The latest version of this software can always be found at <http://www.clearway.com/cspr/>
This software is free. It may be redistributed unmodified, provided that this document is included.
WARNING: This software may cause permanent data loss! Read this entire document carefully!
THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED AS-IS. CLEARWAY TECHNOLOGIES, INC. (CLEARWAY) MAKES NO CLAIMS AS TO THE THE SAFETY OF THIS SOFTWARE OR ITS SUITABILITY TO ANY TASK. THIS SOFTWARE IS KNOWN TO CAUSE PERMANENT DATA LOSS UNDER SOME CIRCUMSTANCES, AND BY ELECTING TO USE THIS SOFTWARE, YOU ATTEST TO YOUR UNDERSTANDING OF THIS AND ASSOCIATED RISKS AND THE LIKELY LOSSES, AND YOU ASSUME FULL RESPONSIBILITY FOR ANY AND ALL INJURIES, DAMAGES, OR LOSSES RESULTING EITHER DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY FROM THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE. IF YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND OR ACCEPT THESE TERMS, OR IF THIS WAIVER OF LIABILITY IS NOT VALID OR CANNOT BE ENFORCED IN YOUR LOCATION, YOU MUST NOT USE THIS SOFTWARE. FOR MORE INFORMATION ON BECOMING A LAWYER, CONSULT THE AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION AT <HTTP://WWW.ABANET.ORG/>
What is ClearWay Simple PPP Restart?
ClearWay Simple PPP Restart is a MacOS system extension that will restart your Macintosh whenever it appears to have lost its PPP connection. It is designed to let you run a reliable Internet server on your Mac using a simple "dedicated" PPP connection to the Internet. It is only useful if you are using your Mac as a server, and will cause you to lose data if used improperly. Read the instructions!
For years it's been possible to run Macintosh Internet servers over dial-up PPP connections using ordinary analog phone lines. However, because phone lines tend to "drop" (hang up) every few hours or days, it has been difficult to set up a completely reliable server without buying network routing hardware (around US$900). This extension is an attempt to improve this situation and make dialup-based Web servers a simple, reliable option. Using ClearWay Simple PPP Restart, we have achieved better than 99.8% "uptime" on a test server.
This extension will restart your Mac whenever ANY "notification" dialog pops up. Because OpenTransport/PPP always posts a notification that says "OT/PPP: You have been disconnected" whenever the PPP line is dropped, this extension will always restart your server that happens. At least that's the theory. BUT BE WARNED: If ANY Notification dialogs pop up ("Printer is out of paper!") YOUR MAC WILL RESTART INSTANTLY, WITHOUT SAVING ANY OPEN FILES. All "unsaved" changes will be instantly lost. ClearWay Simple PPP Restart is a powerful and dangerous little extension. Use it with extreme caution until you understand how it works on your system.
ClearWay Technologies WILL NOT PROVIDE ANY TECHNICAL SUPPORT for this free product.
System Requirements / Installation
In order to function properly, this extension needs:
- a MacOS-based Internet server, running MacOS 7.5 or later
- OpenTransport 1.1.1 or later
- OT/PPP 1.0 or later (it almost certainly will NOT work with other PPP's)
- 2K of free RAM
Place this extension into your Extensions folder and restart your server.
To test the extension, start up your OT/PPP connection and wait for it to be fully established. Close the PPP control panel if it is open. SAVE ALL YOUR OPEN DOCUMENTS. To simulate a "line drop", unplug the phone line from your modem for 5 seconds, and plug it back in. It will take up to 90 seconds for OpenTransport to recognize the line drop, but once it does, your Mac will draw the outline of a dialog box and then restart immediately.
Usage Notes
- OpenTransport/PPP usually takes about 70-80 seconds to "notice" a PPP line drop. Once OT/PPP notices the line drop, ClearWay Simple PPP Restart will restart the machine in about 2-3 seconds.
- This extension has been tested along side of Okey Dokey Pro, and they both still seem to work. Okey Dokey seems to still dismiss "regular" dialogs, and ClearWay Simple PPP Restart will still restart the machine when a "notification" is posted.
- This extension does not "ping" your PPP connection to keep your ISP from hanging up the connection due to inactivity. If your ISP automatically 'hangs up' inactive PPP connections after a preset time, you will need additional software to keep the line open. Otherwise, ClearWay Simple PPP Restart will probably restart your Mac every 15 minutes, which is worse than before.
- This extension does not provide a "static IP address" for your server. If you want to run a Web server that everyone can access, you will need your ISP to assign you one specific IP address that does not change each time you connect. You should contact your ISP directly if you need this.
- If you already run a PPP-based Web server, or if the idea interests you, you should also look into "FireSite" from ClearWay Technologies. FireSite lets you run a modem- or ISDN- based Web server over ordinary lines, but deliver your Web pages at speeds up to "T1" and beyond! For more information, visit <http://www.clearway.com/firesite/> FireSite also automatically "pings" your ISP every 60 seconds to keep your PPP line open; prices for FireSite start around US$149.
- This extension does try to "unmount" disks gracefully before restarting, so your Mac will not have to go through the slow process of rechecking each hard disk when it starts up, and your server will be back on-line sooner. MacOS 7.6 also helps reduce the 'startup-after-crash' time; you should probably upgrade to 7.6 if you're not already running it.
- Although individual circumstances vary widely, on a Web server of typical stability, with ordinary NYNEX-quality phone lines, our dedicated PPP connection appears to drop about once every 1-3 days. This extension can have the server up and running again in 3-5 minutes, resulting in 99.7% to 99.9% server "uptime."
- Although we can not guarantee any compatibility, this extension appears to work both with Apple's Personal Web Sharing and the Microsoft Personal Web Server. It also seems to work with WebSTAR and other Web servers we've tested.
- This extension may be useful to help restart other kinds of servers such as Web servers with leased lines. Do NOT use this software on "live" data that you cannot afford to lose! Because it peforms a "hard" restart, all unsaved changes and RAM-cached data will be lost immediately. If you ARE using it for something unusual, please send your story via e-mail to <support@clearway.com>.
- This extension currently DOES NOT use the newly-released OT/PPP SDK; a future version may.
WARNING! DANGER!
This extension will restart your Macintosh WITHOUT ASKING YOU TO SAVE ANY DOCUMENTS. If you are working on your Mac and a "notification" dialog pops up, YOU WILL LOSE YOUR WORK. It is designed to be UNFRIENDLY to users. Because of the extremely harsh way that this extension restarts your Mac, it may cause some programs to CORRUPT THEIR DISK FILES, and RAM-based databases will almost certainly lose their "working" data that has not been written to disk yet. If you're not sure about the "safety" of the programs you run on your server, contact each program's manufacturer and specifically ask if there is a risk of data loss from "hard restarts" while the software is running. If these risks are unacceptable to you or your clients, do not use this extension.
[ After running a PPP-dialup-based Web server for two years, I have personally found that 1) the line hangs up every 1-3 days, causing 2) the system to lock up hard (it's usually AIMS's fault, by the way) Even ignoring AIMS, most Internet server programs don't know how to deal with a dropped-and-reestablished PPP connections; most of them 'go deaf' or hang. So, I've probably had to press the "reset" button on my Mac Web server about four times a week for the last two years, and I've been lucky and I haven't lost any data yet. But I will, someday. And you probably will, too. Make sure you back up your server regularly. I wrote this extension basically to push the reset button for me, and it's no safer than doing it by hand, but it's more convenient when I'm three thousand miles away from the server. -Mark ]
Note for FireSite users: FireSite's internal database integrity is protected at the transaction level, and is not affected by "hard" restarts or system crashes.
About the name
We chose "ClearWay Simple PPP Restart" because 1) it describes what the software does, 2) it is part of a growing line of free and low-cost software tools from ClearWay that make MacOS Internet serving simpler, better, easier, faster, and more reliable, and 3) even though this software is kind of the opposite of Okey Dokey, "ClearWay Simple PPP Restart" seems like a more acceptable name than what we call it around the office: "NFW." You can call whatever you wish.
About ClearWay Technologies, Inc.
ClearWay Technologies, Inc. is a smart, friendly, helpful company that consitently delivers astoundingly useful Internet products and supports them with great customer service. ClearWay was founded in January 1996, is privately held, and currently employs five people building and marketing fantastic Internet software.
Check out our Top "Twenty" Tips for Mac Webmasters! <http://mac-web-tips.clearway.com/>
Credits
ClearWay Simple PPP Restart was written by Mark Kriegsman with help from Mark Wachsler. Thanks to Ben Wyckoff for demonstrating that free software is worth writing, and to Susan Marlett for helping to extend the "ClearWay" brand in this new direction. This software is dedicated to Rebecca Rodman who tirelessly restarted the Web server in our basement <http://www.tr.org/> hundreds of times over the last two years.
