>From what you are explaining, it looks like there may be something else on
your network that is crap.
> We have 5 of them, (3 for a couple of months) and I've yet to get
> my problem resolved with them.
>
> Here are some of the symptoms:
>
> 1) users sometimes get fast busy signals. The first livingston
> tech said "our units can't be causing this, it's a Bell problem."
> set console and set debug isdn showed that the unit was doing "sending
> call reject". A Bell problem? I think not. Rebooting the unit clears
> this.
Shit telco... when you reboot the pm3 you're wacking the telco with a
big-ass clue. Tell your telco to fix their problem.
> 2) the isdn line will sometimes go down. Each unit has 2 PRI.
> sometimes one, sometimes both of the PRI's will go down. During this
> time, again, callers get fast busies. Again, a reboot clears the
problem.
See #1
> 3) extremely sluggish performance, sometimes. Pings on local
> 10/100 baseT switched ethernet will be in the 100-700ms range, when
normally
> they are 1 (or, really, <1). During this time, users can't dial in,
> and/or their performance is horrible (imagine that, with that kind of
> latency). Again, a reboot clears the issue.
Well, it looks like either your box is getting slammed (the over-size ping
-f thing)... Which this may explain #1 also... Until livingston fixes
their icmp handling problem, I'd deny ICMP's to ANY comos-running unit's
ethernet port.
> 4) multi-chassis PPP breaks multi-channel PPP, with respect
> to the fact that idle timers are NOT handled correctly. If a user
> has an idle limit, then they will be logged out exactly that long
> after they've logged in, because one of the channels always shows
> idle (even tho the traffic counters are incrementing on it.)
sounds like a configuration issue.
> Ok, so it's a little buggy, right? My beef is that I've
> notified livingston, called them, cajoled them. I've been sent to
> a senior engineer (Todd) or somesuch, and I've even called his boss,
> to find out WHEN THIS SHIT IS GOING TO BE FIXED. I get pacified for
> the day, and weeks later, I have to call them back again asking,
> again, WHEN IS THIS SHIT GOING TO BE FIXED.
>
> Well, it's not being fixed, and I'm getting mighty pissed.
> I can't provide good service to my customers with this crap that they
> call a terminal server. Ascends have poorer modem connections, but
> they don't cause nearly this many headaches. USR's are a pain to
> install, and reek of inefficient technology, but again, they are more
> stable than this crap.
>
> Livingston: I'm asking you in a public forum. When is
> this shit going to be fixed? If it's not, I'm getting my money back
> and buying something else.
>
> Everyone else: be VERY WARY of pm3's. I'm a VERY unhappy
> customer right now.
You should expect problems. If a unit is shipped with a comos with the
letter 'b' in the name, you can basically expect some problems. As for
most of the problems you list, I'd start looking at outsiders screwing with
the system more than the system screwing with itself. What you say above
is EXACTLY what I get (minus the PRI/ISDN issues, I only run a PM2, but
have enough experience with other people's hardware to know the problems
with PRIs on PM3's) when I slam my portmaster with large size ping
packets... Personally thats my only complaint about my livingston units,
and I am sure if I get in touch with support it would be fixed (but I chose
to deny ICMP to my ethernet port - quick fix).
Jacob Suter
Intrastellar Internet Service
Happy Livingston Customer