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Date: Fri, 19 Apr 1996 03:26:17 -0700
From: David Muir Sharnoff <muir@idiom.com>
Message-Id: <199604191026.DAA05180@idiom.com>
To: "Jordan K. Hubbard" <jkh@time.cdrom.com>
cc: joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de (Joerg Wunsch),
        ache@astral.msk.su (=?KOI8-R?Q?=E1=CE=C4=D2=C5=CA_=FE=C5=D2=CE=CF=D7?=),
        nate@sri.MT.net, scrappy@freefall.freebsd.org,
        freebsd-bugs@freefall.freebsd.org, core@freebsd.org
Subject: Re: Re: bin/1019 
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* It certainly seems that having things like mgetty/ppp getty/foo getty
* and bar getty is a non-optimal solution to the problem.

I agree in theory, but there is one snag: detecting faxes is
uaually an interactive process that varies based on the type
of modem.

I'm more familiar with mgetty than faxgetty and mgetty works by
turning off auto-answer and then manually answering when it receives
a "RING".

Hmmm, one odd application: have a port autoconfigure based on what
it detects on the other end.  You plug in a modem.  It notices and
initializes the modem.  You plug in another FreeBSD system: it notcies
and tries to establish a PPP link.  You plug in a printer and it
auto-configures lpd.  

This sort of thing could be very neat, but it's not that easy either.
It's especially not easy to generalize.

I think the best short run solution is to take my pppgetty changes
and hope that someone integrates them into faxgetty and/or mgetty 
(maybe me).  A fax/ppp getty would handle most of the common cases
for a long time -- there aren't that many other things that you would
want getty to detect at this time.

Autodetection and configuration of periferals is another ball game.  
I don't think it's worth building a generalized protocol detector 
until then.

-Dave