Dev Chanchani To: freebsd-isp@freebsd.org Subject: Kernel Boot In-Reply-To: Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-isp@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk I was wondering if anyone could help me boot the kernel to another kernel besides /kernel, ie, /kernel.bak or /kernel.generic? This is kind of urgent so quick replies would be greatly appreciated. Thanks! D. From owner-freebsd-isp Thu Oct 3 17:32:44 1996 Return-Path: owner-isp Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id RAA15101 for isp-outgoing; Thu, 3 Oct 1996 17:32:44 -0700 (PDT) Received: from bitbucket.edmweb.com (bitbucket.edmweb.com [204.244.190.9]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id RAA15085 for ; Thu, 3 Oct 1996 17:32:38 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from steve@localhost) by bitbucket.edmweb.com (8.6.12/8.6.12) id RAA00398; Thu, 3 Oct 1996 17:32:12 -0700 Date: Thu, 3 Oct 1996 17:32:08 -0700 (PDT) From: Steve Reid To: Dev Chanchani cc: freebsd-isp@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Kernel Boot In-Reply-To: Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-isp@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > I was wondering if anyone could help me boot the kernel to > another kernel besides /kernel, ie, /kernel.bak or /kernel.generic? At the Boot: prompt (when you're rebooting) type in the filename. Be quick or it'll default to /kernel. You can also specify options, like /kernel -c (to configure devices) or /kernel -s (to boot single-user). I think some binaries expect /kernel to be the running kernel, and if you reboot you'll go back to /kernel, so anything else should only be used on a temporary basis. ===================================================================== | Steve Reid - SysAdmin & Pres, EDM Web (http://www.edmweb.com/) | | Email: steve@edmweb.com Home Page: http://www.edmweb.com/steve/ | | PGP (2048/9F317269) Fingerprint: 11C89D1CD67287E68C09EC52443F8830 | | -- Disclaimer: JMHO, YMMV, TANSTAAFL, IANAL. -- | ===================================================================:) From owner-freebsd-isp Thu Oct 3 21:32:18 1996 Return-Path: owner-isp Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id VAA09052 for isp-outgoing; Thu, 3 Oct 1996 21:32:18 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mx.serv.net (mx.serv.net [199.201.191.10]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with ESMTP id VAA09037 for ; Thu, 3 Oct 1996 21:32:10 -0700 (PDT) Received: from MindBender.serv.net by mx.serv.net (8.7.5/SERV Revision: 2.30) id VAA09851; Thu, 3 Oct 1996 21:32:11 -0700 (PDT) Received: from localhost.HeadCandy.com (michaelv@localhost.HeadCandy.com [127.0.0.1]) by MindBender.serv.net (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id VAA11995; Thu, 3 Oct 1996 21:32:03 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <199610040432.VAA11995@MindBender.serv.net> X-Authentication-Warning: MindBender.serv.net: Host michaelv@localhost.HeadCandy.com [127.0.0.1] didn't use HELO protocol To: Dev Chanchani cc: freebsd-isp@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Kernel Boot In-reply-to: Your message of Thu, 03 Oct 96 19:37:36 -0400. Date: Thu, 03 Oct 1996 21:32:03 -0700 From: "Michael L. VanLoon -- HeadCandy.com" Sender: owner-isp@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk >I was wondering if anyone could help me boot the kernel to >another kernel besides /kernel, ie, /kernel.bak or /kernel.generic? >This is kind of urgent so quick replies would be greatly appreciated. I don't have any idea what you're asking for. Does typing the name of a kernel at the boot prompt not work for you? ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Michael L. VanLoon michaelv@MindBender.serv.net --< Free your mind and your machine -- NetBSD free un*x >-- NetBSD working ports: 386+PC, Mac 68k, Amiga, Atari 68k, HP300, Sun3, Sun4/4c/4m, DEC MIPS, DEC Alpha, PC532, VAX, MVME68k, arm32... NetBSD ports in progress: PICA, others... ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- From owner-freebsd-isp Fri Oct 4 06:15:10 1996 Return-Path: owner-isp Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id GAA17248 for isp-outgoing; Fri, 4 Oct 1996 06:15:10 -0700 (PDT) Received: from escape.cs.ibank.ru (escape.cs.ibank.ru [194.58.131.150]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with ESMTP id GAA17208; Fri, 4 Oct 1996 06:14:00 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from igor@localhost) by escape.cs.ibank.ru (8.7.5/8.7.3/Zynaps) id RAA21707; Fri, 4 Oct 1996 17:13:08 +0400 (MSD) From: Igor Vinokurov Message-Id: <199610041313.RAA21707@escape.cs.ibank.ru> Subject: ppp on demand To: questions@freebsd.org, isp@freebsd.org Date: Fri, 4 Oct 1996 17:13:08 +0400 (MSD) X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL25 (25)] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-isp@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk re, FreeBSD 2.1.5R, ppp user mode. dial-on-demand. I use ppp to connect to a office via my modem. This seems to work fine in that it sets up the IP connection correctly. My problem is that after a few hours ppp dies with following lines in ppp.log: 10-03 21:33:56 [137] Phase: Dead dial OK! 10-03 21:47:47 [137] SIGHUP 10-03 21:47:47 [137] *Connected! 10-03 21:47:48 [137] PPP Terminated. Or: 10-04 15:13:36 [137] Phase: Dead dial OK! And nothing! `ps ax | grep ppp` not show ppp process, but file /var/run/PPP.demand is present... Why? Part of my /etc/ppp/ppp.conf: default: set device /dev/cuaa0 set speed 38400 deny lqr disable lqr set dial "ABORT BUSY ABORT NO\\sCARRIER TIMEOUT 5 \"\" ATZ OK-AT-OK \\dATDP\\T TIMEOUT 90 CONNECT" system: set phone 326354 disable pap deny pap accept chap set authname xxxxx set authkey xxxxx set login "TIMEOUT 5 login:-\\r-login: xxxxx word: xxxxx" set timeout 90 deny pred1 disable pred1 set ifaddr xx.xx.xx.30 xx.xx.xx.29 255.255.255.252 -- Igor Vinokurov, JSB "Inkombank" From owner-freebsd-isp Fri Oct 4 09:56:13 1996 Return-Path: owner-isp Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id JAA28386 for isp-outgoing; Fri, 4 Oct 1996 09:56:13 -0700 (PDT) Received: from irbs.irbs.com (irbs.com [199.182.75.129]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with ESMTP id JAA28381 for ; Fri, 4 Oct 1996 09:56:07 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from jc@localhost) by irbs.irbs.com (8.7.6/8.7.3) id MAA25617; Fri, 4 Oct 1996 12:54:39 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <199610041654.MAA25617@irbs.irbs.com> Date: Fri, 4 Oct 1996 12:54:39 -0400 From: jc@irbs.com (John Capo) To: igor@cs.ibank.ru (Igor Vinokurov) Cc: isp@freebsd.org Subject: Re: ppp on demand In-Reply-To: <199610041313.RAA21707@escape.cs.ibank.ru>; from Igor Vinokurov on Oct 4, 1996 17:13:08 +0400 References: <199610041313.RAA21707@escape.cs.ibank.ru> X-Mailer: Mutt 0.45 Mime-Version: 1.0 Sender: owner-isp@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Quoting Igor Vinokurov (igor@cs.ibank.ru): > re, > > FreeBSD 2.1.5R, ppp user mode. dial-on-demand. > > I use ppp to connect to a office via my modem. This seems to work > fine in that it sets up the IP connection correctly. My problem is > that after a few hours ppp dies with following lines in ppp.log: > > 10-03 21:33:56 [137] Phase: Dead > dial OK! > 10-03 21:47:47 [137] SIGHUP > 10-03 21:47:47 [137] *Connected! > 10-03 21:47:48 [137] PPP Terminated. > Carrier dropped and ppp exits on SIGHUP. IMHO, exit on SIGHUP is bogus. This should be a config option but no time... Change signal(SIGHUP, Hangup); in main.c to signal(SIGHUP, SIG_IGN); Or delete both occurances of this snippet in modem.c: if (!(mode & MODE_DEDICATED)) rstio.c_cflag |= HUPCL; John Capo jc@irbs.com IRBS Engineering FreeBSD Servers and Workstations (954) 792-9551 Unix/Internet Consulting - ISP Solutions From owner-freebsd-isp Sat Oct 5 00:20:51 1996 Return-Path: owner-isp Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id AAA01008 for isp-outgoing; Sat, 5 Oct 1996 00:20:51 -0700 (PDT) Received: from dnai.com (dnai.com [140.174.162.28]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with ESMTP id AAA01002 for ; Sat, 5 Oct 1996 00:20:49 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mars.dnai.com (mars.dnai.com [140.174.162.14]) by dnai.com (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id AAA10327 for ; Sat, 5 Oct 1996 00:20:18 -0700 (PDT) Date: Sat, 5 Oct 1996 00:20:18 -0700 (PDT) From: Dror Matalon Reply-To: Dror Matalon To: freebsd-isp@freebsd.org Subject: How to solve the news server problem In-Reply-To: <199610031825.NAA07158@brasil.moneng.mei.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-isp@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Hi folks, All this discussion of RAID, ccd etc got me again thinking about the news server problem. Our news has way more problems than any other server we run. I believe that this is typical for most ISPs. Our population actually reads news less than many other ISPs. With around 3000 users I've never seen more than 30 concurrent readers on our news server. Our server runs on : 128 Meg memory 4 Quantum XP34300W (Fast wide 4Gig) Yes, I know 8 2 Gigs would be better. Pentium 133 Response time is fine, but not spectacular. I suspect that the next step for speedup would be for us to have separate reader and feed machines. Right now this machine connect to 4 other ISPs to send and receive news. I'm annoyed with how indeficient the news system is. I know the history, (pun intended) of Usenet and it all makes sense in the context of uucp and store and forward on 56K lines to have a news system where everyone keeps all the articles and everyone has a full feed. Today with our fast lines and 150 - 200 Megs of news I believe that my news server is spending most of its time receiving, writing to disk, organizing, and then removing files that NONE OF MY USERS WILL EVER LOOK AT. To put it another way, the reason that we all have these really full feeds (other than to be able to tell someone who calls and wants to know, "oh yes we have 500,000 newsgroups"), is so that when one of our users wants to subscribe to a new newsgroup we want the to have the articles there. We could quite easily figure out which newsgroups our users subscribe to, accept only articles for these newsgroups and reduce the traffic, the disk space, the memory etc to ... 5%? 10%? 30%? The problem is that we want to have newsgroups available when our users want to subscribe to something new. So, it looks like we could have some kind of algorithm that keeps everything in subscribed newsgroups for 14 days. Keeps subscribed binary newsgroups for 7 days, keeps everything else for 1 day. This way when someone subscribes to a new newsgroup they have something to start with, and they'll see all the new stuff from the point of subscription. The only time they lose is when the subscribe to a new newsgroup they only get to see 1 day instead of 13 days or articles. On the other hand, I just checked and our users only looked at 554 newsgroups out of the 17,000 or so we have (I lied we don't have 500,000). So even if the binary newsgroups will still contain most of the same material and even if we do a keep a day's work of other unsubscribed newsgroups we should be able to handle only 20% or so of all the articles and our disks will not be working as hard since they'll have a lot less material to look through, which should make them more reliable, need to worry less about disks failing, RAID, ccd etc. Now, I know I'm not the only smart person in the world so I looked around and sure enough I found ftp://ftp.math.psu.edu/pub/INN/contrib/actgroups.pl #!/usr/local/bin/perl # Active Groups -- Detecting actively accessed news groups and setting # expire.ctl accordingly $progname = "actgroups"; $version = "Ver 0.03c, 30 August 1994"; $author = "Yufan Hu "; # # Slightly modified by Alan Brown (alan@manawatu.planet.co.nz) 15 Dec 1994 But I couldn't find anyone using this. So folks, is this a good solution? Dror Matalon Voice: 510 649-6110 Direct Network Access Fax: 510 649-7130 2039 Shattuck Avenue Modem: 510 649-6116 Berkeley, CA 94704 Email: dror@dnai.com From owner-freebsd-isp Sat Oct 5 00:59:37 1996 Return-Path: owner-isp Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id AAA02008 for isp-outgoing; Sat, 5 Oct 1996 00:59:37 -0700 (PDT) Received: from al.imforei.apana.org.au (pjchilds@al.imforei.apana.org.au [202.12.89.41]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with ESMTP id AAA02002 for ; Sat, 5 Oct 1996 00:59:28 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from pjchilds@localhost) by al.imforei.apana.org.au (8.8.0/8.7.3) id RAA09217; Sat, 5 Oct 1996 17:29:15 +0930 (CST) Date: Sat, 5 Oct 1996 17:29:15 +0930 (CST) From: Peter Childs Message-Id: <199610050759.RAA09217@al.imforei.apana.org.au> To: dror@dnai.com (Dror Matalon), freebsd-isp@freebsd.org Subject: Re: How to solve the news server problem X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2] Sender: owner-isp@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk : I believe that my news server is spending most of its time receiving, : writing to disk, organizing, and then removing files that NONE OF : MY USERS WILL EVER LOOK AT. Yup :) : We could quite easily figure out which newsgroups our users subscribe : to, accept only articles for these newsgroups and reduce the traffic, : the disk space, the memory etc to ... 5%? 10%? 30%? The problem is : that we want to have newsgroups available when our users want to : subscribe to something new. This works ok in some cases, but not really when your other sites expect you to provide them with a full feed. [cut] : But I couldn't find anyone using this. So folks, is this a good solution? Could work for you. But your still receiving all that news. You want something that limits your newsfeed. Somethings you could look at are "nntpcache" which if you had a nice fast link to your "next-in-line" for news, and you could convince all your "under-feeds" to use would create similar to a distributed "web-cache" type setup. Another product I believe works similar to this (but different) is LeafNode.... from the LeafNode readme. --quote-- Only groups that someone has been reading in the past week are fetched from the upstream NNTP server. When someone stops reading a group, fetch will stop reading that group a week later, and when someone starts reading a group, fetch will grab all the articles it can in that group the next time it runs. --end-quote-- I would still probably opt for using inn with something like "suck" and use the same type of algorithm for determining what you pull from your "up-sites". Co-ordinating this automagically with with sites you feed might be a bit of a problem, but i'm sure you could figure it out :) Peter -- Peter Childs --- http://www.imforei.apana.org.au/~pjchilds Finger pjchilds@al.imforei.apana.org.au for public PGP key Drag me, drop me, treat me like an object! From owner-freebsd-isp Sat Oct 5 01:53:04 1996 Return-Path: owner-isp Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id BAA03914 for isp-outgoing; Sat, 5 Oct 1996 01:53:04 -0700 (PDT) Received: from who.cdrom.com (who.cdrom.com [204.216.27.3]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with ESMTP id BAA03909 for ; Sat, 5 Oct 1996 01:53:01 -0700 (PDT) Received: from shadows.aeon.net (bsdisp@shadows.aeon.net [194.100.41.1]) by who.cdrom.com (8.7.5/8.6.11) with ESMTP id BAA01391 for ; Sat, 5 Oct 1996 01:52:56 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from bsdisp@localhost) by shadows.aeon.net (8.7.5/8.6.9) id LAA07506; Sat, 5 Oct 1996 11:49:34 +0200 (EET) From: mika ruohotie Message-Id: <199610050949.LAA07506@shadows.aeon.net> Subject: Re: How to solve the news server problem To: dror@dnai.com Date: Sat, 5 Oct 1996 11:49:33 +0200 (EET) Cc: freebsd-isp@FreeBSD.ORG In-Reply-To: from Dror Matalon at "Oct 5, 96 00:20:18 am" X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL22 (25)] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-isp@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > Hi folks, > 3000 users I've never seen more than 30 concurrent readers > on our news server. Our server runs on : > 128 Meg memory > 4 Quantum XP34300W (Fast wide 4Gig) Yes, I know 8 2 Gigs would be better. > Pentium 133 > > Response time is fine, but not spectacular. I suspect that the next > step for speedup would be for us to have separate reader and feed > machines. Right now this machine connect to 4 other ISPs to send > and receive news. even machine like that cant handle news too well nowadays? outch. since i was planning running news on machine with about 10-12 2gig ultra wide drives, with 256megs of ram and p166 or pro200... but it seems to me that might be futile... > I believe that my news server is spending most of its time receiving, > writing to disk, organizing, and then removing files that NONE OF > MY USERS WILL EVER LOOK AT. To put it another way, the reason that indeed. how about running the news on sgi challenge s? i've heard there's news software available for sgi machiens that actually doesnt neccessarry keep the unread groups on disk, when someone accesses those groups, the software grabs those groups from the servers feeding the machine... am i right? anyone more knowledge about this? is there anyone familiar with the challenge s machines? the price doesnt sound too bad, since it's only a little more than pro200, and has faster bus and stuff... i could think the first place where the pc hardware loses most _is_ the "slow" bus speed, coz you can drag only 132mbytes of stuff cross the ethernets (possibly multiple interfaces) and scsi's (again possibly multiple interfaces) mickey -- mika ruohotie mika@aeon.net net/sys admin From owner-freebsd-isp Sat Oct 5 05:16:37 1996 Return-Path: owner-isp Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id FAA13038 for isp-outgoing; Sat, 5 Oct 1996 05:16:37 -0700 (PDT) Received: from npc.haplink.co.cn ([202.96.192.53]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id FAA12904; Sat, 5 Oct 1996 05:15:27 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from xiyuan@localhost) by npc.haplink.co.cn (8.6.11/8.6.9) id UAA07936; Sat, 5 Oct 1996 20:20:46 GMT Date: Sat, 5 Oct 1996 20:20:46 GMT From: xiyuan qian Message-Id: <199610052020.UAA07936@npc.haplink.co.cn> To: isp@freebsd.org Subject: Upgrade my system Cc: questions@freebsd.org, steve@cioe.com Sender: owner-isp@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Hi, I am going to upgrade my system FreeBSD2.1.0 to 2.1.5, but I do need some help on that. 1. Do I need download all the files of 2.1.5 as my setting up with 2.0.5? 2. I have upto 300 users in my 2.0.5, how can I convert them to the new system, I mean, especially the password or some more important file? Best regaurds! --xiyuan From owner-freebsd-isp Sat Oct 5 07:34:56 1996 Return-Path: owner-isp Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id HAA19654 for isp-outgoing; Sat, 5 Oct 1996 07:34:56 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mp.aha.ru (mp.aha.ru [194.135.22.36]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id HAA19645 for ; Sat, 5 Oct 1996 07:34:49 -0700 (PDT) Received: by mp.aha.ru id RAA06429; (8.6.11/vak/1.8e) Sat, 5 Oct 1996 17:31:30 +0300 From: bvt@mp.aha.ru (Boris Tyshkiewitch) Message-Id: <199610051431.RAA06429@mp.aha.ru> Subject: Re: How to solve the news server problem To: pjchilds@imforei.apana.org.au (Peter Childs) Date: Sat, 5 Oct 1996 17:31:29 +0300 (MSK) Cc: dror@dnai.com, freebsd-isp@freebsd.org In-Reply-To: <199610050759.RAA09217@al.imforei.apana.org.au> from "Peter Childs" at Oct 5, 96 05:29:15 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24alpha5] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=KOI8-R Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Sender: owner-isp@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > > : I believe that my news server is spending most of its time receiving, > : writing to disk, organizing, and then removing files that NONE OF > : MY USERS WILL EVER LOOK AT. > > Yup :) > > : We could quite easily figure out which newsgroups our users subscribe > : to, accept only articles for these newsgroups and reduce the traffic, > : the disk space, the memory etc to ... 5%? 10%? 30%? The problem is > : that we want to have newsgroups available when our users want to > : subscribe to something new. > > This works ok in some cases, but not really when your other sites > expect you to provide them with a full feed. Yes, but many sites work as leaf nodes, doing all the work for the newsreaders and uucp links. (Hmm, is uucp still alive in the US?) As to this problem, I have done a small patch for nnrpd, which creates tail of read newsgroups ( touch file in special dir). So I have a list of newsgroups that are actually being read. I can expire them this way by "find . +mtime 4 -exec rm {};". Next, what can I do with this list? The first idea is to create a list for some nntp sucker (I use slurp). It's good, it works, but sucking a list of ~1000 groups is not a right thing. (transfer a 1000 group list to server, get big the list of new msgids, get the articles). It works on my server for a 2 month, and I disable it. The second idea is more interesting. In my higher news server GUP is running - a program that regulates newsfeeds' contens via email. And the only thing I have to do - it sends messages like "subscribe to this.group", "unsubscribe from that.group". This apporoch works fine. All the clients are satisfied. I have only 700-1400 _really_active_ groups (full active file is 10000 groups) It is really easy to implement - 10 line patch to nnrpd, small shell script that generate subscribe/unsubscribe messages, and GUP installed on the higher server. Boris. From owner-freebsd-isp Sat Oct 5 08:22:13 1996 Return-Path: owner-isp Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id IAA21329 for isp-outgoing; Sat, 5 Oct 1996 08:22:13 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mail.calweb.com (mail.calweb.com [165.90.138.20]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with ESMTP id IAA21324 for ; Sat, 5 Oct 1996 08:22:09 -0700 (PDT) Received: from web1.calweb.com (rdugaue@web1.calweb.com [165.90.138.10]) by mail.calweb.com (8.7.6/8.7.3) with SMTP id IAA07598; Sat, 5 Oct 1996 08:13:57 -0700 (PDT) Date: Sat, 5 Oct 1996 08:13:56 -0700 (PDT) From: Robert Du Gaue To: mika ruohotie cc: freebsd-isp@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: How to solve the news server problem In-Reply-To: <199610050949.LAA07506@shadows.aeon.net> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-isp@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > how about running the news on sgi challenge s? hehe. That cracks me up. We started our ISP with an SGI. Now it's called boatanchor.calweb.com for good reasons. It's NFS stuff does not get along with Freebsd and it barely handles the 64 businesses we have on it. > is there anyone familiar with the challenge s machines? the price doesnt > sound too bad, since it's only a little more than pro200, and has faster The last P6Pro/200 I got was about $3k. This was with 128megs ram, 2 gig fast/wide, dual ethernet controller, etc.... The challenge S is considerably more then that, and make sure you get the correct software options. By the time you're done getting what you need you'll be way over $10k. > bus and stuff... i could think the first place where the pc hardware loses > most _is_ the "slow" bus speed, coz you can drag only 132mbytes of stuff "slow"? The PCI bus speed is quite adequate. 132mbyte across a 10mb ethernet would be a neat trick. Our 10baseT backbone, with nearly 5000 subscribers is only about 14% utilized during peak. The PCI buses or the ethernet backbone are not a bottleneck! -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Robert Du Gaue - rdugaue@calweb.com http://www.calweb.com President, CalWeb Internet Services Inc. (916) 641-9320 -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From owner-freebsd-isp Sat Oct 5 09:00:15 1996 Return-Path: owner-isp Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id JAA23181 for isp-outgoing; Sat, 5 Oct 1996 09:00:15 -0700 (PDT) Received: from presence.lglobal.com (root@presence.lglobal.com [207.107.12.2]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id JAA23175 for ; Sat, 5 Oct 1996 09:00:12 -0700 (PDT) Received: from presence.lglobal.com (drop@ocufa.on.ca [207.107.12.204]) by presence.lglobal.com (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id NAA00519; Sat, 5 Oct 1996 13:32:01 -0400 Date: Sat, 5 Oct 1996 13:32:00 -0400 (EDT) From: Colin Ryan To: mika ruohotie cc: dror@dnai.com, freebsd-isp@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: How to solve the news server problem In-Reply-To: <199610050949.LAA07506@shadows.aeon.net> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-isp@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Sat, 5 Oct 1996, mika ruohotie wrote: Dont' mean to sound highbrow or anything as I'm not doing anything special with news but wasn't there a large discussion about these "sucking feeds" a while back. Seems to me that solutions exsist but It depends on the situations like how many/who are you crossfeeding to etc etc. > > Hi folks, > > 3000 users I've never seen more than 30 concurrent readers > > on our news server. Our server runs on : > > 128 Meg memory > > 4 Quantum XP34300W (Fast wide 4Gig) Yes, I know 8 2 Gigs would be better. > > Pentium 133 > > > > Response time is fine, but not spectacular. I suspect that the next > > step for speedup would be for us to have separate reader and feed > > machines. Right now this machine connect to 4 other ISPs to send > > and receive news. > > even machine like that cant handle news too well nowadays? outch. since i > was planning running news on machine with about 10-12 2gig ultra wide > drives, with 256megs of ram and p166 or pro200... but it seems to me > that might be futile... > > > I believe that my news server is spending most of its time receiving, > > writing to disk, organizing, and then removing files that NONE OF > > MY USERS WILL EVER LOOK AT. To put it another way, the reason that > > indeed. > > how about running the news on sgi challenge s? > > i've heard there's news software available for sgi machiens that actually > doesnt neccessarry keep the unread groups on disk, when someone accesses > those groups, the software grabs those groups from the servers feeding > the machine... am i right? anyone more knowledge about this? > > is there anyone familiar with the challenge s machines? the price doesnt > sound too bad, since it's only a little more than pro200, and has faster > bus and stuff... i could think the first place where the pc hardware loses > most _is_ the "slow" bus speed, coz you can drag only 132mbytes of stuff > cross the ethernets (possibly multiple interfaces) and scsi's (again > possibly multiple interfaces) > > > mickey > -- > mika ruohotie mika@aeon.net net/sys admin > -------------------------------\\|!|//------------------------------- | Colin P. Ryan \!/ Cyber- | | Local GlobalAccess Inc.....More than Just a Provider! Rights | | 320 1/2 Bloor St. W. Toronto. ON NOW !! | | e:drop@lglobal.com Phone: (416)515-7400| --------------------------------------------------------------------- From owner-freebsd-isp Sat Oct 5 12:10:53 1996 Return-Path: owner-isp Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id MAA03249 for isp-outgoing; Sat, 5 Oct 1996 12:10:53 -0700 (PDT) Received: from trogon.kiwi.net (trogon.kiwi.net [207.155.57.66]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with ESMTP id MAA03236 for ; Sat, 5 Oct 1996 12:10:20 -0700 (PDT) Received: from trogon.kiwi.net (trogon.kiwi.net [207.155.57.66]) by trogon.kiwi.net (8.8.0/8.7.3) with SMTP id MAA02047 for ; Sat, 5 Oct 1996 12:14:28 -0700 (PDT) Date: Sat, 5 Oct 1996 12:14:28 -0700 (PDT) From: Christopher Taylor To: freebsd-isp@freebsd.org Subject: Taylor UUCP Help! Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-isp@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Hi, I have a couple of customers who run a BBS, and want to get UUCP email to their bulletin board. I have never setup any UUCP package before, and I am hoping that someone in here has. :) I downloaded and compiled v1.06 just fine, and set up the proper directories, and created an account for someone to test out, and set its uid and group to that of UUCP's. I also set shell to uucico, and home to /var/spool/uucppublic. But, for some reason it keeps saying it doesn't have permission to talk! Does it have something to do with my files in /etc/uucp? And do I need to do anything special to my /etc/sendmail.cf file, to store uucp mail destined for one of my UUCP customers, in /var/spool/uucppublic/sysname? Also, I have gone over all the Taylor UUCP documentation I can find, and still cannot figure it out. TIA Chris +=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=+ o Christopher Taylor - Kiwi Computer Services o o VOICE: 909-274-7800 BBS: 909-274-7803 o o *+*+*+* o o Kiwi Internet Services Now Online! o o $12.95/mo FLAT RATE PPP Access!! o o Visit: Http://Www.Kiwi.Net o +=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=+ PGP Fingerprint: 0D 47 98 16 74 DC 3D 7E 1E 6E 6C 2B D9 A5 C7 1B Public Keyring Available Upon Request! From owner-freebsd-isp Sat Oct 5 13:09:19 1996 Return-Path: owner-isp Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id NAA05217 for isp-outgoing; Sat, 5 Oct 1996 13:09:19 -0700 (PDT) Received: from foo.primenet.com (ip238.lax.primenet.com [204.212.59.238]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with ESMTP id NAA05201 for ; Sat, 5 Oct 1996 13:09:11 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from bkogawa@localhost) by foo.primenet.com (8.7.5/8.6.12) id NAA09425; Sat, 5 Oct 1996 13:14:02 -0700 (PDT) Date: Sat, 5 Oct 1996 13:14:02 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <199610052014.NAA09425@foo.primenet.com> To: bkogawa@foo.primenet.com Subject: How to solve the news server problem From: "Bryan K. Ogawa" Cc: dror@dnai.com, freebsd-isp@FreeBSD.ORG, pjchilds@imforei.apana.org.au (Peter Childs) X-Newsreader: NN version 6.5.0 #1 (NOV) Sender: owner-isp@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk >Xref: nosuchsite localhost.freebsd.isp:402 >Newsgroups: localhost.freebsd.isp >Path: nosuchsite!bkogawa >From: bvt@mp.aha.ru (Boris Tyshkiewitch) >Subject: Re: How to solve the news server problem >Approved: bkogawa@localhost >Content-Type: text/plain; charset=KOI8-R >X-Original-Sender: owner-isp@FreeBSD.ORG >To: pjchilds@imforei.apana.org.au (Peter Childs) >Sender: bkogawa@primenet.com (Bryan K. Ogawa) >Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit >Organization: Sirius Cybernetics, Sirius City branch >Precedence: bulk >Message-ID: <199610051431.RAA06429@mp.aha.ru> >X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24alpha5] >References: <> >X-Uidl: 6e4e778ce85020846f8f19f90dc0ec60 >X-Loop: FreeBSD.org >Mime-Version: 1.0 >In-Reply-To: <199610050759.RAA09217@al.imforei.apana.org.au> from "Peter Childs" at Oct 5, 96 05:29:15 pm >Cc: dror@dnai.com, freebsd-isp@FreeBSD.ORG >Date: Sat, 5 Oct 1996 19:25:24 GMT > > : I believe that my news server is spending most of its time receiving, > : writing to disk, organizing, and then removing files that NONE OF > : MY USERS WILL EVER LOOK AT. > > Yup :) > > : We could quite easily figure out which newsgroups our users subscribe > : to, accept only articles for these newsgroups and reduce the traffic, > : the disk space, the memory etc to ... 5%? 10%? 30%? The problem is > : that we want to have newsgroups available when our users want to > : subscribe to something new. > > This works ok in some cases, but not really when your other sites > expect you to provide them with a full feed. Yes, but many sites work as leaf nodes, doing all the work for the newsreaders and uucp links. (Hmm, is uucp still alive in the US?) As to this problem, I have done a small patch for nnrpd, which creates tail of read newsgroups ( touch file in special dir). So I have a list of newsgroups that are actually being read. I can expire them this way by "find . +mtime 4 -exec rm {};". Next, what can I do with this list? The first idea is to create a list for some nntp sucker (I use slurp). It's good, it works, but sucking a list of ~1000 groups is not a right thing. (transfer a 1000 group list to server, get big the list of new msgids, get the articles). It works on my server for a 2 month, and I disable it. The second idea is more interesting. In my higher news server GUP is running - a program that regulates newsfeeds' contens via email. And the only thing I have to do - it sends messages like "subscribe to this.group", "unsubscribe from that.group". This apporoch works fine. All the clients are satisfied. I have only 700-1400 _really_active_ groups (full active file is 10000 groups) It is really easy to implement - 10 line patch to nnrpd, small shell script that generate subscribe/unsubscribe messages, and GUP installed on the higher server. Boris. -- bryan k ogawa http://www.primenet.com/~bkogawa/ From owner-freebsd-isp Sat Oct 5 14:59:43 1996 Return-Path: owner-isp Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id OAA10929 for isp-outgoing; Sat, 5 Oct 1996 14:59:43 -0700 (PDT) Received: from bitbucket.edmweb.com (bitbucket.edmweb.com [204.244.190.9]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id OAA10912; Sat, 5 Oct 1996 14:59:28 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from steve@localhost) by bitbucket.edmweb.com (8.6.12/8.6.12) id OAA00196; Sat, 5 Oct 1996 14:58:31 -0700 Date: Sat, 5 Oct 1996 14:58:28 -0700 (PDT) From: Steve Reid To: xiyuan qian cc: isp@FreeBSD.org, questions@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: Upgrade my system In-Reply-To: <199610052020.UAA07936@npc.haplink.co.cn> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-isp@FreeBSD.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk >Hi, I am going to upgrade my system FreeBSD2.1.0 to 2.1.5, but I do need >some help on that. >1. Do I need download all the files of 2.1.5 as my setting up with 2.0.5? >2. I have upto 300 users in my 2.0.5, how can I convert them to the new >system, I mean, especially the password or some more important file? I recently upgraded two machines from 2.1.0-RELEASE to 2.1.5-STABLE. I used CTM and it was actually quite painless. You just have to download 20-25 megs, run it through CTM, and that'll give you a new source tree. Do a "make world" (should go down to single-user for this) and compile a new kernel, and you're done. Be sure to consult the handbook for details. From owner-freebsd-isp Sat Oct 5 20:19:25 1996 Return-Path: owner-isp Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id UAA03246 for isp-outgoing; Sat, 5 Oct 1996 20:19:25 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mirage.nlink.com.br (mirage.nlink.com.br [200.238.120.3]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id UAA03232 for ; Sat, 5 Oct 1996 20:19:19 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from luiz@localhost) by mirage.nlink.com.br (8.6.12/8.6.12) id AAA25925 for freebsd-isp@freebsd.org; Sun, 6 Oct 1996 00:23:56 -0300 Date: Sun, 6 Oct 1996 00:23:56 -0300 From: Luiz de Barros Message-Id: <199610060323.AAA25925@mirage.nlink.com.br> To: freebsd-isp@freebsd.org Subject: WWW Certification of cdrom.com Sender: owner-isp@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Dear Netters, I was surfing through www.cdrom.com pages and could check that the Secure Server Certificate was issued by RSA Data Security INC. The WWW Server there is Apache, isn't it? Does RSA certify apache-SSL outside USA? Thanks in Advance, Luiz From owner-freebsd-isp Sat Oct 5 21:22:01 1996 Return-Path: owner-isp Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id VAA09120 for isp-outgoing; Sat, 5 Oct 1996 21:22:01 -0700 (PDT) Received: from al.imforei.apana.org.au (pjchilds@al.imforei.apana.org.au [202.12.89.41]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with ESMTP id VAA09097 for ; Sat, 5 Oct 1996 21:21:42 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from pjchilds@localhost) by al.imforei.apana.org.au (8.8.0/8.7.3) id NAA00489; Sun, 6 Oct 1996 13:51:37 +0930 (CST) Date: Sun, 6 Oct 1996 13:51:37 +0930 (CST) From: Peter Childs Message-Id: <199610060421.NAA00489@al.imforei.apana.org.au> To: freebsd@trogon.kiwi.net (Christopher Taylor), freebsd-isp@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Taylor UUCP Help! X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2] Sender: owner-isp@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk In article <536g70$mir@al.imforei.apana.org.au> you wrote: : Hi, I have a couple of customers who run a BBS, and want to get UUCP : email to their bulletin board. I have never setup any UUCP package [etc] Managing uucp and Usenet by O'Reily &c.. and so so.. :) Its a little dated but if your going to do it, may as well do it right :) Also print out the Taylor UUCP document that comes with it in Postscript... Chapter 3 entitled "Installing Taylor UUCP" would be a good start, in fact the whole document (give or take a bit) is worth a look. Peter -- Peter Childs --- http://www.imforei.apana.org.au/~pjchilds Finger pjchilds@al.imforei.apana.org.au for public PGP key Drag me, drop me, treat me like an object!