From owner-freebsd-isp Thu Mar 27 14:48:39 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id OAA00283 for isp-outgoing; Thu, 27 Mar 1997 14:48:39 -0800 (PST) Received: from absinthe.i3inc.com (Absinthe.stonos.washington.dc.us [206.27.237.33]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id OAA00276 for ; Thu, 27 Mar 1997 14:48:33 -0800 (PST) Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by absinthe.i3inc.com (8.7.2/8.7.2) with SMTP id RAA00500; Thu, 27 Mar 1997 17:46:26 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <199703272246.RAA00500@absinthe.i3inc.com> X-Authentication-Warning: absinthe.i3inc.com: Host localhost [127.0.0.1] didn't use HELO protocol To: sysop@mixcom.com Cc: rob@xs1.simplex.nl, freebsd-isp@freebsd.org Subject: Re: term server In-Reply-To: Your message of "Thu, 27 Mar 1997 08:56:03 -0600" References: <3.0.32.19970327085602.00ba6758@mixcom.com> X-Mailer: Mew version 1.03 on Emacs 19.34.1 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: Text/Plain; charset=us-ascii Date: Thu, 27 Mar 1997 17:46:23 -0500 From: Chris Shenton Sender: owner-isp@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk I installed a PM2 (my first) at an ISP, and an Ascend Max 4004 (also my first) at NASA/HQ (my day job). If I were to start an ISP tomorrow, I'd buy a PM*3* in a heartbeat, even though I haven't played with one yet. On the down-side, the PM2 docs were painful: discussion of PMconsole setup and admin, but no ref for command line config; they've come out with new docs, so hopefully this has been remedied. But the machine (PM2) seems sound, the firmware robust, and the price per port -- especially for the PM3 -- quite good. The Max is obviously a more complex beast than the PM*2*, with PRIs and such. What gets me is the high cost and the almost *daily* firmware "incremental" releases, "patch" releases, and actual "release" releases. I am very disappointed with their SW engineering and quality control. Ours was rebooting every 8 hours until a recently firmware release fixed the bug. A bug in their RADIUS daemon prevented us from doing password expiration *and* idle timeout for many months until a recent release of that. It's real hard to keep track of the patches/incrementals when they come out so often -- and frequently introduce more insidious problems. Livingston SW releases seem much more controlled and careful. I like that in a production environment. Both have excellent on-line techies: Megazone for Livingston, and Kevin Smith for Ascend. Real heroes when you need 'em. But bang per buck and stability-wise, I'd go PM3.