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Xref: sserve comp.unix.questions:64925 comp.unix.admin:29112 comp.unix.bsd:16626 Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!news.uwa.edu.au!classic.iinet.com.au!news.uoknor.edu!news.ecn.uoknor.edu!qns3.qns.com!news.sprintlink.net!howland.reston.ans.net!vixen.cso.uiuc.edu!usenet.ucs.indiana.edu!hal.cs.depaul.edu!hawk!mcravit From: mcravit@hawk.depaul.edu (Matthew Cravit) Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions,comp.unix.admin,comp.unix.bsd Subject: Re: Running an Internet provider on a 386? Date: 27 May 1995 16:13:53 GMT Organization: DePaul University, Chicago Il. Lines: 53 Message-ID: <3q7j41$6ae@hal.cs.depaul.edu> References: <D97HtM.Ex@freenet.niagara.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: hawk.depaul.edu In article <D97HtM.Ex@freenet.niagara.com>, Rick Byers <rbyers@freenet.niagara.com> wrote: >heard that sometimes things will time out. The provider offers slip and >PPP connections, and I am just wondering if a 386 is powerfull enough to >support what is trying to be done. There aren't many users, but should It depends on how they have things set up. One system I manage here at DePaul is a 486/33 20 megs ram 1 gig HD, supporting shell and SLIP access for about 300 users. We have a maximum of 16 users at a time (that's how many modems we have), and have no problems with the machine keeping up. (It handles mail too, but news is done by our site's main news machine). On the other hand, the actual SLIP/PPP packaging and stuff is being handled by a Cisco terminal server, so the load on the machine from SLIP/PPP users is negligible (actually, nil except when Eudora is accessing their mail spools) >that machine be able to support, say 5 users on at once without being >overlly slow? If a better machine is necesary, please let me know if a Well...I've had 10 people logged in via the shell (ie without using SLIP/PPP) to our 486 box, and it only started to bog down when one of them ran Xemacs. (He had telnetted in from his Sun). So, as long as none of those users is doing more than news or email, you may be OK. I'ld probably consider putting a bit more RAM and a bigger hard drive, myself, though. >PC (say pentium) is adaquate or if they should go higher. What would be A Pentium PC running *BSD should be easily able to keep up with a dozen or two users, as long as no-one is doing anything really computationally intensive. >the next step above a pc, and what is the approximate relative >performance of say a SGI compared to a pentium? Difficult to say. In terms of raw CPU speed, a Sparc 5 (for instance) is probably comparable to a fast Pentium, or maybe a bit faster. But, I have found that Unix boxes (I've only ever used Sparcs, so I can't comment about SGIs and such) tend to have much higher disk and I/O bandwidths than the current crop of PCs, and in a Unix environment, the disk and I/O latencies are usually the real bottlenecks. Hope this helps. /Matthew -- Matthew Cravit, System Manager | "After all is said and done, Academic Technology Development | more is said than done." DePaul University, Chicago IL | -- Anonymous E-Mail: mcravit@hawk.depaul.edu +--Finger me for my geek code--