Date: Sun, 04 Jan 1998 22:29:17 -0400 From: =?iso-8859-1?Q?=22Luis_E=2E_Mu=F1oz=22?= <lem@cantv.net> To: MegaFred <mfred@zen.triax.com> Cc: freebsd mailing list <freebsd-isp@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: Re: ISP Conversion Message-ID: <3.0.5.32.19980104222917.007b9810@pop.cantv.net> In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.3.96.980104131348.15965B-100000@zen.triax.com>
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At 01:50 PM 04/01/1998 -0800, MegaFred wrote: [snip] >3) Services. Right now we're running a mail server in NT (Post.Office, >www.software.com), and looking to run that same software on BSDi. Has >anyone ever run Post.Office in bsdi? Is it as bad as it is in NT? Would >I be better off using qpopper/sendmail? What kind of resources would this >alternative take for 500 or so concurrent pop3 connections? 100 >concurrent smtp? (x86). Is there a good e-mail paging solution I could >use in conjunction with either? Would FreeBSD be okay for these, or am I >better off with BSDi? I would appreciate hearing any success/failure >stories from people running Post.Office under BSDi, and anyone running >qpopper/sendmail under freebsd with around the same load. Do you *really* have 500 concurrent pop3 connections? currently we serve 7500 users aprox and we have 5 concurrent pop3 sessions at most during peak hours. I've seen many people using sendpage... Haven't tried it myself, but certainly will. We run qpopper/sendmail with much success. If you configure it correctly, a couple (or even a single!) Pentium 200, 256Meg RAM could provide all that you need. >4) NFS. I'm looking to have an NFS machine which will house pretty much >everything. All our customers web pages will be stored here, all the >news, all the mail, etc. The actual service machines (mail server, web >server, etc.) will just mount their respective directories on this server >to deliver the requested data. Is this viable? I tend to dislike this design. This will create a single point of failure and probably create a lot of security holes in your setup. The performance will also suffer because of the massive ammounts of info you'll have bouncing in your network back and forth. Picture this: (1) User request a given article from your news server (2) news server reads the file from the NFS server (3) news server replies to the client This duplicates (or triplicates if you consider the download of your news traffic) the ammount of data sent over your net. Now, this might be acceptable depending on your particular scenario. >The NFS server is going >to be a custom-built, dual Ppro with 200mb ram (probably DIMM's), 8 4-gig >drives using an Adaptec 2940UW, combining all drives into a single >partition via ccp, will be running BSDi, all on a 100mbps LAN. Will this >be a good enough solution for that much data? This is probably a good fileserver, but keep in mind that anyway the prior paragraphs are still true. Also I'm sure that many on this list have much more space just for news service. You also have all your eggs on a single basket; if one of your 4Gig disks die, all of your services will go down though they might have survived (you still have perfectly good servers). Please don't get me wrong, as I'm biased towards a more distributed design strategy ;) >Will this give us room >enough for expansion? If ANONE sees a problem with this, please let me >know (I'm begging!), because if this baby can't cut it, it could mean my >hide. :) > >5) Lastly, I'm looking into building my own router for pop sites. I'm >thinking of using a 486DX with 8 megs ram, internal T1 CSU card, and >FreeBSD as its core components. This router will be handling probably >nothing more then 48 33.6 lines over a Frame Relay connection to our main >backbone. Will a computer be a reliable enough solution for routing IP? It *might* be reliable enough. Computers are too complex for this. For instance, you only need your HD for booting the OS. After this, the HD becomes a critical point. If it fails, your router goes down. If you're under a cost constraint, try to get a few used Cisco 2501. They're *much* more reliable than servers for this job (in my opinion and experience). They have a single ethernet (10 Mbps) port and two independent T1/E1 sync serial ports. The most basic software set allows for Frame Relay and the speak BGP4, so you can build a rather complex network when the need arises. You can also upgrade them up to 16Mb RAM using standard 72-pin SIMMS (70ns, no parity worked fine for us). > Thanks in advance to whoever takes the time to reply. Good luck! -lem
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