Date: Sun Jun 25 1995 10:58:44 From: Dan Lyke of 1:362/1203@fidonet To: Steve Hagerman of 1:115/550 Subj: LINUX Attr: privileged kill/sent FidoNet netmail ------------------------------- SH> Thanks for the reply! I am interested in setting up a Linux SH> Internet box using TBBS as a frontend. Does Chattanooga.net use SH> a BBS front, or is it a stand alone? We're stand-alone. We started with TBBS (which is why I still read the echo), but dropped it when we realized that we could have real mail and news and do all of our menus in Perl very easily with Linux. Further, we've got Livingston PortMasters handling the modems and putting everything onto Ethernet, and these let us let Microsoft Windows, Mac and X-Windows users do a network (PPP) connect and then use their native applications to access all these features. Graphical front ends, here and now. SH> If you don't mind my asking SH> I would like to get a few ideas on what it takes to set up Linux SH> using a leased line (56k to start). We run a Sprintlink fractional T1, 128k to start (You can't pull down a full news feed and have any bandwidth left for your users if you go slower, but you also don't have to pull down a full news feed), and upping it requires no additional hardware, just a phone call, into a Cisco 2500 router, which drops onto our Ethernet. On our Ethernet, we've got two of those Livingston PortMasters (Cayman OEMs 'em too, if you can find those cheaper), with 30 serial ports each. We have 40 dial-up lines, and a couple of ISDN and leased 56K all routed off the PortMasters (Which will work as full routers as well as just serial port, PPP and SL/IP boxes). You could consolidate a lot of these on to one box, but we've got 4 machines to handle the basic functions of the net. 1. Our name server, a 386 with 8 meg of RAM, handles converting all of the names in our domain and the other domains we serve (and the domains it caches) into IP numbers. Doesn't do much more than run named and in.telnetd. 2. our main computer, a 486 with 32 meg of RAM and a gig and change of drive space handles mail and user accounts, if our users aren't using PPP or SL/IP (ie: they're using it like a BBS), this is what they dial into, and it also runs some chat software for the local talk-radio stations that we comp out ad time on. 3. Our news server, a 486 with as much RAM as we can put into it and about 3 gig of drive space. This lets us handle an English language news feed (About half the total feed), with a 2 day kill on the alt.binaries newsgroups and a 5 day kill on everything else. 4. Our WWW server and administrative console, runs our HTTP daemon and X-Windows. We could probably drop the WWW daemon back over to Caladan but it doesn't take much resources. We've also got numerous other machines lying around, mainly because we run a storefront type place and have lots of prospective users dropping in that we give sales demos to. SH> What programs would I need SH> to allow telnet, ftp, ppp, slip, usenet, ie a basic package. SH> I've got a slackware Linux cd set on order which will hopefully SH> have everything I need to setup a system. For PPP and SL/IP I'd look at getting the Livingston boxes. They cost about $1800 for the 10 port version and can be upgraded for between $500 and $800 for 10 port increments to 30 ports. Everything else is included, 'though I'd go out and get the Lynx text mode WWW browser from ftp.umn.edu and an http daemon, and let your users use Lynx. SH> Here's what I'd like to do if its possible: Put a menu selection SH> on the BBS which would call a Interchange connection to the SH> Internet box, using either a serial connection, or better if SH> possible by using the TBBS IPX lan capability. I don't know about the IPX stuff, I wish Phil had made it a standard. You could easily use Interchange out to the Livingston devices, and you might find someone making a eSoft IPX to serial converter, which the Livingstons would just eat up. We started to play with that route, but we abandoned it when we realized that the PortMasters handled the modems better than TBBS, and it would have been actually easier, had we needed the ability, do dial into the PortMasters and then shell to the TBBS box. Does this help? Dan