[2336] in linux-net channel archive
Re: Internet Provider?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Doug Ledford)
Thu Apr 4 05:51:45 1996
Date: Wed, 3 Apr 1996 04:34:37 -0600 (CST)
From: Doug Ledford <dledford@dialnet.net>
To: Luis Felipe Balbinot <HADES@lapro4.unisinos.tche.br>
cc: linux-net@vger.rutgers.edu
In-Reply-To: <1C23E00206@lapro4.unisinos.tche.br>
On Tue, 2 Apr 1996, Luis Felipe Balbinot wrote:
> Is that possible to make an Internet Provider on a P5 166Mhz with
> 32Mb and 4.3Gb SCSI-II HD using Linux? Can I set up 30 external lines
> (to users) that use SLIP/PPP at 28,800 ? I have a 2Mbps
> backbone to use.
>
> I'm afraid that this machine is not fast enough to handle 30 users at
> the same time using all the ttys...
With the right serial port hardware, you have a plenty fast machine for
30 users. Myself, I recommend the Comtrol RocketPort boards for their
large Transmit and Recieve FIFOs. I have a Pentium 100 running 48 active
ports using this right now. However, if this machine is going to be
doing shell access and any kind of news servicing, you are way under
powered on RAM and HD space. 48 ports on my RocketPort uses about 24MB
of RAM just to run all of the pppds and mgettys. I use exec calls
whenever possible to keep memory from being wasted by shells just setting
around waiting for pppd to exit so they can disconnect a line and 32MB
RAM is just enough to accomplish this on my machine. My news server runs
64MB RAM and that may even be a bit small for what it does. My shell
server runs another 64 MB RAM. If I were you, I would plan on needing
128MB RAM to get that machine to perform well if it is going to be doing
shell access as well as pppd and news readers. Eliminate any of those
three and you can start cutting RAM back. If it will be doing any type
of news server stuff, then get more HD space. You will need what you
have just to run the home directories for the shell server, plus you
would then need a news spool. Current news feeds are about 1.2 to 1.6 GB
of news per day for a full feed, depending on that days traffic. If you
want 4 days of news, then you need 4 x 1.6 = 6.4GB of drive space just
for the spool directory and I recommend a 20% overage to keep the server
from throttling under very heavy traffic periods. That would be 6.4 x
1.2 = 7.68GB drive space for news spool.
Hope that helps.
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