Multiline load balancing

John M. Morris (jmorris@dtx.net)
Wed, 18 Dec 1996 18:47:51 -0600 (CST)

> From: "Gary N. McKinney" <gmckinney@megabits.net>
> Date: Tue, 17 Dec 1996 20:55:17 -0500
> Subject: Re: pathlink lite (fwd)
>
> I guess I should have been more specific ... I am aware of the load
> balancing built into the Portmaster 2E and I know about the Linux hack
> ...
> what I ( and I'm sure alot of others would be interested in ) is a
> program that could be loaded into a Win-95 or NT box ( let's face it -
> that is where the common joe is working - don't know computers but can
> click on the buttons! ) that would allow the same thing - I think this
> would REALLY be accepted by the masses who are looking for greater
> bandwidth but don't have the expertise to setup a LINUX box and without
> having to fork up $100/month just for line charges from the telco!

The way I see it is that you have two types of people who would be
interested in faster access. The luser type just wanting to download
warez faster will just have to wait for ISDN or something, but if you have
a customer who actually NEEDS a bit more speed and would be willing to pay
a couple hundred bux, there is a way. Slap together a Linux router from
spare parts and sell it for a reasonable markup. Everybody wins that way!
You get rid of some junk and make a few dollars and they get twice the
speed. A suitable box would look something like this:

Old 386SX or better box with 4-8MB of RAM
Cheapo Network card (be sure Linux supports it though)
Pair of internal modems (whatever you know works good, but not RPI or a
WinModem of course)
Old cheezy 40MB IDE Hard Drive. (MFM would work, but they are so old now I
would not trust em in a 24/7 job anymore)

Spend an afternoon loading up RedHat 4.0 (to avoid the many security holes
which have been discovered in older stuff. It won't be running any
services, but paranoia is usually a good thing....) and get it working.
Backup the working configuration to a network drive so you can reload it
quickly when the luser manages to get into the box and hose it or to
quickly load up another box when the good word gets out to more customers.

Even if you have to buy new stuff, I just priced out a barebones box for
$521. Compare that to a Pipeline 50 and the silly prices for ISDN in most
places and it looks pretty attractive.

(prices from www.chipsmart.com. System was a IBM 586+8MB RAM, 1.2G HDD,
floppy, Mini-tower, 1MB Video, 2 x Zoltrix 33.6 modems and a cheapo NIC.
More savings are possible here obviously, but I'm only trying to make a
point, not design a valid solution.)

John M. This post is 100% M$ Free!
Geek code 3.0:GCS d- C+++ UL++++$ P+ L+++ W+ N++ w--- Y+>+ 5+++ R tv- b++ e*
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