<!-- MHonArc v2.4.4 --> <!--X-Subject: Re: [MUD-Dev] Mud Network Setup --> <!--X-From-R13: X Q Znjerapr <pynjNxnatn.ah> --> <!--X-Date: Thu, 02 Mar 2000 20:06:07 -0800 --> <!--X-Message-Id: 4947.952056362#kanga,nu --> <!--X-Content-Type: text/plain --> <!--X-Reference: 005f01bf84b4$064491c0$020101df@JonLambert --> <!--X-Head-End--> <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2//EN"> <html> <head> <title>MUD-Dev message, Re: [MUD-Dev] Mud Network Setup</title> <!-- meta name="robots" content="noindex,nofollow" --> <link rev="made" href="mailto:claw#kanga,nu"> </head> <body background="/backgrounds/paperback.gif" bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000" link="#0000FF" alink="#FF0000" vlink="#006000"> <font size="+4" color="#804040"> <strong><em>MUD-Dev<br>mailing list archive</em></strong> </font> <br> [ <a href="../">Other Periods</a> | <a href="../../">Other mailing lists</a> | <a href="/search.php3">Search</a> ] <br clear=all><hr> <!--X-Body-Begin--> <!--X-User-Header--> <!--X-User-Header-End--> <!--X-TopPNI--> Date: [ <a href="msg00505.html">Previous</a> | <a href="msg00506.html">Next</a> ] Thread: [ <a href="msg00505.html">Previous</a> | <a href="msg00510.html">Next</a> ] Index: [ <A HREF="author.html#00507">Author</A> | <A HREF="#00507">Date</A> | <A HREF="thread.html#00507">Thread</A> ] <!--X-TopPNI-End--> <!--X-MsgBody--> <!--X-Subject-Header-Begin--> <H1>Re: [MUD-Dev] Mud Network Setup</H1> <HR> <!--X-Subject-Header-End--> <!--X-Head-of-Message--> <UL> <LI><em>To</em>: <A HREF="mailto:mud-dev#kanga,nu">mud-dev#kanga,nu</A></LI> <LI><em>Subject</em>: Re: [MUD-Dev] Mud Network Setup </LI> <LI><em>From</em>: J C Lawrence <<A HREF="mailto:claw#kanga,nu">claw#kanga,nu</A>></LI> <LI><em>Date</em>: Thu, 02 Mar 2000 20:06:02 -0800</LI> <LI><em>Reply-To</em>: <A HREF="mailto:mud-dev#kanga,nu">mud-dev#kanga,nu</A></LI> <LI><em>Sender</em>: <A HREF="mailto:mud-dev-admin#kanga,nu">mud-dev-admin#kanga,nu</A></LI> </UL> <!--X-Head-of-Message-End--> <!--X-Head-Body-Sep-Begin--> <HR> <!--X-Head-Body-Sep-End--> <!--X-Body-of-Message--> <PRE> On Thu, 2 Mar 2000 20:55:02 -0500 Jon A Lambert <jlsysinc#ix,netcom.com> wrote: > What networking hardware are you using, routers, cards, modems, > etc.? I don't use modems. NICs: I've become rather fond of the Intel EEPro 10/100. They're well supported under Linux, handle duplex/simplex negotiations flawlesslyq and are generally very fast. On the reverse side, while I've had nothing but success with 3COM in their ISA days, I've had nothing but niggling problems with their PCI cards. Tulip based cards seem a generally good bet (I've not suffered there), but I've had little experience there as well. Switches: HP makes some very nice equipment. Hot pluggable, full (and well done) SNMP support, remote console, etc. Been a while since I've bought one, but they were comparitively reasonably priced last time I did. Hubs: Arlotto make the only 4 and 8 port 10/100 ethernet hubs that I've never had any trouble with. NetGear are also good, but I've had a number of dead hubs from them along with a couple odd behaviours that might have been their fault that I'm now a little wary. LinkSys in particular has proven erratic over extended periods, dropping ports and rate settings unexpectedly. Low end routers: El-cheapo i486 and pentium boxes with a couple NICs work well. There's a rash of such PCI 4U rackmounts going cheap here in the Valley as a number of labs clear out -- they make very attractive firewall/routers. I have an i486-33 sitting beneath my desk as the router/firewall for the home LAN that's serving excellent duty for a net cost of $25 in parts (admittedly the rackmount stuff is a tad more expensive). Its a cute box really: # cat /proc/loadavg 0.21 0.06 0.02 1/28 2316 # cat /proc/cpuinfo ... bogomips : 16.38 I almost never see system load rise above 0.5%. The 0.21 above is just the result of the crypt load an SSH session (it _is_ a rather wimpy i486). Cases: Silicon Rax makes probably the best commodity rackmount cases out there for 2U and 4U, tho that's not saying much. Boomrack and the rest have truly horrible hardware densities in comparison, and typically far worse cooling to boot. SR does need a better line of power supplies tho. ObNote: The box I'm typing on now is in a SR 4U, and Kanga.Nu is in one of their older 2U cases. In particular Intel's 2U (resold by Penguin Computing FWLIW) is a horrible piece of work mechanically, cooling, feature wise etc. On the 1U side I've really not seen anything particularly interesting in the commodity space. VA still make the highest hardware density 2U rackmounts in their FullOn series. For non-rackmount cases go for SunCheer. Extremely good cooling (if a bit noisy), very well engineered, good default PSUs, scads of internal room, and a pleasure to work with. I'd use more of them if they weren't so expensive ($130ea). > What is the general cost of that setup? Quoting from <A HREF="http://www.kanga.nu/home.html">http://www.kanga.nu/home.html</A>, Kanga.Nu is: Kanga.Nu is a rather boring looking 2U rackmount (graphic above) with dual Intel PIII CPU's, 512Meg of RAM, and four 9Gig SCSI Ultra-3 drives. Total cost to me for that lot happened to be $0, but market value would probably be somewhere in the $2K range today. It is of course a little over powered for the job its doing. > What type of network connection and what was the install cost and > monthly, yearly cost are you paying? Kanga.Nu is sitting on a 384Kbit DSL at Larry McVoy's under BitMover/BitKeeper's wing. In a month or so I'll either get 724K DSL here at home (moving soon), or I'll move it over to a tier 3 ISP for a likely colo cost cost of ~$120/month with redundant T1 connectivity. It is possible I'll colo at LinuxCabal, who are probably the cheapest of the colo sites around here, but are also not very well connected and Verio (their upstream) has a history of being rather unamusingly capricious in their enforcement of the "anything we decide we don't like" aspects of their AUP. > What sort of internet service providers do you have a favorable > opinion of with regards to connection reliability, cost, domain > registration, etc.? My current ISP is Interquest. I'm not sure I can find much good to say about them. In particular their connectivity (PPPoE alas) is unstable (it ain't my end), their news servers are so behind date its not funny (I haven't found a group yet which contains posts newer than 10 days), and worst of all, large chunks of the 'net appear to consider their IP space to be unroutable (often encluding banner ad sites making many web sites unvisitable). I can't say anything abou ttheir mail services as I don't use them. Cost is $35 for a shared T1, giving me 70Kbyte/s - 80Kbyte/s most days, bursting to 170Kbyte/sec of late nights and early mornings. For Silicon Valley dialup: Rahul.Net aka a2I Communications (some of you will remember Rahul Dhesi from the old Decus days) is impeccable. I used them for several years for a dedicated IP dialup at $68.month. More tellingly, I've yet to find a single Rahul.Net user who complains of their service in any regard. Check the ba.internet newsgroup for evidence. From what I can tell PacBell are worth avoiding for DSL in the Valley. (They've also started moving everything to dynamic IPs which is a crying shame). The problem is not with PacBell as an ISP (although they aren't wonderful, but with their DSL connections ervices. There are many ISPs who resell PacBell's connectivity. I've had a couple PacBell and Northpoint engineers spend a few hours telling me horror stories of the PacBell backend setups. Of the other CLECs, Covad seems to have a much better deal in general with Northpoint pipping them if you happen to be situated correctly (I'm not). Technically I've been most impressed with NorthPoint out of the three. Cost is highly variant depending on phase of the moon. Name registration: I've been well pleased with NUNames (the .NU registrar) for some $25/yr. InterNIC is worth avoiding at almost any cost. For the big three TLDs, Register.Com seems fairly good by reputation. DNS services: GraniteCanyon was once a workable and valuable system. It appears to have rotted. I'm about to move Kanga.Nu's DNS from VA to EasyDNS who appear (from all accounts I've read) to run a respectably competent system. Cost is ~$25/mo. -- J C Lawrence Home: claw#kanga,nu ----------(*) Other: coder#kanga,nu --=| A man is as sane as he is dangerous to his environment |=-- _______________________________________________ MUD-Dev maillist - MUD-Dev#kanga,nu <A HREF="http://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev">http://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev</A> </PRE> <!--X-Body-of-Message-End--> <!--X-MsgBody-End--> <!--X-Follow-Ups--> <HR> <ul compact><li><strong>Follow-Ups</strong>: <ul> <li><strong><A NAME="00510" HREF="msg00510.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Mud Network Setup</A></strong> <ul compact><li><em>From:</em> "David Bennett" <ddt#discworld,imaginary.com></li></ul> </UL></LI></UL> <!--X-Follow-Ups-End--> <!--X-References--> <UL><LI><STRONG>References</STRONG>: <UL> <LI><STRONG><A NAME="00505" HREF="msg00505.html">[MUD-Dev] Mud Network Setup</A></STRONG> <UL><LI><EM>From:</EM> "Jon A. Lambert" <jlsysinc#ix,netcom.com></LI></UL></LI> </UL></LI></UL> <!--X-References-End--> <!--X-BotPNI--> <UL> <LI>Prev by Date: <STRONG><A HREF="msg00505.html">[MUD-Dev] Mud Network Setup</A></STRONG> </LI> <LI>Next by Date: <STRONG><A HREF="msg00506.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Mud Network Setup</A></STRONG> </LI> <LI>Prev by thread: <STRONG><A HREF="msg00505.html">[MUD-Dev] Mud Network Setup</A></STRONG> </LI> <LI>Next by thread: <STRONG><A HREF="msg00510.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Mud Network Setup</A></STRONG> </LI> <LI>Index(es): <UL> <LI><A HREF="index.html#00507"><STRONG>Date</STRONG></A></LI> <LI><A HREF="thread.html#00507"><STRONG>Thread</STRONG></A></LI> </UL> </LI> </UL> <!--X-BotPNI-End--> <!--X-User-Footer--> <!--X-User-Footer-End--> <ul><li>Thread context: <BLOCKQUOTE><UL> <LI><STRONG>Re: [MUD-Dev] randomly dropped connections</STRONG>, <EM>(continued)</EM> <ul compact> <LI><strong><A NAME="00512" HREF="msg00512.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] randomly dropped connections</A></strong>, cg <a href="mailto:cg#ami-cg,GraySage.Edmonton.AB.CA">cg#ami-cg,GraySage.Edmonton.AB.CA</a>, Fri 03 Mar 2000, 06:41 GMT <UL> <LI><strong><A NAME="00515" HREF="msg00515.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] randomly dropped connections</A></strong>, Ben Greear <a href="mailto:greearb#candelatech,com">greearb#candelatech,com</a>, Fri 03 Mar 2000, 08:24 GMT </LI> <LI><strong><A NAME="00520" HREF="msg00520.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] randomly dropped connections</A></strong>, J C Lawrence <a href="mailto:claw#kanga,nu">claw#kanga,nu</a>, Sat 04 Mar 2000, 00:12 GMT </LI> </UL> </LI> </ul> </LI> <LI><strong><A NAME="00505" HREF="msg00505.html">[MUD-Dev] Mud Network Setup</A></strong>, Jon A. Lambert <a href="mailto:jlsysinc#ix,netcom.com">jlsysinc#ix,netcom.com</a>, Fri 03 Mar 2000, 02:35 GMT <UL> <LI><strong><A NAME="00507" HREF="msg00507.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Mud Network Setup</A></strong>, J C Lawrence <a href="mailto:claw#kanga,nu">claw#kanga,nu</a>, Fri 03 Mar 2000, 04:06 GMT <UL> <LI><strong><A NAME="00510" HREF="msg00510.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Mud Network Setup</A></strong>, David Bennett <a href="mailto:ddt#discworld,imaginary.com">ddt#discworld,imaginary.com</a>, Fri 03 Mar 2000, 05:51 GMT <UL> <LI><strong><A NAME="00519" HREF="msg00519.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Mud Network Setup</A></strong>, Todd McKimmey <a href="mailto:rufus#wombatgames,com">rufus#wombatgames,com</a>, Fri 03 Mar 2000, 17:03 GMT <UL> <LI><strong><A NAME="00528" HREF="msg00528.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Mud Network Setup</A></strong>, David Bennett <a href="mailto:ddt#discworld,imaginary.com">ddt#discworld,imaginary.com</a>, Sat 04 Mar 2000, 01:10 GMT <UL> <LI><strong><A NAME="00530" HREF="msg00530.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Mud Network Setup</A></strong>, J C Lawrence <a href="mailto:claw#kanga,nu">claw#kanga,nu</a>, Sat 04 Mar 2000, 01:43 GMT </LI> </UL> </LI> </UL> </LI> </UL> </LI> </UL> </LI> </UL> </LI> </UL></BLOCKQUOTE> </ul> <hr> <center> [ <a href="../">Other Periods</a> | <a href="../../">Other mailing lists</a> | <a href="/search.php3">Search</a> ] </center> <hr> </body> </html>