Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2003 17:47:03 -0700 (MST) From: Nick Rogness <nick@rogness.net> To: Eric Brunner-Williams in Portland Maine <brunner@nic-naa.net> Cc: freebsd-isp@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Getting started as an ISP Message-ID: <20030122172412.L52063-100000@skywalker.rogness.net> In-Reply-To: <200301221928.h0MJSJ7l041222@nic-naa.net>
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On Wed, 22 Jan 2003, Eric Brunner-Williams in Portland Maine wrote:
> Oki all,
>
> A few weeks ago I sent a note asking for help getting started running
> out of my basement. Two people were kind enough to reply, and I've
> cleverly (not!) lost their mail.
>
> My situation has changed slightly. Originally I'd a set of iXsystems
> 1300 boxen running -STABLE and -CURRENT, and nothing else, all in my
> basement. Now I've more resources -- the assets of a failed ISP.
>
> I'd like to know what other small- to medium-sized ISPs consider the
> core set of service to provide dial-up service. The functional set of
> boxes, from dns to radius to ...
RADIUS is the only thing you need to offer dialup service.
However, that wouldn't make things very interesting now would it.
So these are just a few core services that I believe are required
to be considered a "normal" dialup service provider:
-DNS (DNS service, domain hosting, etc)
-Web/FTP (Web storage space)
-EMAIL (POP/IMAP/SMTP)
-NEWS
Web/FTP and Email service are relatively simple to provide to
customers. I recommend outsourcing News to some provider as it is
cumbersome and expensive to build/run/operate.
If your initial customer base is small then you can run all of
these things off of just a couple of machines (1 if you really
wanted too). It doesn't make much sense to put up several
machines unless you plan to grow quickly.
In fact, you could build an ISP with 2 or 3 pieces of equipment: a
Router, RAS box, and 1 UNIX machine. If you don't grow to
quickly, you could run on this setup for quite some time with the
proper connections. This isn't recommended for redundancy
reasons, but you COULD.
>
> I'll be happy to summarize, and provide archives, if no one has already
> done this. As some of the assets I now have are Sun boxen (new circa
> 1999), if the phrase "solaris 2.{6,7,8,9}" brings any
> failures-or-features to mind I'd appreciate that also.
Use intel based machines as they are less expensive to run and
maintain. Although, if you only have Sun's sitting around you
could use them. All third party applications (like Apache/Bind)
are available for Sun/Solaris systems.
>
> I'll be co-loing my original set of -STABLE boxen as an ISP and ICANN
> accredited registrar (yup, got my chit) in the same facilities, so all
> of my prior implicit "how do I" questions remain.
>
I have yet to see your questions. Could you send them to me
please?
Nick Rogness <nick@rogness.net>
-
How many people here have telekenetic powers? Raise my hand.
-Emo Philips
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