[425] in Resnet-Forum
SLIP/PPP Summary (Part 1 of 2)
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Steve Morytko)
Tue Dec 13 01:50:20 1994
Date: Tue, 13 Dec 94 01:30:50 EST
From: Steve Morytko <STEVE@UConnVM.UConn.Edu>
To: resnet-forum@MIT.EDU
I would like to thank everyone who replied to my post. The response
was outstanding. I believe you will find this information to be very
interesting and perhaps it will help us all make some good decisions
regarding "dial-up" service. This might prove to be a good topic for
discussion at Resnet '95!
My apologies if I have somehow hacked a reply. I promised to remove
references to names, e-mail addresses, etc. and may have chopped
something I shouldn't have or not chopped enough. I did not find
time to tabulate the results either. Also, I made no attempt to
ensure that the information came from authoritative sources. However,
I think we can be reasonably sure that the responses are accurate.
My original post:
I am very interested in gathering information from any sites that
(currently do/plan to/have chosen not to) offer SLIP or PPP access to
faculty/staff/students and possibly to their local communities.
It may be a good way to get users on the network but I can see at least
a few stumbling blocks (authentication and usage accounting come to mind).
1) Current status: ____ Offer it ____ Plan to ____ On hold
2) Who's connected: ____ Faculty ____ Staff ____ Students ___ Others
3) Number of ports: ____ Today ____ Spr 95 ____ Fall 95
4) Whose access server? Modems?
5) What authentication server?
6) Comments:
I'll gladly summarize if I get any responses. Thanks so much.
======================================================================
Steve Morytko, University of Connecticut Computer Center
E-mail: steve@uconnvm.uconn.edu ; Ph: 203-486-1405 ; Fax: 203-486-5744
USMail; 196 Auditorium Rd., Storrs, CT 06269-3138
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Replies begin here.
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Organization: University of Dayton
>
> 1) Current status: ____ Offer it __X_ Plan to ____ On hold
> 2) Who's connected: __X_ Faculty __X_ Staff __X_ Students
___ Others
> 3) Number of ports: ____ Today ____ Spr 95 _50+ Fall 95
> 4) Whose access server? cisco Modems? multi-tech probably
> 5) What authentication server? tacacs (with cisco)
> 6) Comments: -- I'd like to find out what contention ratio
people are using to figure the number of ports needed (i.e potential
number of users per port?)
>
========================================================================
Organization: Skidmore College
We are trying to get it working properly, but it is not yet available.
> 1) Current status: ____ Offer it _XX___ Plan to ____ On hold
> 2) Who's connected: ____ Faculty ____ Staff ____ Students ___ Others
> 3) Number of ports: ____ Today ____ Spr 95 ____ Fall 95
> 4) Whose access server? Modems?
> 5) What authentication server?
> 6) Comments:
>
========================================================================
Organization: lut.ac.uk
>
> I am very interested in gathering information from any sites that
> (currently do/plan to/have chosen not to) offer SLIP or PPP access to
> faculty/staff/students and possibly to their local communities.
> It may be a good way to get users on the network but I can see at least
> a few stumbling blocks (authentication and usage accounting come to mind).
>
> 1) Current status: ____ Offer it ____ Plan to ____ On hold
we offer it on dialup basis
> 2) Who's connected: ____ Faculty ____ Staff ____ Students ___ Others
anyone with modem mainly non students
> 3) Number of ports: ____ Today ____ Spr 95 ____ Fall 95
5 6 10?
> 4) Whose access server? Modems?
annex3 by zylogics
> 5) What authentication server?
sun
> 6) Comments:
we are also going to use annex terminal servers to offer services to some
students in halls which have wiring. numbers are unobvious - depends on takeup.
perhaps 6 terminal servers each of 32 lines from the start of next academic
year.
The annex3 offers good authentication, ip addresses by user identity, logging of
all connections to logging server etc.
========================================================================
Organization: Notre Dame (2 replies)
> 1) Current status: _x__Offer it ____ Plan to ____ On hold
> 2) Who's connected: __x_ Faculty _x_ Staff __x_ Students ___ Others
> 3) Number of ports: __80_ Today _88_ Spr 95 ____ Fall 95
> 4) Whose access server? Cisci Modems? US Robotics
> 5) What authentication server? Tacacs
> 6) Comments:
SLIP and PPP and soon ARNS (Appletalk over PPP)
> 1) Current status: _XX_ Offer it ____ Plan to ____ On hold
> 2) Who's connected: _XX_ Faculty _XX_ Staff _XX_ Students ___ Others
> 3) Number of ports: _80_ Today _80_ Spr 95 _80?_ Fall 95
> 4) Whose access server? centralize computing's Modems? same
> 5) What authentication server? same
> 6) Comments:
Just went from 40 to 80 for 15000 staff, students, and faculty. Formerly
*always* saturated pool is now more or less accessible anytime. But we
haven't started turning on the dorms -- that'll be in Spring or Fall 96.
========================================================================
Organization: University of Pennsylvania
> 1) Current status: X Offer SLIP & PPP ____ Plan to ____ On hold
> 2) Who's connected: All users
____ Faculty ____ Staff ____ Students ___ Others
> 3) Number of ports: _300_ Today _360?_ Spr 95 420?_ Fall 95
> 4) Whose access server? Annex/Xylogics Modems? Telebit 14400
> 5) What authentication server? - Homegrown
> 6) Comments: All our modem ports support both SLIP and PPP.
Usage has been disappointing -- averaging under 20% of connections.
We believe it's still too difficult for most users to configure
SLIP and PPP, but we're working to promote and support this.
========================================================================
Organization: University of California, Los Angeles
>
> 1) Current status: ____ Offer it xxxx Plan to ____ On hold
> 2) Who's connected: ____ Faculty ____ Staff ____ Students xxx Others
> 3) Number of ports: ???? Today ____ Spr 95 ____ Fall 95
> 4) Whose access server? Modems?
> 5) What authentication server?
> 6) Comments:
> UCLA is getting ready to offer the new system. The system will be based
on AIX machines (very close to Unix). Currently the system is being beta
by Info Sci students and selected university staff. Right now access is just l
ike a Unix shell account, but the capabilities for SLIP and PPP will be added w
hen in-house software is certified.
The reason for this move is to move student and faculty email accounts
off the mainframe and into a client-server system.
========================================================================
Organization: Lawrence University
> 1) Current status: ____ Offer it ____ Plan to ____ On hold
Thinking about and investigating it
> 2) Who's connected: ____ Faculty ____ Staff ____ Students ___ Others
Thinking about offering it on dedicated terminal server lines, primarily for
residence halls
> 3) Number of ports: ____ Today ____ Spr 95 ____ Fall 95
Potentially 580, realistically about 175-200
> 4) Whose access server? Modems?
Our own. Probably no modem access.
> 5) What authentication server?
Undecided.
> 6) Comments:
Please post your survey results. Comments on skipping SLIP/PPP in favor
of full Ethernetworking in accessible areas would be good to see.
========================================================================
Organization: University of California, Berkeley (2 replies)
Hi,
Jeff Kreutzen sent me your note because my group manages the
campus's slip/ppp services. Below are our replies, I'd be very
interested in your results, but am not on the resnet-forum list.
>(currently do/plan to/have chosen not to) offer SLIP or PPP access to
>faculty/staff/students and possibly to their local communities.
>It may be a good way to get users on the network but I can see at least
>a few stumbling blocks (authentication and usage accounting come to mind).
>
> 1) Current status: _X__ Offer it
> 2) Who's connected: _X__ Faculty _X__ Staff _X__ Students, NO Others
> 3) Number of ports: 300_ Today 400? Spr 95 450?_ Fall 95
> 4) Whose access server? Xylogics Annex Modems? US Robotics
> 5) What authentication server? Xylogics code on Unix boxes
> 6) Comments: I wouldn't even think about offering this to a wider
audience than faculty/staff/students (we include visiting profs and
emeritus profs and maybe some flavor of post-docs, but are very strict
about the requirements). The reasons are that we are not funded for
anybody else, we can't have enough modems, and there are plenty of
Internet Service Providers out there. We have avoided strict usage
accounting (for charging purposes), mainly because of the administrative
overhead for it. We keep track of who's using/abusing the lines with
the data.
We will "rent" a modem line to one person (or to a
group of people, so that people can create their own little pools of
modems) for $70/month apiece (just started and we have sold about
20 of them)--this is our cost, campus rules don't allow us to make
or lose money.
We have one pool of modems that has a 15 minute timeout on it (that's
a hard timeout, not an inactivity timer). This is a big help.
I expect/hope that ISDN lines will start happening next year and cut
into the demand for high-speed modems.
1) Current status: __X_ Offer it ____ Plan to ____ On hold
2) Who's connected: __X_ Faculty __X_ Staff __X_ Students ___ Others
3) Number of ports: _288 Today __?_ Spr 95 __?_ Fall 95
4) Whose access server? Xylogics Modems? USR
5) What authentication server? Unix platform
6) Comments:
1) Watch out for USR salespeople.
2) Charge for the SLIP/PPP service. You won't be able to keep up
with demand otherwise.
========================================================================
Organization: washcoll.edu
--- You wrote:
1) Current status: __X__ Offer it ____ Plan to ____ On hold
2) Who's connected: __X__ Faculty __X__ Staff __X__ Students _X__
Others
3) Number of ports: __8__ Today ____ Spr 95 __16__ Fall 95
4) Whose access server? SHIVA Modems? HAYES
5) What authentication server? SHIVA
6) Comments: we offer SLIP & ARA via this box
--- end of quoted material ---
========================================================================
Organization: (somewhere in the Midwest - anonymity requested)
> It may be a good way to get users on the network but I can see at least
> a few stumbling blocks (authentication and usage accounting come to mind).
Accounting of what? The only (IMO) sensible metric is connect time and/or
frequency. Trivial with the Annexes (see below).
>
> 1) Current status: X___ Offer it ____ Plan to ____ On hold
> 2) Who's connected: anyone with an account in EECS
> 3) Number of ports: _12_ Today _12_ Spr 95 _12_ Fall 95
> 4) Whose access server? Annex 3 Modems? telebit and GVC
> 5) What authentication server? Annex (uses Yellow Pages in our case)
> 6) Comments:
The Annex boxes rule. They supply source, so you can write an
arbitrarily complex/fascist authentication scheme. In our case,
you need a UNIX login for passwd based authentication. Hooks are
in the src for any authentication scheme you want to write. Take
a look in comp.dcom.servers -- Annex and Livingston term servers
seem to be about the best. I like our Annexes, and do *not* like
the Ciscos in use elsewhere here at NU as much at all.
========================================================================
Organization: University of Illinois, Urbana-Champagne
> 1) Current status: Offer it
> 2) Who's connected: Faculty Staff Students
> 3) Number of ports: 192 Today 300 Spr 95 >300? Fall 95
> 4) Whose access server? Cisco ASM's and 2511's Modems? USR 14.4
> 5) What authentication server? locally-written TACACS
> 6) Comments: Becoming our most popular mode of dialin access
Usage accounting is clunky and error-prone, too much
so for billing, but give useful data anyway.
========================================================================
Organization: University of Oregon
> 1) Current status: yes Offer it ____ Plan to ____ On hold
> 2) Who's connected: yes Faculty yes Staff yes Students yes Others
> 3) Number of ports: 130 Today 180 Spr 95 300 Fall 95
> 4) Whose access server? cisco and shiva Modems? USR total control v.34
> and Penril v.32bisn
> 5) What authentication server? tacacs runing against a qi database
> 6) Comments:
========================================================================
Organization: California State University, Chico
>
> 1) Current status: __x__ Offer it ____ Plan to ____ On hold
> 2) Who's connected: __x__ Faculty _x___ Staff __x__ Students ___ Others
> 3) Number of ports: __36__ Today __48__ Spr 95 __?__ Fall 95
> 4) Whose access server? Telebit Modems? US Robotics
> 5) What authentication server? Kerberos
> 6) Comments:
>
We find that offering SLIP and PPP does a great deal to offset the crowding
in the computer labs. The cost of modems versus computer labs makes modems
a great deal. We don't restrict or limit the amount of time users stay on
line although we do track it. We also have 21 old 2,400 modems that allow
terminal sessions only.
========================================================================
Organization: Colby College (2 replies)
We offer PPP service.
> 1) Current status: __X_ Offer it ____ Plan to ____ On hold
> 2) Who's connected: __X__ Faculty __X__ Staff __X__ Students ___ Others
> 3) Number of ports: __24__ Today __36__ Spr 95 __48__ Fall 95
> 4) Whose access server? Xyplex Modems? Telebit T3000
> 5) What authentication server? None so far but we want to implement a
>Kerberos or comparable authentication server within the next 8 months.
> 6) Comments:
14% of our residence hall rooms have hardwired Ethernet ports available,
but even there the preference on the part of students is for v.32bis
(14.4kb) modems for accessing the network using PPP. Of 240 possible
connections, only 18 are being used to access Ethernet directly. Part of
the problem is that students in those halls don't know for sure where they
will be living next year (an argument not to buy Ethernet communication
hardware), and they can use the modem off campus (an argument for modem
purchase).
I hope this helps. I would be interested in seeing your summary.
1) Current status: YES Offer it ____ Plan to ____ On hold
2) Who's connected: ____ Faculty ____ Staff ____ Students ___ Others
Everyone with a modem.
3) Number of ports: 24 Today 36 Spr 95 36 Fall 95
4) Whose access server? Xyplex Modems? Telebit
5) What authentication server? None
6) Comments:
Colby offers PPP access and plan to add ARA as soon as possible.
There are potentially 1800 users and the 24 modems now in place generally
handle the load.
We provide no service to the local community other than 2 additional modems
dedicated to library access.
========================================================================
Organization: Dartmouth College
The following is for the computing center at Dartmouth. So far as I know, we
provide the only dialup access for the campus. Our (loosely) affiliated
medical center has their own dialup service. Our population of remote
systems is mostly Macintoshes with a smattering of DOS/Windows and Unix
systems.
1) Current status: __X__ Offer it ____ Plan to ____ On hold
2) Who's connected: __X__ Faculty __X__ Staff __X__ Students _X__
Others
3) Number of ports: __16__ Today __32__ Spr 95 __64__ Fall 95
4) Whose access server? Xylogics Modems? MultiTech 14.4 rackmount
(soon 28.8)
5) What authentication server? Dartmouth Name Directory via Xylogics remote
vaildation feature
6) Comments: We offer ARA/SLIP/PPP on the same Xylogics server. The
service has been running since this summer, was heavily publicized this fall,
and we now see all 16 lines busy (we have 58 other dialup lines that do not
provide ARA, SLIP, or PPP). We are in the process of adding 16 more lines to
this service and at some point we will begin moving lines from the old
(non-SLIP/PPP) service to the new. Our equipment choices were made in the
summer of '94 to meet a deadline of providing service by Sept 1. There are
more alternatives today than we had then.
The Xylogics server can do authentication itself or refer it to an external
authority. Our external authority is the Dartmouth Name Directory but you
could use a Unix host or Kerberos server.
We don't account for usage. With the Xylogics server you can know when a
session begins and who the user is (assuming you require them to
authenticate). I don't know if you can tell when the session ends.
We are happy with the service. We have not had feedback (positive or
negative) from users but they are using it, so we take the lack of feedback
as a good sign. I use the service from home and find it an improvement over
our previous service (mostly because the modems are faster: 14.4 vs 9.6).
It's easy to administer and the all the hardware (modems and comm server) has
been very reliable.
========================================================================
Organization: Williams College
>
> 1) Current status: ____ Offer it __X_ Plan to ____ On hold
> 2) Who's connected: ____ Faculty ____ Staff ____ Students ___ Others
> 3) Number of ports: ____ Today ____ Spr 95 ____ Fall 95
> 4) Whose access server? Cisco Modems? U.S. Robotics
> 5) What authentication server? Tacacs
> 6) Comments: We plan to offer this to Faculty and Staff only. Not students
Since they have ethernet in their dorm rooms.
Steve,
I'm very interested in getting summary info when you've got it. I'm pretty
ambivalent about offering this service, mostly due to an expected high user
support load. (async communications tends to be tricky).
========================================================================
Organization: uindy.edu
>
> 1) Current status: _YES Offer it ____ Plan to ____ On hold
> 2) Who's connected: _YES Faculty _YES Staff ____ Students ___ Others
> 3) Number of ports: __4_ Today __8_ Spr 95 __8_ Fall 95
> 4) Whose access server? SHIVA LAN ROVER Modems? Hayes 144
> 5) What authentication server? can use Lan Rover to Do User Authentication
> 6) Comments:
>
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Continued in a second note. This was the first half.
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======================================================================
Steve Morytko, University of Connecticut Computer Center
E-mail: steve@uconnvm.uconn.edu ; Ph: 203-486-1405 ; Fax: 203-486-5744
USMail; 196 Auditorium Rd., Storrs, CT 06269-3138
