On Wed, 3 Dec 2003, Jesse Sayre wrote:

> So after reading chapter 11 of the NetBSD guide on networking I have to say
> I'm confused alittle bit.  My goal is to have a SparcStation5 running NetBSD
> 1.6 with the generic kernal with an external modem (call this system
> 'server').  The modem on server upon incoming calls on the line will respond
> and establish a PPP connection with a client machine (call this system
> 'client').  Now here's the kicker, client will be running Windows as its OS,
> and so will be using Windows Dial-Up Networking as its method of connecting.
> So this means too that server will need to be configured to check the
> username and password provided by client (sort of setting up a Mini-ISP
> basically).  Server will need to pass tcp/ip settings to client, basically
> saying that server will be its default gateway.  Either server will be the
> DHCP server on the network or another NetBSD box will be the DHCP server,
> but from my understand server will need to have a DHCP server running.
> Chapter 11 of the guide provided lots of info for dialing out to an ISP but
> did not provide any info on configuring for incoming calls.  Now my
> questions about this whole thing...
> 1.  Is this whole idea even possible? (no point in going any further if it
> wasn't)

Yes. You should not have to use dhcpd also.

Maybe Gan's webpage at
http://starling.us/gus_netbsd/gus_netbsd_mgetty_dialin.html
can help you. It is titled "Mgetty for Dial-In and Dial-Out with NetBSD"
and "Be your own dial-up ISP with NetBSD".

> 2.  What would be a good choice for the external modem as this piece of
> hardware has yet to be acquired?  Basically, any one that is supported and
> easily configurable.

Basically any standard external modem. Flex, v92, v90 won't do you any
good.

> 3.  What will be the maximum speed between the two modems? Would it be 56k
> or less (from what I've seen I have a feeling it will be much less)?
> (question aimed at people with a good amount of knowledge dealing with how
> dialup modems work)

It will be less. The 56k connection is if you have a digital connection on
your (ISP) end. So your speed will be around 33.6 kb.

> 4.  The speed between the two modems will be effected by the speed of the
> serial connection with the modem, correct? (quested aimed at people with a
> good amount of knowledge on the hardware in a SparcStation5)

See #3 above. It won't get that fast.

> 5.  And finally if this whole basic hardware setup is possible, what needs
> to be configured on server and could examples be provided?

The PPP software provided with NetBSD is pretty common. It is also
available for Linux. You can use there documentation for most of it, like:

Linux Dialin Server Setup Guide
http://www.swcp.com/~jgentry/pers.html

Configuring Linux PPP Dial-in Server
http://developers.sun.com/solaris/technotes/linuxppp.html

Also look at the Linux PPP Howto section "Setting up a PPP server".

(I wrote a PPP server howto a couple years ago, but it was for FreeBSD's
ppp which is different.)

Good luck and please let us know what you learn ...

   Jeremy C. Reed
   http://bsd.reedmedia.net/