Date: Tue, 21 Apr 1998 09:26:29 -0600 From: Mike <muck@ida.net> To: freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: An idea for promoting FreeBSD Message-ID: <353CBAA5.41C67EA6@ida.net> References: <353BED45.7F185851@uk.radan.com> <353C9F56.1D16D5E2@internationalschool.co.uk> <353CB636.F46D457C@uk.radan.com>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
Mark Ovens wrote: > > A PPP setup script would be very necessary I think, preferably with a > > dead simple "phone number, username, password" setup for CHAP...most > > ISP's should cope with that these days, it's far easier to get chap > > working than repeatedly explain how to install scripting on Win95 :-) > > Yes, it doesn't have to be a fancy GUI job just a plain old Bourne shell > script, but the questions need to simple and minimal. Phone number, > name, password as you suggest. I'm working on a ppp setup script right now, although, after consulting with Brian Somers, I don't know if it's such a good idea. If we got FreeBSD to a hundred thousand new users, he would be flooded with their requests to answer questions he's answered a million times before. >> I have written a small shell script which will ask the user some >> questions and then setup PPP for him. It's not complete yet, as it does >> no actual writing of files. But, I would like to have your opinion on >> it. I pretty much used the handbook entry on PPP as a guide. I've >> attached it to this email. And oh, yeah, this is my first attempt at >> writing a shell script so any comments would be welcome. >> >> Mike >[.....] > >Hi, > >This is a tricky subject. I think it's almost impossible to set up >the configuration files in this manner.... > >As far as I can tell, there are essentially two types of user - the >one that'll get scared off by a configuration file and the one who >will be happy to tweak a roughly correct configuration file. I think >there are very few people that have the time to set one up from >scratch - it just takes too long. > >Person-type 1 tends not to know enough detail to be able to answer >the questions that you need to ask in an interactive-setup type >scenario - for example, some users will want PAP or CHAP, some will >have a login/password session that gives other prompts too (such as >the popular "Protocol: " prompt after the password). And then there >are the more obscure problems where we're talking to an ISP that has >to receive 0.0.0.0 as our IP number before they'll assign a dynamic >IP, or a pre-patchkit-3 NT server that won't do proper CHAP, and the >user needs to rebuild ppp with DES. > >Person-type 2 wouldn't use the script. They'll be willing to grap >ppp.conf.sample and go from there. > >I don't really know what to do about Person-type 1. The best idea is >probably to maintain a catalogue of ppp.conf settings for different >ISP types. The problem is that I'm not willing to maintain that 'cos >it makes people *too* lazy and increases my workload in answering the >same questions over and over. > >My other idea is to write an X-Window front-end program that makes >all this look pretty with throughput monitors, dial/hangup buttons >etc - all the bells & whistles. The current development version can >support this sort of thing 'cos it can accept as many incoming >diagnostic settings as you want. But that's not going to be for a >while yet. > >I'm not convinced that the interactive approach is the answer.... :-( > > >-- >Brian <brian@Awfulhak.org>, <brian@FreeBSD.org>, <brian@OpenBSD.org> > <http://www.Awfulhak.org>; >Don't _EVER_ lose your sense of humour.... Mike To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?353CBAA5.41C67EA6>