> Let's put this in a slightly broader perspective:
>
> 1. Livingston does not have an infinite budget.
> 2. Quality Software Engineers are NOT in infinite supply.
> 3. The percentage of portmasters deployed for shell access type
> services is probably less than 10.
> 4. This problem doesn't really apply to network access as it
> does to shell access.
Wrong-o. This applies more to network access for those of us who are
assigning dynamic IP addresses. Think about it -- one customer could
give out their password to 10 friends, and they could all be logged in
simultaneously without some form of concurrent login control.
> 5. One customer with four PortMasters is not overwhelming demand.
> Sure, there are a few other people asking for this, but the
> vast majority of Livingston's customers don't consider this
> important.
Again, from the number of questions I've seen asked about this -- and
the huge popularity of this feature in Merit radius, I have to disagree.
I think that it is a significant issue in many applications, especially
an ISP situation.
> 6. The multiple login problem is not a problem which can be solved
> on the PortMaster itself.
Agreed. It's a pain in the ass. :) Hence the solution I suggested in
my email.
> 7. RADIUS is a NON-REVENUE product for Livingston. That's right,
> it's FREEWARE!
Yes, but the succses of Livingston's PM product line is intertwined
very closely with their own radius implimentation. Imagine, if you will:
"And our portmasters allow you to do lots of neat stuff.. if you
compile someone else's unsupported code." :) I just can't see that working.
> 8. NO terminal server solves this problem (NO other terminal
> server comes as close to solving this problem as Livingston).
Agreed. Completely.
> 9. If you're running UNIX, the place to solve this is by
> creating a replacement for the distributed quota(1M)
> 10. There are many other features which Livingston Engineering
> is focused on which are much more important to a much
> larger percentage of their customers.
Opinion. :) *shrugs* I would say that they're all in relatively high
demand by different segments of the market. Ahh well. It's really up to
Livingston to decide, and given that there are already ways to solve it
that don't require engineering investment on livingston's part, well..
*shrugs* But it would be nice to have an official Livingston solution to
it some year, simply to reduce the confusion.
-Dave
-- angio@aros.net Complete virtual hosting and business-oriented system administration Internet services. (WWW, FTP, email) http://www.aros.net/ http://www.aros.net/about/virtual "There are only two industries that refer to their customers as 'users'."