Skip site navigation (1)Skip section navigation (2)
Date:      Tue, 27 Mar 2001 12:02:24 -0500
From:      "Andrew C. Hornback" <hornback@wireco.net>
To:        "Ed Henderson" <Ed.Henderson@Certainty.net>
Cc:        "FreeBSD Hardware" <hardware@FreeBSD.ORG>
Subject:   ISP tips and tricks (was :RE: Server MB suggestions?)
Message-ID:  <00a601c0b6df$b1e65b40$0e00000a@tomcat>
In-Reply-To: <002e01c0b6d8$a2eb61a0$0464a8c0@pnt004>

next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
I'm thinking this probably should be cross-posted to the ISP list, but I'm
not on there...

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-freebsd-hardware@FreeBSD.ORG
> [mailto:owner-freebsd-hardware@FreeBSD.ORG]On Behalf Of Ed Henderson
> Sent: Tuesday, March 27, 2001 11:12 AM
> To: 'Andrew C. Hornback'; freebsd-hardware@freebsd.org
> Subject: RE: Server MB suggestions?
>
>
> > > For the first year I don't expect the
> > > number of customers to exceed 600.
> >
> > 	That's all the company that I worked for had... after 4
> > years, and this is
> > in a region where you have nearly half a million in
> > population within the
> > local dialing area.
>
> How much competition did you have?  How did you market yourselves?

	Aside from the superregional stuff like AOL, Sprint, Mindspring, AT&T...
there were about 4 other good sized ISPs in this area.  The one that I
worked for went under, another one has been bought out since I left...

	Marketing was a joke, the whole setup, really, was doomed from the
get-go... management had no clue how to run an ISP, and didn't need to get
into that sort of business.  It all started out when the co-owner and his
buddy decided to start a web page design company, and figured they needed a
way to store the pages they created... *shakes his head*

> > > These servers will primarily host home directories that
> > > hold email and personal web pages, provide DNS, RADIUS, and
> > > sendmail services.
> >
> > 	Servers?  If you'd like, I can give you a break-down of
> > how we did things
> > at the old company (no one would mind, especially since they're out of
> > business now...)
>
> Any suggestions or descriptions of real live scenarios much appreciated!

	Realize, before I start, this was an all MS/NT shop.  It was already in
place (and paid for, or so I thought) when I got there...

	When I walked in the door, 2 of the 5 servers were actually doing
something.  The other three were configured, on the network (10 Base T and
hub powered), and sitting idle.  I set about fixing that, and ended up with:

	Main PDC - handling primary DNS and secondary authentication (USR RADIUS
implementation backended with an Access DB)
	Main BDC - handling secondary DNS and primary authentication
	Member server 1 - handling user e-mail and user web-hosting
	Second PDC - handling hosted web domains and their e-mail accounts
	Second BDC - used as a workstation, no less, at the reception desk
	Member server 2 - secondary web domain hosting machine (IIS seems to have
problems with hosting a large number of domains with dedicated IPs on the
same box).

	The Main PDC also was the machine that did all of the user accounting.  I
was running syslogd on both the Main PDC and BDC machines, since NT has no
native syslog service (d0h!).  None of them were overtaxed, as the limiting
factor of the installation was the network, which benefitted from being
upgraded to a 10/100 switch.

	This is the way it was when I left...

	Hope this helps,

--- Andy


To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org
with "unsubscribe freebsd-hardware" in the body of the message




Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?00a601c0b6df$b1e65b40$0e00000a>