Date: Sat, 14 Apr 2001 06:33:21 -0700 From: "Ted Mittelstaedt" <tedm@toybox.placo.com> To: "Bill Moran" <wmoran@iowna.com>, <freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: RE: Modem sharing Message-ID: <003501c0c4e7$7967a920$1401a8c0@tedm.placo.com> In-Reply-To: <3AD78066.84979396@iowna.com>
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Hi Bill, I've had a fair bit of experience with this as 6 years ago I worked at a company for a short time which was too cheap for an Internet connection and attempted to use this for Win95 DUN for internet access. (when they hired me they said they wanted me to get a connection for them - that was a laugh, but that's a different story) Anyway, there was a app at one time for FreeBSD that ran with a client program for Windows 3.1, if I remember right. But, trust me you DON'T want to do this with FreeBSD!!! The biggest problem is that modem connections, even async ones, all want better timing than can be provided on a LAN, particularly with the TCP/IP protocol, which is quite different than IPX as you know. Just about all of the "modem-sharing" apps I ever heard of were horribly unreliable, and the FreeBSD one was no exception. I can understand why you want to ditch the Novell NAS ports, but you need to understand that of all the server vendors, Novell has waste.. er spent, the most money trying to get shared COM ports over the network to work. What you have with the NAS is the only solution that I've ever heard of that worked halfway reliably on a LAN - you already have the best that there is. If you absolutely have to dump that Novell solution then my advice is to go out and find yourself a used Shiva LanRover, and pay for the software upgrade to get the most current LanRover shared-com-port-client, because Shiva was another one of those companies that spent a lot of money and time on this solution, and they eventually pooped out a shared com port client that ran under Windows 95, but Shiva want belly up a long time ago and Intel bought what was left of them (and then discontinuted the LanRover) I actually got that solution to work reliably, but only for 2400baud faxmodems, and only (no surprise there) by using the IPX protocol. It didn't work for PPP. Frankly if you want my advice, go to the local flea market and buy a bunch of modems at $1-per-card then go around and stuff them into the PC's and run a phone line around to each modem. Ted Mittelstaedt tedm@toybox.placo.com Author of: The FreeBSD Corporate Networker's Guide Book website: http://www.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com >-----Original Message----- >From: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG >[mailto:owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG]On Behalf Of Bill Moran >Sent: Friday, April 13, 2001 3:41 PM >To: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG >Subject: Modem sharing > > >I've been searching for about an hour now and haven't found anything on >this topic. >Basically I want to have a modem in a FreeBSD server and have the >potential for MS >clients (Win95, for the most part) share it. It can't be a simple PPP >connection, as >there are some propriatary apps that will need to dial out and >I haven't a clue as to >what protocol they're using. >We've been doing this with Novell NAS ports (if anyone's familiar with >this) but we're >planning to ditch Novell. >Any suggestions, or pointers to information? >TIA, >Bill > >To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org >with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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