From owner-freebsd-questions Wed Oct 2 10:25:38 1996 Return-Path: owner-questions Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id KAA22541 for questions-outgoing; Wed, 2 Oct 1996 10:25:38 -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-questions@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)