6.0 Equipment

6.1 What kind of computer(s) do I need to become an ISP?

I don't know a frightful lot about hardware, but this section of the FAQ has stood the test of time and comments pretty well. The main exception is a great deal more information from BSDI fans about their favourite system. In addition, as I have been actively shopping for Sun hardware, I've talked extensively with both a Sun reseller and a reseller of Sun clones. The occasional Linuxer has made his presence known as well. If you have some comments on this information, please speak up; I'd like to be able to flesh this section out a bit more.

To start with, you need some computer capable of running Unix. Opinions vary dramatically over what operating environment is best, but I don't know of anyone who uses anything but a Unix derivative operating system. Here are a few capsule arguments for various versions of Unix; corrections are welcome. Remember, the most ferocious holy wars are often between those of strikingly similar beliefs! Christianity versus Judiaism, Sun versus BSDI versus Linux. Watch the flames grow!

6.2 A Summary of this Section with Supporting Documents

Recently, another Sun versus PC debate broke out on the Inet-Access mailing list, which was unusually enlightening. Here's an executive summary; in the HTML version of this document, I have attached pointers to two messages, one from a Sun lover and the other from a PC enthusiast. I hope this will help interested people make a decision.

On the Sun side:

Advantages:

- The most stable solution, easiest to set up

- Good hardware decisions are made for you already; you don't need a hardware expert to figure out what to buy.

- Most of the public domain Unix software is easier to compile on a Sun than any other platform.

Disadvantages:

- The proprietary components are harder to locate; you can't just drop by your neighborhood PC store and buy a replacement if something goes wrong.

On the PC side:

Advantages:

- You can get a slightly better machine per unit of price. (The difference is probably less than you think).

- You can exchange parts with your existing PCs, if you have any; if your ISP business fails or you decide you don't like it, you can wipe Unix off the system and use it for DOS/Windows.

Disadvantages:

- You need to know something about hardware to get a system that will work.

- Setup can be very painful (it was for me).

6.3 Sun Workstations and SunOS/Solaris

If you have a ton of money to blow, go right over to your local Sun distributer and pick up a couple of nice little SparcStation 20s. They're just a shade pricey, but net wisdom has it that you'll have the least trouble if you go this route. Sun owners are generally quite happy with their technology, but many admit that the PC route is so much cheaper that the entire world is going in that direction.

Or is it? Sun clones, surprisingly enough, are not too different in price from Pentium PCs, once items included in the former are added to the latter. For example, every Sun clone system comes with Ethernet and SCSI at no additional charge. See the section on Sun hardware, below, before writing off Sun as too expensive for your application.

A short word on a very emotional topic: Many people have run Suns for years, and on the main Sun has rewarded their loyalty with high-quality and much loved machines. However, a few years ago, a dreadful event happened: Their beloved Berkeley based SunOS was effectively replaced with Solaris, a somewhat slow and bloated System V OS. Because of this, just about everything that ran on a Sun had to be extensively rewritten. Many people stuck with SunOS because they didn't want to rewrite their software, they didn't want to buy new versions of their software, and they enjoyed the superior performance of the old system. In addition, early adapters to Solaris were confronted with a baffling series of bugs, problems and midstream changes that eroded their loyalty to Sun. Over the several years Solaris has been out, the bugs have been fixed, performance has been cleaned up, and all in all it's said to be a nice OS. If, of course, you can forget Sun's betrayal of a bunch of formerly happy customers. It is this and not any (or at least not many) intrinsic failures of the system that causes Solaris to be mentioned so negatively in any discussion of Suns. If you want a new Sun, and in particular if you want to take advantage of the new multi-processor architectures, you need Solaris; SunOS effectively does not support more than one processor. None of this should prevent people from buying Sun hardware, which is apparently still quite nice stuff. It remains the standard for running an Internet system. (Much of this was contributed by Scott Hinnrichs ).

A good compromise was recently suggested by the aforementioned Craig Warner of Ceram. Instead of getting an expensive SS20 with multiple processors, pick up a couple of SS5s with a single 85MHZ processor instead. That system roughly equals the performance of a single processor SS20, at only a shade over half the cost. By buying such a system, you can stick with the tried and true SunOS.

6.4 Silicon Graphics (SGI) Workstations

SGI is the Mercedes-Benz SL600 of workstations. Classy. Expensive. Slick. Those that use 'em, love 'em. Those that can't afford 'em, hate the fact that they can't afford 'em. Based on posts I've seen in the misc.forsale.computers.workstation newsgroup, they seem to have the highest resale value of any computer I've seen.

People who actually use them as web servers think they're great. People who use them to develop web site graphics love 'em. It might not be a frightfully good idea to use a SGI box as your shell machine, however; the default SGI configuration apparently disregards security almost completely. That may not matter too much if you're just putting up a non-secure Web server; it seems to me that SGI might be a first-class web server + web site design machine, with Suns or PCs doing the grunt work of servicing shell accounts and news. After all, do you really want users playing around with your Mercedes-Benz?

A quick net surf showed that SGI has one of the best net presences I've seen. Friendly SGI employees answered most of the questions on the SGI newsgroups I checked; the SGI FAQs are some of the best I've seen on any subject; the WWW site is slick and inviting. Many of the users who asked questions on the SGI newsgroups showed a fierce affection for their systems; this was in sharp contrast to the Sun groups.

I was able to obtain a top-secret price list for SGI equipment with a warning not to place it in my FAQ. (This is apparently a pretty uniform policy for all international computer suppliers). However, due to SGI's reputation for wretchedly high prices, I feel that I should say that the basic system prices appear to represent very fair value for the money when compared to Sun or the other top suppliers. Peripherals are a bit pricey, but you can always buy them elsewhere.

The opposing view comes from Mark Tempest , who says:

"If you plan on having your SGI workstation on the Net, be prepared for someone to spend lots of time on making such a host secure. Very secure if you plan on using it as a secure server. SGI, in recent threads on comp.security.unix, has taken quite a bashing over their stance on security issues surrounding their workstations. One SGI employee, while I don't think he spoke for the company (in fact I'm pretty sure he disclaimed it) was heard to say that the machines come configured for internal use in a lax security environment such as a corporate LAN, and not as a plug-and-play node on the Internet."

The SGI Administration FAQ has a commendably comprehensive list of known SGI security holes and how to fix them; I was quite impressed by its thoroughness. In fact, the whole SGI series of FAQs impressed me a great deal in terms of near-obsessive completeness.

So you may not want to run credit card numbers or digicash through a SGI system. It's worth noting, of course, that no Unix system comes totally secure out of the box; however, a great deal more is known about securing Suns and BSDI boxes.

Steve Davies has another type of cautionary tale. "Our experiences with SGI equipment have not been so trouble free. We have several SGI machines, Indy's, 340's, etc. We used them to replace some older HP boxes (HP 3000s), mainly for client/server database applications. We have had several CPU and disk failures over the last couple of months, whereas the HP platforms rarely skipped a beat (one disk failure in many years, even that event was well anticipated)."

Note that SGI is System V, not BSD. This means that it may be somewhat more difficult to get some networking programs to run, just as this is also true of Sun's Solaris (see the detailed discussion of this in the Sun chapter).

If you want to buy a workstation because you have money to burn, and would just love to do all sorts of neat things with it, I suspect the $ 6,000+ SGI Indy is the ideal machine for you. For why I think this, check out their web site, http://www.sgi.com/.

Finally, If you're a snob, you gotta love SGI. Their marketing people have brains, a real rarity in this business. Your Web site can have a neat "SGI Powered" logo that you can use to tell people your Web server runs on computers that are more expensive than God.

6.5 PCs running BSDI Unix

A small group of people on the Inet-Access mailing list have recently given BSDI poor marks in support. Other BSDI users, however, have responded with loyalty, saying support is still fine. Karl Denninger, a traditionally strong supporter of BSDI, turned against them when they refused to give him priority service when he promised to buy a support contract. Note, of course, that this means he did not have one at the time! There are still many BSDI loyalists, although some have still questioned the now much higher cost of source code.

Before that, here's what Karl and others had said about BSDI. It should be interesting to see what happens in the future.

BSDI users are ferociously loyal to their system. Karl Denninger, probably the most successful provider on the Inet-Access mailing list, uses modified BSDI systems with, if my memory serves, 64MB of RAM and a 1.0GB hard disk on each. (Karl has not corrected my memory, and I'm sure he's seen a copy or two of this FAQ). Each one can service approximately 64 users when a terminal server is used. He has told the world that the system is very solid and technical support is superb - a rarity among operating systems, or any other software for that matter. Source code license is $ 995.00; binary is $ 545. Once you buy either initial license, a license for each additional machine costs $ 250. Second-day Fedex shipping is included at these prices. I believe they are willing to negotiate a site license for very large numbers of machines. Karl Denninger will probably tell you you need the source; he's modified it extensively. In addition, Eric Raymond said, "Pay the $ 995. it's worth every penny", and Mark E Mallett says, "I agree with the support for the system." You can find out more about BSDI by mailing to info@bsdi.com. The ability to use a BSDI system as a router may make BSDI the system of choice for many providers; this could save you about $ 1,300 or more, depending on configuration. So you could buy a BSDI license for the money saved from the router alone. However, you should read our section on Routers below before making that decision.

One possible dark spot in using BSDI is that there are fewer drivers available for it. According to Mark Tempest , most card makers in the PC Unix market are concentrating on Linux and SCO. Card makers are willing to send BSDI their cards, but BSDI doesn't have the resources to create drivers for many of them. This is one area where the distributed nature of Linux development is a major plus; as long as someone, somewhere has the card, a Linux driver is probably being written.

I have heard from someone (whose name I unfortunately forgot) that BSDI is trying to wean its users off source code. In my opinion, this is a mistake that's likely to turn people to competing systems with source available, such as FreeBSD or Linux.

There is a pre-set product called the BSDI Internet Gateway Server which is available in a 16-user license for around $ 995. I'm not sure how different it is from the basic system, but it sounds like prices may have gone up significantly since I last looked.

6.6 PCs running Linux

Linux seems to be the number one choice among providers coming up from the BBS world. It could be thought of as the latest and best continuation of the "Hacker Ethic", the belief that software should be free, and people should get the source and play around with it. (For information on the "Hacker Ethic", see Eric Raymond's 'The New Hacker's Dictionary' [Second Edition]. It makes me nostalgic for the years of my adolescence, as a ITS PDP-10 hacker at MIT. See the appropriate entries for details). The lack of $ 1,000 licensing fees for the source code probably has something to do with Linux' success over BSDI, as does the notorious cheapness of computer hackers. Support, surprisingly enough, is excellent. Post a question on the newsgroup, and you'll get friendly answers with good information within hours. Although the networking code is infamous for problems, I've had surprisingly little trouble with it. My present system networks a 85mhz Sun clone with my Linux PC; the Linux PC is connected to the Internet through a 28.8kbps SLIP connection. Although it wasn't frightfully easy to connect, everything is now working surprisingly well, with little trouble. Even after over a year of operation, the system has successfully withstood quite heavy loads. The main problem I've had is that the system occasionally (once every two weeks or so) crashed due to SCSI timeouts. However, this apparently was not a Linux problem; aiming a large fan directly at my drives appears to have solved it completely. Under the new regime, the system stayed up for 47 days without crashing, a considerable improvement.

The Slackware distribution of Linux is the standard and is highly recommended. The best deal is probably the Trans-Ameritech CD for $ 30; mail roman@trans-ameritech.com for additional information.

If you get Linux, get on the big-linux@netspace.org mailing list (I think email to big-linux-request@netspace.org will do this). You should also check out the linuxisp list; send mail to linuxisp-request@lightning.com to do so. People on these lists will be able to tell you what kernel versions are stable. Depending on which version you get, you may be anything from very happy with your system to ready to throw it out the window. Don't give up on Linux until you've tried a kernel others agree is stable.

A FAQ on being a provider using Linux is available at http://www.anime.net/linuxisp/Linux-ISP-HOWTO.html.

It has to be said that the OS works very well, and I'm quite impressed by it. I've heard that it's not good for a WWW server, however, and since I think Internet Marketing is going to be an important part of my business, I'm planning to move the WWW to a shiny new Sun clone box I just bought (from, predictably enough, craig.warner@ceram.com, as mentioned elsewhere in the FAQ). Because a multi-user Sun license is very expensive, and because it would basically require that I buy an (also expensive) terminal server, I am leaving my users on the Linux PC. That might change as I grow more lines, since the multi-port serial card approach is apparently not at all scalable for large numbers of users.

The alternative to buying the Sun was to buy a Pentium/90 system and run Linux or BSDI on it. Once you add up all the "free" components included in your Sun, the price really isn't too different from that of a high-end Pentium/90 system. It's also likely to be more reliable, particulary when compared to Linux; many of the PCI bus systems are not quite there yet.

Bryant Durrell tells us of one unfortunate aspect of Linux. "I'd recommend it for small providers, but you must make security one of your primary concerns, as it is not a system straight out of the box; less so than most Unixes. You will have to make sure you follow the various Linux newsgroups if for no other reason than to stay up to date with that issue." He would like to remind you to establish a shadow password file, which is covered in more detail later.

6.7 PCs running FreeBSD

Jordan Hubbard , director of the FreeBSD effort, was kind enough to drop me a line with information on the status of FreeBSD, a BSD derivative for PCs.

FreeBSD is a relatively new (about the same age as Linux) Unix variant whose design goal is to combine the stability of BSDI/Berkeley Unix with the free status of Linux. It has two major advantages over Linux: (1) the code has been developed using a more structured process, so it's likely to be more stable and have fewer bugs, and (2) it's based on the BSD standard (as is BSDI), which many Unix users feel more comfortable with. In an earlier section of this chapter, I covered the big and ugly fight between old guard Sun users and Sun Microsystems when the company switched its OS development to Solaris (System V). The differences between FreeBSD and Linux are similar, although Linux' diversion from the BSD path seems to be significantly less serious than Sun's.

The main strength of FreeBSD has always been its networking code, which has been honed and refined over the years of development at Berkeley. FreeBSD continues this tradition thanks to a machine with T1 access provided for the development team by cdrom.com, their primary distributer. ftp.cdrom.com , that company's FTP server, gets massive numbers of hits and has been very reliable using FreeBSD.

I attribute the lower popularity of FreeBSD to the following factors, virtually none of which have anything to do with the quality of the software:

(1) Due to the centralized development model, there are fewer drivers available, and patches are slower to come out. As a potential user, you should balance this with the fact that FreeBSD's software is likely to be more reliable and contain fewer bugs, for the same reasons.

(2) The libertarian ethos of the Linux development system, where just about anyone can offer a driver through a complex, decentralized network, appeals strongly to most users of the Internet. Linux is the first system created whose development was, for all practical purposes, developed based on the Internet model.

(3) Although both groups have their internal politics and differences, the BSD camp seems to be more fractitious. I attribute this to the more centralized model, which ensures that some people are firmly excluded from participation; this is less likely to cause trouble under the Linux model.

(4) Since FreeBSD is less well known, the newsgroups are far less popular. When I last visited the general FreeBSD newsgroup for user assistance (admittedly around a year ago), there were less than 10% the messages on the Linux group, and a disturbing number were about a rather nasty controversy within the development community.

In short, the adventurous user of free software should use Linux; the more conservative user will be happy with FreeBSD. In addition, the lover of uncensored, unadulterated BSD will most likely be much happier with FreeBSD.

A mailing list for FreeBSD users, freebsd-isp@freebsd.org, has been started. To subscribe, drop a line to majordomo@freebsd.org.

6.8 PCs running BSD derivatives other than BSDI

I know little about this, so someone else will have to fill in this part of the FAQ. BSD is said have better-debugged networking code than Linux, but support from the newsgroup doesn't seem to be as good. I would say that Linux has at least 10 times as many newsgroup readers, with proportionately better support chances.

6.9 PCs running SCO (Santa Cruz Operation) Unix

This Unix exists, and was basically the microcomputer standard for some time. It was originally based on Microsoft's Xenix product, although I think it's now a variant of Unix System V. It's quite pricey, but few who've tried it would pick it over Linux. One particulary important thing to remember about it is that only 64,000 i-nodes (files) are allowed on a file system, making it truly hopeless as a news server. Even SCO's support, which you might consider a major advantage of a commercial product, is rated as poor by those who've used it. The bottom line is that either BSDI or Linux would be better choices for a microcomputer Unix system.

A mild update: SCO has apparently listened to some of the screams of its agonized users; they finally fixed that lack of inodes problem. SCO is apparently also one of the few systems that can support multiple processors, which is very good considering the low cost of dual Pentium machines. The other system that can do this is Sun's Solaris. There are unconfirmed reports of Linux support as well, but this is probably a ways away.

According to Kevin Kadow, SCO recently purchased Unix System Labs from Novell, which gives them ownership of the complete sources to System V Release 4.2. It is not clear what they will do with it; "the USL football has had many turnovers in the last few years."

6.10 Other Unix Systems

The IBM RS/6000 and HP workstation users have a small but vocal group of fans. However, again, I know little about them. A few people have pointed to DEC Alphas as the current king of workstation price/performance. However, the consensus seems to be that these systems are sufficiently different from SunOS or BSD to make installing networking software on them difficult. Particular venom has been reserved for IBM and HP Unix versions, which are particulary eccentric in many ways.

6.11 Macintoshes running special MacOS Software

Scott T Boyd was kind enough to write as follows:

Just in a quick readthrough of the recommended equipment section, I noted a stark paucity of information regarding using Macs as Internet boxes.

My entire net (admittedly a humble and small endeavor) is all Macintosh. I serve up WWW pages, host multiple domains, have dial-in users, as well as support AppleTalk network services for my users and several other sites out on the wider Net.

While I won't claim that I'm impervious to hostile attacks, I far fewer of the common unix security holes to worry about because many of my services are not involved with unix.

And I'm NOT running any BBS software.

New Internet server software is coming fast and furious, with some especially interesting services coming from Apple very soon.

I'm currently using the following items (all Mac software):

- MacHTTP

- MIND (DNS services)

- Macjordomo (nope, that's not a misspelling) for mailing lists

- FTPd

- MachTen (bsd unix which I use for ip routing, dns, ppp, mail, and other assorted utilities); I hope to remove it from the equation before very long, but I'm still relying on it until I've assured myself that some of the newer software I want to use is up to the job.

- MacPing

- MacTCP Watcher (for testing out various connectivity/dns elements)

- AppleTalk Remote Access (for inward dialers)

- Apple Internet Router with IP WAN extension (for tunneling AppleTalk through the Internet to other similar routers)

- Apple IP Gateway (lets ARA users get to my ip router)

I'm planning on using the following items sometime soon:

- MacDNS from Apple

- MailShare (POP/SMTP)

I will be testing out an ip router (non-unix) done as 100% Mac software shortly.

I wouldn't count Macs out as Internet servers. There's a very active mailing list (apple-internet-providers@abs.apple.com) with a lot of discussion from Apple-only or Apple-mostly or Apple-centric ISPs. The ease-of-use that Macs are well-known for has extended into the Internet server software arena. You simply can't beat how easily a MacHTTP server can be set up. Drop some HTML files into a folder, launch the application, and you're serving up web pages faster than you can say "Bite me unix!"

Best regards, scott

http://www.montara.com/

6.12 Macintoshes running BBS software.

Considering the high cost of running on this platform, it's surprisingly popular. This is probably because it's the best-developed graphical system we have, and so people looking for a GUI think Macintosh first. At any rate, a couple of companies have obligingly created BBS software that runs on the Macintosh and - at least on paper - connects to the Internet. Like DOS-based software, you get very poor newsreading ability.

One of these programs is called FirstClass, which includes a quite nicely done graphical interface client. Unfortunately, their mailer is notorious for disasterous behaviour when put on the Internet. For some time before Canter & Seigel drowned them out, strange mail problems from FirstClass hosts were a high-traffic topic on news.admin.misc. Even though they may have fixed the problems by now, I still cannot in good conscience recommend this software.

NovaLink is another Macintosh BBS program. Marlene Zenker runs this software and has had some quite fascinating problems with it. Apparently the system cannot accept a full NNTP newsfeed, and it has been a terrible pain to set up from start to finish. At this stage, electronic mail and telnet work quite well, but there are no WWW or Gopher clients. Let's be fair, however: most people don't find it frightfully easy to set up a Unix site, either. Still, the problems of dealing with half-baked, underdeveloped software seem to be significant in the Macintosh world.

I'm afraid my conclusion about Macintosh BBS software is strikingly similar to that about DOS software: It's not ready for prime time yet. Perhaps at some point it will become a realistic, high-quality alternative to Unix systems, but I'm not counting on it.

6.13 Microsoft Windows Software

Can you spell C-R-A-S-H? I thought you could! I don't think anyone has tried to use MS Windows software (such as the Excalibur BBS) to run an Internet provider, or a multi-user site hooked up to the net. However, the high-powered demands of Internet hookups are not going to be frightfully friendly to the fragile Windows environment. In short: Good luck finding anything that works, and don't tell me I didn't warn you.

6.14 What about Microsoft Windows NT?

The overwhelming majority of Internet administrators do not believe NT is the operating system of choice for an Internet service provider. This is probably a rather kind description compared to what you'd actually hear from a Unix user confronted with a question about NT. It is a matter of record that Microsoft uses Windows NT as their FTP server, named (with more hope than sense, perhaps) "gowinnt". It is also a matter of record that Microsoft.com, their mail server, is a SCO Unix box. Admittedly, Microsoft Windows NT is not, perhaps, quite as unreliable as your copy of Microsoft Windows. Hopefully. In any case, if they can't do electronic mail through NT, when they have the strongest possible reason to do it, you probably can't, either. Beware.

There are now a few hardy souls who have attempted to use NT as a provider operating system. Some have had surprising success, and others have felt the horror of dismal failure. I had a long dialogue with one person who succeeded with NT; if you're pro-NT, don't give up on this section until the end.

Larry Ash comments on the wonder of Microsoft: "Don't do it [use NT as your server system for an Internet provider]. Microsoft likes to play fast and loose with the RFCs. I know an ISP that insisted on doing it over everyone's objections. They told me last week it cost them $ 10,000 before they pulled the plug and switched to Linux." When I asked permission to repeat those remarks in this FAQ, he made one additional comment: "For long-term print I would probably prefer toning down the accusation that Microsoft doesn't follow the RFCs, but up to this point it seems accurate. ... The individual I was talking to said he had received assurances from Microsoft that they would have a RFC compliant DNS system by the 2nd of Dec. On the 10th of January they were reevaluating their decision to *ever* produce and ship one."

Jeremy Porter elaborates a little on this question. "Windows NT could NO WAY NO HOW service as an ISP server. It needs: Name server support, NNTP server software, multi-user support, e-mail support. ... I understand there is a WWW server for NT, but I also understand it sucks rocks."

Michael Nelson responds by noting that NT servers are easier to set up than Unix systems. The existing FTP and WWW clients work well, and host systems will become increasingly less important as we all go to SLIP/PPP. The name server, he says, is under development.

Michael Dothar (dothar@intersphere.com) writes us as follows:

(Begin long exerpt)

Been reading your faq again and thought I might offer some insight on the cons and cons..er....PROS and cons of using NT and/or 95.

Web Servers:

O'Reily's Website (based on Bob Denny's WinHttpd port of NCSA v1.4) runs quite well on NT. I had it running on a 16mb 486/66 under NT v3.50 for many months at 50k hits per day over a 56k line. CGI is easy to write using NT Perl, VBv3 (though I hate basic), or C.

Win95 does not support this system nearly as well. I can see no reason to use it over NT if you insist on using a Windows based product.

Netscape Commerce Server on NT, on the other hand, is pretty much bad news. I mean, it 'runs' and all but there are many problems. It is painfully obvious that Netscape's server product guys are Unix programmers. The recomended procedure for running NT Perl scripts under Netscape is very very insecure (I wrote a wrapper application called "run" to handle the job). The C/C++ works better, but far from the standards one would expect from a Unix box. There is a problem with the length of a URL in Netscape, too. It seems to ignore characters somewhere after the 150th character in a URL. This was a problem for us in some applications because of the need for encrypted data and state information on the URL. We have not bothered with NSAPI (Netscapes method for writing modules that link in with the actual server code instead of using external CGI) because of our lack of comfort with the system as a whole.

In general terms, CGI under NT is a problem because of some basic problems with DOS. Yes, Dos. You can't use an equals sign ('=') in a URL from a console application (aka, Perl, Most C CGI, etc). This applies to Netscape and O'Reily. I have not used Questar's product enough to comment on it.

I prefer my Sun running NCSA v1.5 as a web server. I will be moving most pages off of the Website/NT machine some time in the near future.

FTP:

I don't like NT FTP for a few reasons, most having to do with it using the NT user registry for non-anonymous users.

For that reason I have used WFTPd from Texas Imperial Software (alun@texis.com) v2.02 (32bit) for many months. It serves light anonymous FTP duties, and allows me access to my NT/Win95 machines in my office. It works. No complaints. I have not used it in a high load situation, so I can not comment on it's viability for serving in a heavy load situation.

DNS:

I use FBLI's DNS Service product for backup DNS on my network (primary is provided by SunOS 4.1.4 named). It works well enough in this environment. It configures just like a traditional UNIX based name server. http://www.fbli.com/is the company home page.

Other:

For the record, Win95 is MUCH more stable than v3.11. The key, I have found, is to install 95 in it's own directory. This goes agains MS's suggested route of installing over the old Windows directory. Stability is greatly increased if you install the system fresh this way instead of trying to upgrade an old Windows or WFW system.

(end of long exerpt) Other people have mentioned the high quality and variety of Unix-based software as a major reason to continue using it. When new systems come out, such as the Netscape WWW server, they're developed for Unix first. This will probably continue to be true for a long time to come.

But what about the good side of NT? Hasn't anyone managed to get it to work? One brave soul, Bill Landry (blandry@questar.com), writes as follows:

"I can tell you that we have been providing full Internet services on nothing but NT servers for the last 5 months. I will admit that when we started out we had to run 2 Unix servers because we could not find sendmail, NNTP and DNS for NT. However, over the last 10 months we have worked with companies to either port these services to NT, or have companies that have written their own from scratch. I will admit that everything we are running is beta at this stage; however, I must also say that we have gotten nothing but compliments from our several hundred customers that have switched to our server from other service providers who are providing Unix solutions.

"Now, this is not to say that NT is a "better" Internet server. But it is certainly close to being "as good" as an Internet server. We provide dial-up 56KB, T-1, ISDN, Web, FTP, DNS, NNTP, SMTP, POP3, etc, again, using nothing but Windows NT servers.

...

"The fact of the matter is that after using Unix for those first few months of operation, NT has been a welcome relief. It is a far cry from the command line shell of the Unix environment. It has been much easier to implement, use, maintain and trouble shoot than the Unix machines we were using."

He adds that technicians from all the companies that created their software, including Microsoft, have visited his site and given excellent support. However, he says that all is now running smoothly without them, and he does not feel that the ISP who dares to run NT applications would have much trouble.

I'm still wary, to say the least. NT might be easier to set up if you're in isolation, without support from the mailing lists and newsgroups that will help with Unix problems. I'd be surprised if the informal support network for NT ever gets as good as the one available for Unix.

Before you all leap out and pick up a copy of NT as your Internet server, I would like to remind you of a few things and give you a very personal plea not to run Windows NT.

If you believe, as I do, that Microsoft is the 1000 pound gorilla of the industry, and that most of what it does is not in the long-term interest of Internet service providers, you'd be well advised not to volentarily give market share to Microsoft by using their server products. Why help them out when they seek to destroy us?

Maybe you can run NT. Maybe you can run an operating system created by a company that wants to kill off every online service but the Microsoft Network. Maybe you can run an operating system made by the same people who created the wretched mess that is Microsoft Windows.

Please don't.

[David's Amazing Internet Services proudly runs SunOS and Linux servers]

6.15 What about Microsoft Windows 95?

How on earth does Microsoft get more and more coverage, even as its software crashes on desktops everywhere?

Early returns seem to say that Windows 95 is either the greatest thing since sliced bread, or the worst piece of trash to come down the pike since its predecessor product, Windows 3.1. The one thing we can say for sure about Windows 95 is that nobody - and that's nobody at all, folks! - is neutral about it. It even made Doonesbury, with the irresistable lines:

"What's wrong? Why's the new Windows balking?"

"It's greedy. It's holding out for 16 megabytes RAM ..." "Hey ... It just turned on the printer!

It's a complete list of its demands!"

"Give no quarter. Hold it to the box specs."

Give no quarter indeed. Let that be my advice to you as well.

Until someone tells me otherwise, I will assume that it, like Windows 3.1, is totally unsuited for an ISP operating system. However, if someone tells me more about the product, I'll do my best to listen.

O'Reilly & Associates currently sells a version of their Website web server software for Windows95. I tried their 60 day free trial version on my Windows95 system, a Pentium/75 with 16MB RAM. I attempted to process a web server request while compiling a program in Visual Basic 3.0 (16-bit). The web server ground to a halt during the compilation and started up only after the compile was done. This is completely unacceptable performance for any type of web server application. Microsoft claims that the new 32-bit applications will allow for multi-tasking; unfortunately, all the 32-bit applications I've tested are larger, slower and buggier than their 16-bit equivalents.

During typical programming use, I have to reboot my Windows95 system several times a day, as it frequently runs out of memory and/or system resources. Based on this experience, I cannot recommend Windows95 in good conscience for ANY ISP operations.

I believe Windows95 to be roughly as stable as Windows 3.1 - which means not stable at all.

6.16 What about IBM's OS/2?

OS/2 is a lot like Windows NT in its support for Internet services. The main difference between Windows NT and OS/2 in this respect is that Microsoft has actively promoted the former as an Internet server, while IBM has been silent on the latter's virtues.

Lori A Martin gives her impressions of OS/2 Internet servers:

"I wouldn't run an Internet provider service on an OS/2 platform because a Unix platform is best suited for it. However, I would feel comfortable putting up our FTP site on an OS/2 machine, or running our Web site on one, or running a gopher off it."

For OS/2 software, you can check ftp.cdrom.com:/pub/os2/network/tcpipfor client and server applications. You'll find plenty of WWW servers, finger servers, gopher servers and FTP servers. There is even a version of INN available, although I didn't see it in this site.

Dave Hughes helps people bring up small Internet providers (16 lines or less) running OS/2. He says that Linux and other Unix-based systems are too complex and hard to learn when compared to OS/2. However, he admits that this is still not the right solution for a system using a T1 connection with over 16 lines, which is where most "real" Internet providers are. Since he and a few others are actually using it with some success, it sounds like it's considerably more workable than the much-hyped NT.

I promised the public that I would gracefully apologise for my earlier statement that there were no OS/2 Internet servers other than for WWW. Team OS/2, please accept my apologies for this most unfortunate libel of a fine operating system.

Unfortunately, that doesn't make OS/2 a suitable machine for an Internet service provider. However, if you were considering Windows NT as a Web or FTP server system, you might want to seriously consider OS/2; an 8MB OS/2 system would probably work just as well for a Web server as a 16MB NT one. I suspect that setup isn't any more difficult than NT's, and you certainly get a more modern user interface.

6.17 What about disk space, networking and memory requirements?

When you get past a certain number of users, you will need to network several systems together. This is, for example, the approach taken by Netcom, which now has 23 SparcStations, massively equipped. Netcom's well-known performance problems, discussed elsewhere in the FAQ, seem to disappear when they buy new machines, and then pop up again 2-3 months down the road. When I first signed on to Netcom in March, they had 13 machines. As of the time I'm writing this (14 March 1995), they have 23. Right now, Netcom performance isn't bad, but if it follows usual patterns, that won't last.

To start out in a very small way, you need at least 1 GB of hard disk space. To store USENET news for any appreciable amount of time, you'll need many times that. I can store about three weeks' worth of ALT.* on the one 1.8GB Quantum hard disk I have dedicated to alt news. (This includes the binaries groups, however, which you might want to expire more quickly or not carry at all. I keep the binaries groups for two weeks and the remaining groups for 25 days).

Jim Dixon (jdd@aiki.demon.co.uk) strongly recommends SCSI disk drives and controllers; he is, of course, correct. You will wind up being virtually forced into this route anyway, since most large hard disks are available only as SCSI devices.

Eric Raymond adds: "We started out with IDE disks to save money. *Big* mistake; we had nothing but grief from the cheap IDE controllers we were using. Go SCSI from the beginning; the reliability and performance is more than worth the slight premium."

Sean Shapira has another viewpoint. "Linux will support 4 IDE drives, and these are commonly available at 500MB, for a 2GB system. Beyond that, a wise provider might consider distributing the load to a second server anyway. Admittedly IDE is slower than SCSI, but I argue the trade off may be worthwhile." (I wrote back to him noting that there are now 1.0GB IDE drives; he doesn't recommend them because they are not yet as cost-effective as the smaller units).

Jonathan Heiliger notes that these are EIDE (Extended IDE) instead of IDE drives; BSDI doesn't presently support them. So if you're a BSDI fan, you'll have to wait on this one. (He is, of course, correct, since only EIDE supports more than two drives on a single device). According to Tony Sanders , a patch has been created which allows use of extended IDE drives. If interested, contact support@bsdi.com for more information.

marcln@on-ramp.ior.com was kind enough to drop me a line mentioning that my comments on EIDE were somewhat out of date. "EIDE has become the rage, and Western Digital offers a 1.2 gig HD 10ms for $ 399." I believe, however, that SCSI performance is still superior, and you can put more drives on a SCSI controller than an IDE.

Kevin Kadow seconds the many comments saying that IDE is a bad idea for an Internet provider. He also reminds us that most Unix systems can't go over 2GB per filesystem; as a result, there is really little value in using drives larger than 2GB. (As a general rule, the more separate drives you use on your system, the faster it will be).

Darrin Stadler (torin@daft.com) has dropped me a line with a new modest update to this section. It seems like disk drive prices have been dropping steadily as I wrote this. "... You quote someone as EIDE drives being cheap at $ 399 for 1 gig. Well, you can get a SCSI 1 gig for the mid four hundreds in Computer Shopper. Another big advantage is that if you have a PC and decide to move to Suns or SGIs, you get to take your drives with you." I checked the Fry's electronics ad in the latest issue of Microtimes, and it looks like the price difference on 1.0-1.2GB drives is around $ 125. Not bad.

I presently have two 1.8GB Quantums. If I were to get a new drive now, I'd probably get Seagate Barracudas - but you have to watch out for cooling. Because INN wasn't designed to work well with a news spool split between machines, I'm pretty much stuck using large SCSI drives on one system, and I suspect most others will be too. For the record, after reading Karl Denninger's comments on PCI's unstability, I postponed my Pentium/90 PCI + 9GB drive purchase, which I wanted to do together; I eventually got a Sun clone system instead.

I suspect either solution will work, but the first one appeals to me because it requires no skill in mucking around with hardware.

According to Tony Sanders , "Things seem to be better nowadays wrt PCI. Buslogic finally seems to have stable firmware for the 946. It's probably worth trying so long as you go with a vendor that you know will let exchange it if things don't work." His hardware recommendations are included later in this FAQ, under "Tony Sanders' Recommended Equipment List".

Netcom gives each user 5MB of disk space a month, and charges for average usage above that figure. So a gigabyte partition for users will only last for about 200 users, and that only if you strictly enforce quotas. SLIP/PPP accounts, which are likely to be the bulk of your offerings, don't require you to offer disk space on your system at all.

Eric Raymond notes that you can get away with a lot less if you use a customized BBS-style interface. "At CCIL, most of our accounts go through a custom BBS interface; the users don't have shell access. They get along happily on 300k each. Whether you can get away with this or not depends strongly on what proportion of your users are programmers."

Mark E Mallett notes that 300k "won't even hold a .newsrc file. (Mine right now is 645k)." I suspect the difference is that Eric's users may not read news in any great volume, thus keeping the number of .newsrc files down. Mark continues: "We impose quotas to help remind people to keep things clean. We initially started out with no quotas; our disk space ran out within the first couple of weeks. Added quotas and got at least 90% of it back."

My own system runs a custom-written newsreader that doesn't have a .newsrc file; it works with a list of newsgroups the user has entered. I've found that most people have extremely small groups files; a typical user directory (which I just checked) takes around 6k. The main key to this performance is that I let people "browse" through all groups I carry without putting them in the groups file; only groups that have been read at least once go there. In Tin and other readers, every group's status goes into the .newsrc file even if I've never read it, since I want to be able to see all groups on the list (even if I never enter more than a very small fraction of them).

I would figure on about 300MB for the operating system, 1GB for users and 2GB for news, meaning that your disk requirements should be around the 3.5-4GB mark. Eric Raymond (quoted previously) seconded this motion, only noting that it should support significantly more users than I wrote.

I suspect the key to this is really FTP. I don't allow FTP yet on my system, and won't until I have written a customized version that automatically downloads files to the user's system. That should solve most of the common problems with disk space.

[NB Has anyone done this yet? I'm having a hard time getting the time for this particular venture, and my users are just salivating (you can see it, honest! :-) ) for FTP ...]

6.18 I want a Sun, but I'm confused. What would be a good sample configuration?

The major problem with Sun, when compared to PCs running BSDI, is that they're normally sold to consultants or major corporations who know what they're doing. You can easily find someone to tell you how to build a PC, but it's considerably harder to learn how to put a Sun together.

Most of this information is from Craig Warner of Ceram, a company that sells Tatung Sun clones. I talked to both him and my local Sun reseller. For some reason, the latter kept on mumbling stuff about "client-server" and "Oracle server applications" and such. He seemed like a competent fellow, whom I could easily entrust my Oracle server to. However, he seemed quite puzzled when I said that I actually wanted to run and use Unix on my system, instead of controlling it remotely with "easy to use" Windows applications through my Novell LAN. (I didn't know I HAD a Novell LAN!) The effect was as though we were speaking a different language.

Craig, on the other hand, struck me as a very nice, capable fellow who was sympathetic to the needs of a budding ISP. "A starter kit, which can grow to support over 1,000 customers, runs about $ 20k. This includes modems (16-24), terminal server and SS20 type server. We use a ratio of about $ 30-40 in capital per account. Most of this capital has a useful life of 24-36 months."

Here's a detailed price breakdown of the Starter Kit:

Base SS20 Clone with CPU $ 4,000 SS20 model 50; includes graphics 64MB RAM 2,750 4.2GB disk 2,000 17" Sony monitor 1,000 20" Sony monitor $ 1,650 Sun-Bootable CD ROM drive 500 Plexor double-speed

Total base system 10,250 Compare this with other hardware prices

4mm tape backup 1,100 Exabyte 4mm DAT 28.8kbps Modems @ $ 250 each 4,000 28.8 external vfc, v34 Annex Terminal Server 5,000 32-port with software and cables Power backup, misc cables, etc 1,500 UPS, surge protectors, ethernet

Total accessories 11,600

Total 21,850

This was a real-world system that was delivered to a client. "This site was up and running quite quickly, and should scale well to 2,000-5,000 users. Additional hardware will be required, but the upgrades should be smooth (add memory, processors, modems)."

On-site service on the system would run about 1% of value per month, or around $ 218 for this system. This is for 8 hour/5 day week service.

Surprisingly enough, when I got a quote on a Pentium system from a Linux specialist dealer, it came out to only about $ 1,000 less than the Sun base system cost listed above, for roughly comparable components. This system includes a right to use license for the OS. Upgrading to an unlimited license costs $ 660.00.

One suggestion made by my potential backer is that it would make sense to buy a second machine to substitute for the main one if it broke down for any length of time. This seemed like a sound idea to me as well. Because you could use a used SS10 for this, it might not be as expensive as you might think - around $ 7k or so would do it. Craig Warner course, endorses this idea: "Yes, this is a good strategy. It surprises me how few ISPs have a backup machine, given the cost of unscheduled down time."

Craig can be reached as craig.warner@ceram.com. His online catalogue can be accessed at http://www.ceram.com/

Sidebar: RAID Disk Arrays, the Technology of the Future! Well, maybe. I asked my Sun reseller about the Sun's really neat-sounding something or other-100 disk array subsystem. It turns out that the thing is so fantastically expensive as to be way out of sight: $ 24,999 for 6GB and $ 59,000 or so for 30GB. Gulp. Maybe I don't want one THAT badly.

For some reason, Sun hardware FAQs are not stored on the usual RTFM sites. Instead, you can get them and other Sun information from ftp://thor.ece.uc.edu/pub/sun-faqs.

6.19 Relative Capabilities of various Sun models

I asked Craig Warner (yep, him again!) about the relative merits of the various Sun models.

"Generally, a MicroSPARCII Machine (SS5) can support 25-50 users as you describe, or perform specific functions (i.e. news machine, WWW server, etc). The SS20 machines can support up to 150 users with currently available CPUs. Since the CPUs are modular on these machines, newer CPUs (now in the pipeline) will increase this capacity - probably to around 250 users.

"On almost all configurations, a ratio of approximately 2 MB of memory per simutaneous user is a good rule of thumb. Inadequate memory will cause the system to start virtual paging - which will quickly bring the system to a crawl.

"As a good case study, the main interactive server at Clark Internet Services is a SS10 (the SS20's predecessor), with 2 60mhz SuperSparc processors (fastest available). The machine has 250MB RAM and supports a peak load of about 150 users, from a customer base of 3-4000. They use a similar configuration, but with less memory (128MB) for the news system."

His Internet Starter kit (see above) is a SS20 with the 50mhz processor, about 20% slower than the 60mhz model mentioned above.

Since this was written, he seems to have changed his mind slightly about the best machine to get for a provider. He now suggests getting a network of 85mhz SS5s (about the speed of a single, 50mhz SS20), which can be had for around $ 5,000-6,000 each. There's no real savings, since you'll still need about two of them to handle the 150 users a SS20 could. But the incremental cost to get started is lower, and the smaller load on the smaller machine seems to make performance more sprightly (probably due to the lower load on the local disks and other peripherals).

6.20 What sort of monitor should I get with my Sun?

Right now, I'm looking at a drop-dead gorgeous picture, and all it cost me was $ 2,595.00. That's right: the final stage in my quest for the perfect monitor led me to a NEC XP21, a beautiful but hideously expensive piece of equipment.

The saga began when I wanted a 20-21" colour monitor for the new Sun clone system. My Sun vendor (aka Craig.Warner@ceram.com) recommended the standard 20" Sony, and I ordered it. When it got here, I learned that it had a .31 dot pitch, making the picture a little blurry. As a result, I returned it to him and decided to get a NEC, my favourite brand.

The NEC XE21, an otherwise beautiful unit, won't work with Suns. It goes up to a maximum resolution of 1024x768, despite what you may have heard in some literature, and as a result it was not really Sun compatible. The proper Sun compatible unit, complete with BNC connectors, is the XP21.

So how much better is the $ 2,595 XP21 monitor than the $ 1,600 Sony? In truth, unless you're as persnickity as I am, you probably won't notice much difference. One major advantage of the NEC, however, is that it has both BNC connectors and standard PC ones; a front panel switch lets you switch between them on the fly. So if you use both Suns and PCs for various applications, but don't need to view them at the same time, the NEC is truly your dream monitor. (I do Windows development on a laptop PC, so being able to use it at home with the big NEC is particulary nice).

If you don't have that kind of money, there are a lot of 19" Hitachi monitors around that you can get very cheaply. Unfortunately, picture quality is often (usually) poor. In particular, the tiny type used by many Sun windows is just too blurred to read.

I strongly recommend a 20" or above monitor for your Sun system (or any computer running X-Windows, for that matter). Any smaller and you'll be squinting like crazy. Pity they're so expensive.

I noticed that X-Windows is so unmerciful on small monitor users that one ISP I know actually prefers using the Windows-based net browsing programs from a PC! Horrors!

My Linux system, which doesn't run X, has a 15" NEC 4FG monitor, which works fine on the text console. Many people would say it's a bit of overkill, but it definitely soothes my eyes after a tiring day. As does the new XP21. And isn't that what a good monitor's for?

6.21 Care and feeding of disk drives

A major problem that you may face with disks is overheating, especially if you put more than one in the same cramped PC case. People who have bought Seagate Barracuda drives are especially vunerable, since they run very hot due to their high speeds. However, even my twin 1.8GB Quantums suffer from overheating; the symptom is a "SCSI Timeout" error and the subsequent need to switch off the computer and wait about three hours before turning it back on.

There are two somewhat contradictory recommendations: The first one is to open the case and get a conventional small fan blowing across the drives. This is the solution I'm presently using; my system has now been up for 35 days, when it would rarely hit 14 before.

The other recommendation is to leave the case on, because it aids air circulation, but buy a small internal fan and place it near the drives.

According to Kevin Kadow, Seagate and Maxtor drives are particulary prone to a problem where the platter lubricant "cooks" from the heat. The main symptom is that the drive works great - as long as you don't turn it off. If you turn it off and let it cool, the head becomes glued to the platter, and the drive will not be able to come up to speed when you power it back up. "If this occurs, a good whack on the side of the drive will either jog the head enough to get it flying, or rip the head off the carrier, destroying the drive and all its data. Either way, the problem is solved."

6.22 All About the Sun Netra

This is an amazingly long section, so I'll give you the straight scoop in the first paragraph, and you can read more if you're curious. The Sun Netra is said to be a "plug and play" "Internet Server" system, designed to hook up DOS and Macintosh networks to the Internet. As a result, it looked intriguing to many ISPs and would-be ISPs struggling with their configuration files. The straight dope, however, is that Sun's own engineers say that the Netra is really meant only as an interface between the Internet and a large corporate internal network. As a result, it is completely unsuitable for use by an Internet provider. Full stop; that's it.

Now for the details.

Here's the scoop on the Sun Netra Internet Server as my Sun reseller explains it. You buy it and put it in your closet. You plug it in to your network and your Internet provider, switch it on, and a soft female voice tells you what it's doing. In about 10 minutes, it silently comes up and starts running. You can then close the closet door on it forever; it's controlled through Windows applications set up on a Novell LAN. If you want to provide Internet services to people outside your organization, it appears to be a non-starter. It might work, however, if all you want to do is set up a WWW server.

Jamie Saker was kind enough to write alerting me of the Netra's deficiencies. After his text appeared in the FAQ, it was read by Mike H Geldner, Tactical Engineer for Sun Microsystems, who took the time to write a response.

So that this FAQ doesn't balloon to a truly frightful length on this question alone, I will summarize what the two agreed on, and mention the areas of disagreement. The remarkable thing about this particular situation is that neither party disagreed a frightful lot; I think Sun wrote me on this issue mainly so I would remove some of the more hostile words from this document.

Here is precisely what Mike Gelder of Sun wrote in his message about the target market for a Netra server:

"Prospective buyers who are knowledgeable about Unix, the Internet, Domain Name Services, sendmail, POP3 and all the other parts-and-pieces that needs to be manually configured and maintained are probably better off buying a standard Sun SPARCstation 5 or 20 instead of a Netra i. They would find the Netra i limited in its flexibility as it pertains to a general computing role."

This is a key paragraph. It's equivalent to "If you're an Internet Provider, don't buy a Netra; buy a SS5 or SS20 instead". In short, precisely what Jamie Saker and his fellow Netra critics have told us.

Who would want the Netra, then? Someone who wants a "no fuss, no muss" connection of his users to the Internet, strictly as a client system. That is, people would use the standard Windows or Macintosh Internet utilities, such as Netscape, Hgopher or Microsoft Mail. Packets would flow through those PCs into the Netra and hence out into the Internet; the Netra would handle sendmail, POP, etc,

How do the critics disagree with this?

The good news, they say, is that the Netra has achieved its goals of being extremely easy to set up. You can set it, lock it in that closet and leave it forever untouched.

The bad news is that it doesn't include Internet service servers such as WWW and Gopher. As Jaime Saker comments, "Sun's marketing has convinced users that they're getting a fully functional 'Internet Server'."

According to Michael at Sun, this was a deliberate design decision:

"At the time the Netra i was introduced, the licensing constraints and potential support problems associated with distributing public domain software were a great business concern. Utilities such as NCSA Mosaic and Netscape WWW viewers were in constant development. A decision was made NOT to ship utilities of this kind with the Netra i in its first release. As described above, the role of the Netra i did not mandate that a complement of Internet access tools should be provided with it. Thus the decision was made to keep it simple (in the first release) and supportable."

He suggests that ISPs might want to provide pre-configured Netras to their LAN customers, such as companies getting 56k or T1 links with them.

"Buyers who want quick out of the box access to their Internet provider get exactly that with Netra i. An Internet Service Provider reselling Netra i systems has the ability to ship a configuration floppy with the system that contains information specific to the installation site and service provider. Upon power-up, the system takes about two minutes to read the disk, configure itself accordingly, initialize the interfaces and begin acting as a local resource for DNS, POP3 mail clients, etc. If the system disk crashes, a similar operation with the CD ROM OS release and the same configuration floppy will rebuild and reinitialize the system (with a new hard disk) in about 30 minutes. The ease of configuration and servicability is what is being sold with Netra i."

In his review of the Netra, Jaime Saker said, "Documentation is horribly poor." Michael's response is that, since the Netra was designed for a purely limited role, extensive documentation would have been a burden, not an aid. I might add that the documentation that came with my SS5 clone's SunOS media/documentation CD package would have been a big disappointment had I not been warned about it in advance; there is a single installation volume and nothing else. So you won't solve the documentation problem purely by getting a Sun system with SunOS. (It is claimed by Sun that the Solaris installation with the Sun Answerbook CD contains voluminous documentation; I have to say that I'd rather have some I can heft).

Jaime Saker noted that the Netra has no C compiler included; this is true even of new Solaris systems. The Free Software Foundation has pre-compiled binaries of Gnu GCC for Solaris readily available. SunOS, incidentally, does include a C compiler that's good enough to compile GCC.

Jaime Saker says that his early production Netra does not support video, even as an optional Sun board. Michael's response is that this is very logical, since the system is designed to be locked in a closet and not used. However, later Netras apparently no longer have this restriction; you can now attach video to it if you really want to.

Jaime's comment on the "unacceptable" support is worth quoting in full, at least for its humour value:

"Sun tech support, helpdesk and other support interfaces claim to have no knowledge of the Netra. (In fact, Sun's helpdesk was convinced that Netra must be a third-party software package. Describing the box with Sun's logo, the literature, serial/model numbers, etc. did not help. How can Sun support a product it denies exists?)"

Michael concedes this basic point, but adds that support has now been substantially improved.

Finally, Jaime makes this comment on his overall reaction to the system, as compared to other machines he evaluated:

"Price-Performance ratio is dismal: Hewlett Packard HP 9000 712/60, equally equipped in terms of memory and hard disk, plus 15" monitor, a full OS, and a somewhat functional (enough to compile gcc/t++) compiler is LESS than the Netra with NO video, monitor, compiler, etc."

Michael's response is that they put a great deal of effort into trying to make the Netra extremely easy to use, and that it is well worth the extra cost for Unixphobes and people who just don't have the time to learn Unix.

So, although FAQ readers now know a lot more about the Netra than we did at first, it has to be said that the conclusion is obviously the same: No ISP worth its salt would buy a Netra; it's aimed at a completely different audience. For that audience, it's probably a very nice product.

6.23 Tony Sanders' Recommended Equipment List

Tony Sanders, founder of the Inet-Access mailing list, has compiled some hardware information for use with BSDI systems. Much of this should also apply to Linux as well, although (to my knowledge), Linux does not yet have support for routing cards.

-- Here's Tony's document, reproduced with minor editing: --

These specs are intended for users building a high-performance, Internet-ready PC fileserver or workstation class machine using BSD/OS from Berkeley Software Design, Inc. Of course, users building more typical configurations should also find it helpful as it lists resources for some of the harder to find items.

This does not contain a complete list of supported hardware; please contact info@bsdi.com for details on the operating system, a complete supported hardware list, or with any questions you may have.

OS: BSD/OS V1.1 BSDI World Headquarters Berkeley Software Design, Inc. 7759 Delmonico Dr. Colo. Spgs., CO 80919 USA Toll Free: +1 800 800 4BSD Phone: +1 719 593 9445 Fax: +1 719 598 4238 Email: info@bsdi.com

CPU: 486DX2/66 or Pentium

BUS: ISA/EISA/PCI/VLB

For applications that are mostly network or CPU-bound a system with an ISA bus will work fine, especially if you toss in a VLB disk controller. You can get a perfectly good system this way and save yourself some bucks.

Those with a bit of daring, after the cutting-edge in performance, will probably want to try PCI. There have been some initial problems with PCI but it is possible to get a working system with a bit of care. Billy at ASA Computers can help you. Rumer is that most of the initial problems with PCI 2.0 have been resolved. As always, buyer beware (and shop with a vendor you can trust).

A good resource for all kinds of hardware (and who knows what else): ASA Computers +1 408 496 6853 [ext 201 -- Billy] +1 408 988 0359 (fax) +1 800 REAL PCS

Multi-Port Board: Digiboard PC/Xem [~$1400 for 16 port card], can go to 64 ports. RISCom/8 is a good price/performance alternative for less demanding loads.

[Note from the FAQ maintainer: For Linux, check out the Boca 2016 16-port serial board, which works fine on my system].

Router Card: With the RISCom/N2, RISCom/H2, and RISCom/N1 synchronous cards you can connect your BSD/OS directly to your 56K or T1 line and avoid the extra cost of an router; probably saving your company thousands of dollars! BSD/OS supports both CISCO HDLC and synchronous PPP framing for compatibility with most service providers. Frame Relay support is being worked on right now.

RISCom/N2 (56K to T1) -- Connects via V.35 to a standard CSU/DSU RISCom/N2-S (approx $500) -- single port RISCom/N2-D (approx $695) -- dual ports (very nice for routing hubs) Mention BSDI when ordering to recieve special rates for BSDI customers. Prices are approximate and subject to change.

The RISCom/N1 and RISCom/H2 cards are supported at 56K.

Available from: SDL Communications Inc. 130 Liberty Street Bronkston, MA 02401 +1 508 238 4490

For information on Internet Access Providers see: http://yahoo.com/Business/Corporations/Internet_Access_Providers/

ISDN is not yet directly supported (and we have not identified a target card yet) but several people have reported using the Combinet ISDN modem (120Kb/second): Combinet 333 West El Camino Real, Suite 240 Sunnyvale, California 94087 +1 408 522 9020 (voice) +1 408 732 5479 (fax) ISDN BBS: telnet combinetu.combinet.com (login: isdn) For more information about ISDN see: http://www.crimson.com/isdn/ http://www.crimson.com/isdn/vendorinfo.html http://www.icus.com/ http://alumni.caltech.edu/~dank/isdn/

Ethernet: 3COM 3C579 Etherlink III -- EISA 3COM 3C509 Etherlink III -- ISA TNIC 1500 Transition Eng Fast ISA busmaster DMA NIC South Coast Computing Services, Inc. PO BOX 270355 Houston, TX 77277-0355 Email: info@sccsi.com +1 713 661 3301 +1 713 661 0633 (fax)

Firewalls: Setting up a firewall is recommended by many network experts for additional security for your site.

The ``screend'' packet screening software package is available from ftp.vix.com:pub/vixie/screend*. This package can be used to build an IP firewall using your BSD/OS system.

You can get ``fwtk'' (firewall toolkit) from ftp.tis.com:pub/firewalls. TIS also makes a commercial version called Gauntlet: Trusted Information Systems 3060 Washington Road Glenwood, MD 21738 Email: info@tis.com +1 301 854 6889

SCSI: Adaptec 1740/1742 EISA SCSI host adapter (Minimicro +1 800 275 4642) BusLogic (BusTek) BT-946C PCI SCSI host adapter (w/firmware 4.21 or higher) BusLogic (BusTek) BT-747A EISA SCSI host adapter

Disk space as required (Fast SCSI-II). 500MB-1GB is a reasonable starting place for many configurations. Corporate Systems Center 1294 Hammerwood Ave. Sunnyvale, CA 94089 +1 408 734 DISK +1 408 745 1816 (fax) [Good resource for drives and other peripherals, new and refurb]

A full Usenet News feed will eat a *lot* of disk space (at the very least 2GB) as well as disk performance. You should use multiple smaller disks instead of one big disk to increase disk throughput and minimize seek times (probably 3-5 2GB disks depending on how long you want to keep stuff around).

Double or Triple speed SCSI CDROM (you can get a cheap drive if you are just going to use it for installation). If you intend to really use it you'll want a drive that supports SCSI disconnect or else it will impact SCSI performance.

8mm Exabyte or 4mm DAT Tape Backup

Consider a Magneto-Optical system for site archives.

Video For Workstations: Xstones Chipset Video Adapter * 450,000 ??????? Number Nine -- #9 GXE128 * 350,000 MGA-II Matrox MGA Ultima * 220,000 MACH64 ATI Ultra Pro Turbo (MACH64) ???,??? MACH8 ATI Ultra Pro (MACH32) 150,000 MACH8 ATI Ultra (MACH8)

* Supports resolutions upto 1600x1200 Others support resolutions upto 1280x1024

BBS/Menuing Software: ftp.solinet.net:/pub/src/menu.tar.gz (src dist.) ftp.solinet.net:/pub/src/unixmenu.SCO.tar.gz (BSD/OS src/bindist) ftp.solinet.net:/pub/src/yum.tar.gz (BSD/OS src/bindist)

Other possible sources: Eric Raymond's? Menushell? UniBoard BBS by ??

TNSDrive by Vladimir Vorobyev : ftp.turbo.nsk.su:/pub/unix/drive045-BSDI.tgz

[if you have any suggestions for this section please send them to sanders@bsdi.com]

News: INN (available from ftp.bsdi.com:contrib/news) PageSat (Usenet News by Satellite) +1 415 424 0384 approx: $565 equipment, $30 a month (1 year contract).

One person on the inet-access mailing list (see below) commented: :: The chief reason there are holes is that PageSat is delivered via :: satellite. When it rains hard, we lose the signal, and they don't :: retransmit any data. The other big problem is that they only have about :: 100MB/day of bandwidth (synchronous 9600bps == 1200cps). Usenet is :: currently around 130MB/day, so they have an obvious lag problem. :: Even with these problems, PageSat is worth it because it eases about :: 100 MB/day of bandwidth off of my lowly 56k circuit.

Note that a 56Kbps link is ~590MB/day of bandwidth. Of course you aren't going to get that in practice and during peak usage things can get pretty bad, so offloading 100/MB of real work could be a big win.

SLIP/PPP: Basic SLIP/PPP client/server code included with BSD/OS. For a more advanced setups you might want to check out Morningstar PPP: Morning Star Technologies Inc. 1760 Zollinger Road Columbus OH USA 43221-2856 Email: Marketing@MorningStar.Com (sales e-mail) Email: Support@MorningStar.Com (technical e-mail) FTP: ftp.MorningStar.Com:pub/ WWW: http://www.MorningStar.Com/ +1 614 451 1883 +1 800 558 7827 (Toll Free USA and Canada) +1 614 459 5054 (fax)

Internet Access Providers Mailing List: This is a mailing list for people to discuss issues about being an Internet Service Provider. The list is not BSD/OS specific. EMail inet-access-request@earth.com to join the list.

Things to consider: Administration machine DNS, News, telnet, FTP, gopher, WWW Fileserver Firewall Shell Accounts Modem Pool/Terminal Server

Configurations for Mac/DOS/Windows clients: Draper Kauffman, Ed.D. wrote on inet-access: :: The Internet Starter Kit for Macintosh, by Adam Engst :: Hayden Books, $29.95 (ISBN: 1-56830-064-6) :: The Internet Starter Kit for Windows, by Adam Engst, et al. :: Hayden Books, $29.95 (ISBN: 1-56830-094-8) :: :: Besides being excellent introductions to the Net, they include all the :: software a user needs to set up a SLIP or PPP account with email, news, :: ftp, telnet, gopher, web, finger, etc., etc., running as client software :: on a Mac or a WinPC.

-- End of Sanders document --

6.24 Other sources of information on PC hardware

Eric Raymond's excellent PC-Clone Unix Hardware Buyer's Guide is available at http://www.ccil.org/~esr/clone-hw-guide/contents.html.

Updates of Tony Sanders' listing of hardware for BSDI users can be found at the BSDI Web site, http://www.bsdi.com.

Additional hardware and software information can be found in my Web site list for Internet providers, http://www.amazing.com/internet/

Bryan Taylor recommends Fintronics for pre-configured Linux systems. See http://www.fintronics.com/.

6.25 What equipment is needed to hook up my system to the Internet?

To try starting an ISP, all you really need is a 14.4kbps or 28.8kbps modem and a resellable SLIP connection to another provider. This is my current situation, as I try to gauge receptivity to my ideas and tune up the software. Unfortunately, resellable SLIP may be difficult and/or expensive to obtain.

Aaron Nabil of internetworks (i.net) was kind enough to write a response with some interesting comments about resale. Actual resale policies vary depending on the vendor you select. "If you call one up and ask if they permit 'resale', to which they answer no, you shouldn't go away thinking they can't help you." Perhaps they can. Examples of different policies, from Aaron's message:

* ANY TIME you make money from the connection, even if you just charge people to access a Gopher or WWW server, or sell products through that server. (Seattle providers)

* Selling shell access to a computer connected to them is resale (Netcom). (He actually said "Netcom?", but I know from asking them that this is indeed the case).

* Selling permanently addressed IP is "resale", transient IP isn't (Possibly Alternet)

* Selling any IP is resale, but shell access isn't. (Internetworks [i.net, his company], most other providers

* We don't care what you do. (Sprint, free-nets, ISI Network Associates). (I added ISI because I happen to know this is their policy).

So, if you find a vendor and discover that they are not amenable to resale of their connection, make sure you know the precise definition thereof. You might be pleasantly surprised. You may also want to ask if they can "work something out"; special arrangements are possible.

The next step above SLIP is a direct connection at a 56kbps data rate (double the speed of a 28.8 modem). The TLG Leased Line FAQ explains why a 56k is significantly better than a 28.8 SLIP; it has to do with latancy rates and other neat concepts I don't remember. I will later summarize portions of that FAQ here. TLG has some excellent FAQs and other information on connecting to the Internet at http://www.tlg.net/.

To deal with more than a very small number of customers on a paying basis, you will need a 56k or T1 connection hooked up to an internal network. For this, you need the following equipment:

- A Router. This is a box that hooks up to your local network and sends out packets destined to the Internet, while leaving your local packets in your local network. You can theoretically program a PC (using BSDI software) as a router, but the rather vague impression I get is that this is for true experts only.

Aaron Nabil of i.net comments: "Well, it's not necessarily for experts, but don't expect your carrier to help you fix it if it breaks."

Tony Sanders adds: It's not really that hard and one advantage of using a system for the router is that something like a 486/66 or Pentium can pull double duty for a small provider with an eye on expenses and serve as a mail/www/gopher/ftp/news server at the same time as being the router (easily up to T1 speeds). Of course, as you move up in the world you might need to move to a dedicated router but I think that in general it's overkill for someone just getting started. For more information on BSDI hardware, see Tony's guest contribution, above.

On the question of why Linux or other free Unix systems can't be used in the same way, Tony writes: "I think the problem is that they don't have support for any interface cards that talk to a CSU/DSU. Of course, that may have changed." Some inventive Linuxer is bound to change this eventually, but until then that seems to give BSDI a strong edge.

Further information on the subject of using a BSDI box as a router is included at the end of this FAQ as Appendix A due to its extraordinary length (circa 400 lines).

A counter-argument against using the BSDI box as a router comes from Scott Hinnrichs . There are two basic problems with this idea. "Routers should do just that, route. They shouldn't run Unix, or any other potentially lethal applications a hacker can get access through." Just as importantly, if you are tempted to use your BSDI box for anything else, you'll find yourself needing to take the system down for maintenance, which will kill off your Internet connection. A real router, on the other hand, should stay up forever, quietly humming in its pretty little box. He says, "I personally know of two BSDI/gated HDLC setups. One is still crashing/freezing randomly after 8 months (they've tried everything!). The other also runs PPP/SLIP access and other firewall support on the same machine, and it has frequent down times unrelated to routing."

BSDI fans respond by noting that if you know what you're doing, it's reassuring to have the source code to tinker with if things go wrong, or if you need to add specialized features to your system. The best bottom-line remark I read about this came from Paul Vixie , who said that you should choose BSDI if you could figure out the source code and wanted to customize it, or a Cisco or similar box if you just wanted something that worked.

In summary, the BSDI routing might be an acceptable solution if you have an ageing 386 around that you could dedicate just to the router, although even then security might be a legitimate problem. Certainly the router hardware and software shouldn't run on a machine that's used for any other activity.

i.net is one of the few providers with the guts to list actual costs associated with the connection, including equipment. They charge $ 2,200 for a Cisco 2501 router. It can route packets up to the T1 level, and should do fine for most providers. "The Cisco is the benchmark of routers, the reference by which other routers are judged." Its main limitation is that it has only a single ethernet port and two serial ports, so it's pretty much limited to going from your internal network to the Internet. More expensive routers, like the Cisco 7000 series, can handle several such concurrent connections, and thus pass packets between several different internal networks. For almost all start-up providers, the 2501 should be sufficient.

[I believe there are now routers that also serve as terminal servers; hopefully someone who actually knows something about hardware can contribute something on this vital subject].

For $ 1,700, Internetworks will also sell you a IRX-11, which will also handle 56k and T1 connections. "It's just not as nice a router as the Cisco."

Net-99 is giving a 20% discount on CISCO routers and other equipment if you become a customer. They do not presently sell to non-customers.

- A CSU/DSU. About $ 550 (again, using i.net's price sheet) for 56k or $ 1,300 for T1. This is the equivalent of a modem - it translates the router's output into a signal that can zip through the telco's lines.

Aaron: There are cheaper brands for 56k, such as Adtran or Bat, that sell for about $ 250. "Try to get a 56/64k CSU/DSU if possible."

Sean Shapira writes, "I have no complaints regarding my BAT 56k CSU/DSU."

- A local area network to connect your router to your other computer(s). This could be an ethernet card in your system and Ethernet connections or 10Base-T, involving a hub and other stuff. (Someone else might want to flesh this out; this was modified through suggestions from Aaron Nabil and Sean Shapira). If you use your sole BSDI box as a router, you might be able to skip this, but most providers with a T1 or greater need a network to split their load between multiple machines.

- Cables to hook everything together. They're easy to forget, but, according to Aaron, "they are non-trivial!"

Depending on your specific Internet provider, you may need to provide the router and CSU/DSU at (a) your own site only; (b) at your site and their site. Some connections, called "full service", will provide the equipment and maintenance at both sites; a good example of this is CERFNet. This can be contrasted with ISI Network Associates, which requires you to provide the equipment on both sides. Naturally, ISI is a LOT cheaper than CERF. However, for a 56k connection, i.net is cheaper even than ISI, and they provide the router on their end. Go figure.

6.26 What other equipment do I need?

To start receiving calls from users, you need modems, telephone lines and one or more multi-port serial cards or terminal servers.

No less than two people have written me with a simple question: What is a terminal server, anyway, and how do you connect all those lines to your PC? A terminal server is a device that has a whole bunch of serial ports and a single Ethernet output. The serial ports connect to your modems, and the Ethernet port connects to your network. Your network, in turn, is hooked up to the system that runs your user accounts. So people call in to the terminal server and connect to your machine. For reasons I still haven't quite figured out, this is far more efficient than a multi-port serial card. I think it has something to do with Ethernet protocols being more efficient than the direct handling of serial ports.

One major advantage of a terminal server is that you can program it to connect people telnetting in to one or more different machines. For example, if you had 3 systems for your shell or BBS accounts, you could tell the terminal server to route your first call to machine one, your second to machine two, and so on, thus equalizing the load between the machines. If one of them went down, you could instantly reprogram the terminal server to direct future calls to one of the other machines. This would be very difficult to manage with a multi- port card and modem setup.

Walter Vose Jeffries has an interesting alternative, which has one major advantage: It's completely automatic. Use Call Forward if Busy and Call Forward On No Answer with your phone system. This way, if one of your lines is hung, the Call Forward on No Answer will send you over to the next line after a pre-determined amount of time. Curiously enough, the phone company has not been kind enough to tell me of the existance of this fine service; it may not be available in all areas, or it may apply only to business lines. It certainly sounds well worth a typical custom calling charge; it could reduce or eliminate the typical need for something like a USR Total Control style managed modem rack.

The other way to hook up large numbers of modems to your PC is through a multi-port serial card. This is a simple card that fits in your PC. The servicing of this card takes a considerable amount of CPU time, although this can be somewhat relieved by buying an "Intelligent" serial card like the Cyclades. The big advantage of this approach is that it's a great deal cheaper than a terminal server. A 16-port terminal server costs around $ 2,000. A 16-port serial card costs around $ 250 (for the BocaBoard 2016; see my Boca FAQ for more information). A major disadvantage of this approach is that you're limited to about 16 ports per machine, 32 if you're lucky. A Sun SparcSTATION 20 using terminal servers can support around 150 users. So if you factor in the cost of extra computers per 16 or 32 lines, the terminal server starts to look like a more reasonably priced solution.

[NOTE: The rackmount modem section is in development and this may contain some inaccurate information].

MODEMS: Many people swear by rack-mount USR or other big name modems. You can do all sorts of neat things with them, such as remote test and reset of individual lines. Unfortunately, they cost about triple what low-end standalone units do. Low-end standalone units are more likely to not connect properly after a disconnection. This appears to be especially true of US Robotics Sportster units, although their high-end modems are superb. I've had excellent success with Intel 144e modems, which cost all of $ 99 each. One note on the Intels: They have apparently changed their design significantly in the last few months. The newer ones are instantly recognizable by their roughly square power bricks; the older ones were clearly rectangular. The difference relevent to Internet providers is that the older ones support "at&q6" to turn on error correction and autobauding. The comparable command for the new series is "atb0\j1". The \j1 turns on autobauding and the b0 specifies CCITT mode. Note that the "\j1" will have to be typed in as "\\j1" on most Unix systems. Unfortunately, Intel is apparently getting out of the modem business. I, for one, will miss them.

Alicia Salomon (salomon@seas.gwu.edu) was kind enough to send me a price list for US Robotics rackmount modems. I have to say they seemed pretty forbidding, even with special "Internet Pricing". The basic chassis, including "dual power units and the Network Management Card Set (NIC/NAC)" is $ 3,810. From what I gather, this gives you the ability to reset and reassign modems remotely by connecting to the modem's ethernet slot and giving them commands. You then must buy a Dual T1 card set for $ 2,701 to hook these modems to a T1 line, which can then be brought in to your network. A modem card, which contains four modems, costs around $ 2,000 (again with the special pricing). So if you wanted to start with 16 lines, it would cost a eye-popping $ 14,511; 16 Intel 144e modems would run only $ 2,240. Filling the box to its 48-line capacity would cost $ 38,511, while 48 144es would cost $ 6,720. However, this is not quite a fair comparison, since this price apparently includes the equivalant of a terminal server, which would otherwise cost somewhere around $ 2,000 for 16 lines.

Despite this, I suspect the rackmounts have their place. If you have a POP that's remote from your main business location, you might not be able to go there and physically reset the modems in any reasonable period of time. With that situation, rackmounts might actually be the best solution, since you'd just reset them via your network. An alternative would be to build your own remote switching device, so you could remotely switch the modems on and off when they needed to be reset. Even hiring someone to design and build such a thing might be cheaper than a rackmount modem box.

Sean Shapira notes the primary advantages of rackmounts: "space savings; significantly reduce wiring harness". These are undoubtably true, and I suppose I'd pick up a nice rackmount modem if I had an unlimited budget. Pity nobody does in these tough times. :-(

Bryant Durrell has some interesting advice for the startup ISP with multiple POPs: "Something I'd be exploring if I were a small ISP opening my first new POP is colocates. There are a lot of people out there who'd love to have a POP in their house, just cause it seems cool. Some of them may be technically inclined. I don't know if one could find trustworthy people, but it seems possible."

Eric S Raymond took the opposite approach in his system setup, which I think will appeal a great deal more to the startup ISP. His contribution also gives some us some idea of the kind of patching BSDI users have had to do. He writes the following paragraph about his experiences:

"We got our nonprofit ISP started using a super-cheap modem called a LineLink 144e, built around the Rockwell data-pump chip (same one used in the Zoom and Boca modems) and costing $105. We hooked our modems to SDL RISCOM/8 multiport boards, the brand recommended by BSDI. This setup has worked pretty well, except for one major problem -- when UNIX on our 50MHz box hangs up, the DTR-low interval goes by so fast that the LineLink sometimes fails to see it. This causes the modem to hang in the off-hook state, blocking the line and requiring a manual reset. I worked around this by patching a 250msec delay into the RISCOM driver's DTR-pulldown code. This fix may become unnecessary when RISCOM releases the next driver version, which is supposed to do true hardware handshaking on the modem lines."

Incidentally, the setup I have under Linux, featuring a BocaBoard 2016 16-port serial card and $ 139 [now $ 99] Intel 144e modems, has worked flawlessly with no installation problems at all.

MULTI-PORT EQUIPMENT: Your modems have to connect to your computer, which normally has two or fewer available serial cards. How to do this? There are three basic ways:

DUMB CARDS: These cards give all processing to your system's CPU, which makes it run slower than the alternatives. However, they are very cheap and relatively easy to set up. If you have a Linux system, you should request my BOCA-FAQ, which outlines the procedure for setting up a Boca 16-port board under Linux.

SMART CARDS: These cards take some of the processing load off the main system. They are supported by the BSD systems, but not Linux; as a result I have limited knowledge of them.

TERMINAL SERVERS: These are high-end products that are mercilessly expensive, often over $ 2,000. In return, you get a device that handles your terminal ports by effectively telnetting to your system. This is significantly easier on your system, since it no longer needs to process any form of terminal interrupts. This is, however, yet another item I could use some help on, since I've never used one of these beasts - too much money!

Karl Denninger writes the following on various brands of terminal servers:

Annex: Unix-style kernel. Well-known, venerable, highly stable. Decent performance, but you will NOT be able to drive all the Annex ports to full speed at once. I've tried it.

Livingston: Newer, good reputation, but has a few problems that I can't live with (primarily no host route advertisement). They claim to be fixing this. RADIUS authentication system is quite nice. Not a bad box.

Telebit: Venerable, well-understood, *extremely* flexible command set and capabilities. Can handle leased connections as well (up to T1 with appropriate cards) which makes it a "POP in a box" possibility. Classics are available cheaply, current units (NB40s, etc) are more expensive. Will route IPX and Appletalk in addition to IP.

Basically it's a question of what you want and need.

6.27 How many phone lines do I need?

To start, it pretty much depends on your budget. I currently have four: three incoming lines plus my SLIP connection. Because my system is experimental, nobody calls it yet and so I have no hard answer to this question. (After a few months of running software that works reasonably well (not fully debugged by any means), my lines are now often full). My estimate is that you want 8-10 lines to start, once you're ready to give your system a bit of publicity. But it really all depends on your market and how high a profile you can maintain.

Since I've written this, I've started getting occasional busy signals on my three-line system. I have about 100 user accounts and 10 people who call several times a day. Since I don't charge for the system yet, however, most of these numbers are meaningless. Stay tuned.

As a general rule, 10 users per line is suggested for conventional dial-up connections. I believe Karl Denninger maintains roughly this same ratio, even with his SLIP connections; he can do this due to a 20-minute idle timeout for the SLIP.

Alicia Salomon adds, "after about 400 users, it goes to about 12:1 and then goes to 15:1 around 1000ish (guesstimates based on vague sources of data input)".

If you have under 16 lines on you system, you may wind up having to buy a line for every 6-8 users.

Permanent SLIP connections by definition take precisely one dial-up line per user, and should be priced accordingly. Some people have gone to 4-6 users per line even for non-permanent SLIP.

George Herbert has a good summary of what happens when your modems go over that magic ratio:

"'Good' services will have a ratio of 10 to 12 users per modem. At this level, you generally will not see busy signals except for brief periods of time during peak hours (which are usually 5pm-midnight local time). Users seem not to mind at all if they get a busy signal for a couple of minutes every few days, so it seems to be OK.

"At a ratio around 15 to 1, you see people talking about longer periods of busies (10+ minutes) regularly every night, and you start to get complaints.

"At 18:1, your users start defecting en masse as they can't get on for hours on end ... the worst possible example was 20:1, briefly, for a major service who I won't name, which led to the other major services in town picking up several hundred defecting customers and loads of public postings of displeasure."

Steve Balbach reminds us that lines can take a long time to install. "We give 2-4 months lead time from when we decide to add more lines to when they are live. Some examples of time delaying problems:

v.34 chip shortages industry wide put new modem orders on hold

Bell runs into facility problems at your location.

Bell messes up your order and takes weeks to straighten it out.

Electrical upgrades required

Wiring upgrades

UPS/power backup upgrades

I'm sure there's a slew of other possible problems that can arise. If you're at 12:1 now and decide to put new modems in, you're too late - expect possibly a few months of busy signals. And add more lines than you need , proactive is the key."

I suspect this is especially good advice for a large ISP that runs sizable numbers of lines and has to order modems in bulk. I've certainly never had any trouble getting my modems from Fry's electronics or some similar vendor. However, I once had a major crisis when the phone company ran out of lines to put in my home; it's taking about two months to straighten that out (through my upcoming move to a commercial location).

However, if you use certain items of popular hardware like US Robotics Total Control modem racks, you have to contend with the potential for major shortages.

*.# What about Residential phone lines versus business?

Residential phone lines are generally much cheaper than business lines. Traditionally, the phone company has subsidized the cost of residence lines by charging businesses substantially more for phone service. Fortunately, the network provider has almost exclusively incoming calls, so the measured service issue for business lines doesn't come up much.

In some areas, the base rates for business lines are about double residence rates. In other areas, they are about the same. In most places, all calls are measured, so you should watch out when calling from any business lines.

Whether you use residence lines or not obviously depends at least in part on the location of your business; you cannot use residential lines if you're in a business location such as an office building or store. Phone company policies on use of residence lines for a business operating out of people's homes vary dramatically depending on the area in which you live. The worst case is that you could be back-billed for business rates from the inception of your business. Best case, of course, is that the phone company could ignore you completely and allow you the residence lines without trouble.

Fortunately for the budding ISP, phone companies in many cities are setting up telecommuting programmes and in general trying to encourage people to work at home. One of the major elements of this appears to be allowing home businesses to "get away" with the use of residence lines. Because of this, the pressure to get business lines seems to have abated in many areas. For example, a few years back, Pacific Bell tried to institute a crackdown against people who were using residential lines for their BBSs. However they have recently reversed this policy; now, they are more than happy to take orders for multi-line BBSs at residential rates; my rep knew exactly what I was doing when I placed the order, and even offered a few words of encouragement. When I asked if there might be trouble in the future, my rep - who seemed like quite a knowledgeable fellow - said no.

According to Alan Byrant's book on running a successful BBS, Southwestern Bell has been particulary aggressive at nabbing providers and BBSs who try running business systems off residential lines. (I read this in the bookstore and unfortunately don't remember the name of the book).

Unfortunately, there is a serious snag that I came across only when I ordered a new 56k connection from Pacific Bell. In Pac Bell territory, if you go over six lines, you are considered responsible for any wiring costs to get additional lines out to your house. So in order to get a seventh line, I would have to pay the $ 9,000 charge to get additional lines wired in from the central office. For a single seventh line, the charge might be lower, but since I needed a large number of lines (about six more then), there was no really cost-effective solution other than going to a business location.

Unfortunately, the phone company is less than forthcoming when asked about the number of lines that can be put into a house or apartment. As a general rule, they will actually attempt to do the installation, find out they don't have enough lines available, and then you're stuck.

One possible option is called a "Mux" or "Channel Bank". The phone company gives you a T1 line between you and the central office; it can hold up to 24 voice connections. You can then use the channel bank to split the T1 into the 24 lines at your location. The problem with this solution is that the channel bank itself costs about $ 4,000, and it will only give you 24 lines per two that you presently have. So if you can have a maximum of six lines, and two are in use already as voice lines, your channel bank could give you 24 lines, and your other two lines would be used by your Internet connection (56k or T1). So your maximum growth at that site would be 24 lines.

According to Joe McGuckin , a company called Carrier Access Corp makes a $ 2,995 channel bank that (unlike the previous generation) fits into a standard rack and runs on 120VAC (or -48VDC for rack fans). It also comes in a 12-line version for $ 2,195. Definitely worth checking out, according to Joe.

(Note that you probably wouldn't want to put those final two voice lines in the channel bank, because they're residential voice lines, not business lines; you want them to be free of toll charges).

Pacific Bell does NOT charge extra for this arrangement; other phone companies do. When you're thinking of going this route, make sure you know ALL possible phone company charges; otherwise, they might bite you in unexpected places!

6.28 Where do I put all this stuff?

Most beginning ISPs start in their owner's home. This is nothing to be ashamed of; even mighty Netcom started this way. Of course I'm just a shade biased here; my nascent provider is right here at home, too.

The home address has some very interesting advantages:

(1) It doesn't cost any more than what you're already paying for rent or mortgage.

(2) You can use residential phone lines instead of business; rates are 50% or less business costs. However, see above for a full discussion of the issues behind this.

(3) It's easy to get to in case of an emergency. Just walk to your desk.

It also has some disadvantages you might not be aware of:

(1) It's probably technically illegal, thanks to zoning rules. Fortunately, these are being gradually loosened.

(2) The tax consequences of deducting the portion of your mortgage used for business purposes are extraordinarily murky - and whether you rent or buy your home, office in home deductions are a major red flag for IRS audits.

(3) It has a few image problems. You don't normally want to escort potential customers for big accounts into your living room and have them run into that strange mess the kids created during playtime. Potential employees may also be less than impressed by your working environment.

(4) Some telco services may not be available to residential customers. This is one issue I don't know much about - I'd appreciate more information from people who know what they're talking about here.

(5) You may be able to bring in only a very limited number of lines; see the previous section.

In the end, though, it all boils down to money. If you have tons of the stuff, you'll probably have an office. If money's tight, running your ISP out of your home is one of the best ways to save.

6.29 Choosing your location: Disaster planning and Phone Line Questions

There has been an interesting recent thread on the inet-access mailing list about what location is least prone to natural disasters and other mishaps. These could range from a mighty earthquake to a raging fire.

The ideal solution would seem to be a building you own yourself that's not shared with any other tenants. The non-shared aspect would mean that you wouldn't be vunerable to man-made disasters caused by them; the building would probably be only a single story and thus less vunerable to earthquakes. Ideally, the building should be separated from others (like a single family house as opposed to a building in a bunch of cheek-by-jowl commercial buildings).

After the recent Oklahoma bombing, it's pretty clear that you don't want to share your building with government offices.

Unfortunately, few of us can afford such a costly solution, unless we ran the business out of our homes.

People who run an ISP out of their homes may find problems installing T1 lines (which may not be cost effective to the phone company) and installing large numbers of phone lines. Most commercial buildings have no set limit to the number of lines that can be installed, although it's always a good idea to ask the phone company before you finally select your building.

There would appear to be an enormous variance in the number of phone lines you can install in a residential building, ranging from 3 to 300. The upshot is that good relations with the phone company are essential - however much you may swear at them behind their back.

6.30 This is so expensive! Where can I find this stuff cheap? (*)

Don't forget the newsgroups misc.forsale.computers.workstation and the corresponding pc-clone groups for the best prices on hardware. Unfortunately, much of what's offered is rather low end and not really suitable for an ISP. I did get my Sun 3/60 through the workstation group, but it's not going to power a full provider; I use my Linux PC for that and use the Sun for its neat 19" colour monitor.

More recently, some very interesting hardware (SS10s) has been offered with some regularity on the workstation group, so watch for them and pounce if you want a SS10.

If you're looking for PC-style hardware to run your provider, Computer Shopper is one of the best sources of deals.

For Sun workstations, an excellent place to start is by dropping a line to Craig.Warner@ceram.com. He's a Sun clone dealer, and my experience with him was excellent, even though I didn't wind up buying anything (yet!). For real Suns, you'll have to find a local reseller. The one I talked to could not relate to my needs, but hopefully you'll have better luck.

Henry Minsky (hqm@ai.mit.edu) is developing a list of dealers who carry used equipment. Access it through a Web browser via the URL http://www.ai.mit.edu/datawave/hardware.html. "There are some pieces of equipment I would not recommend getting used, but others, such as the tape drive, have warranties from the reseller, and seem to be a good option."

David K Merriman suggests the following dealers:

Personal Computing Tools | Data acquisition, good source for 90 Industrial Park Road | Digiboard multi-port cards Hingham, MA 02043 (800) 767-6728; fax (617) 740-2728; BBS (617) 740-0061

Data Comm Warehouse | Network cards, hubs, routers, patch panels, 1720 Oak Street | RAS hardware, modems, cable, connectors, LAN P O Box 301 | software, LAN test equipment, cabling tools, Lakewood, NJ 08701-9885 | UPSs, patch panels, rackmount, etc (800) 328-2261; FAX (908) 363-4823

Comment: "Have dealt with them, and they are very good on delivery and support. First catalog I turn to for network stuff."

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