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Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!simtel!swidir.switch.ch!newsfeed.ACO.net!Austria.EU.net!EU.net!gatech!usenet.eel.ufl.edu!news.ultranet.com!zombie.ncsc.mil!paladin.american.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!vixen.cso.uiuc.edu!news.uoregon.edu!symiserver.symantec.com!news.central.com!news From: tedmtoybox@agora.rdrop.com Subject: Re: FreeBSD 1.1.5, pppd and more ... X-Newsreader: IBM RN 3.8d (OS/2 2.0) bugfixed by mittelst@fh-ulm.de Sender: news@news.central.com (Usenet Netnews) Organization: Peter Norton Group, Symantec Corp. Beaverton Message-ID: <DCBA3I.wK@news.central.com> Date: Wed, 26 Jul 1995 05:37:21 GMT Lines: 105 In <3uvmmu$b8j@lynet.Lynet.De> uweg@lynet.de (Uwe Gruentjes) writes: | Hello everybody, | | this will get a little bit longwinded, but ... | [some deleted] | | Since last week we are able to hook up our whole LAN to a local | Internet providers host using PPP. Nevertheless must we continue to | support UUCP due to customers demand. We intend to continue our use of | the FreeBSD machine as our primary comm server. Our provider will act | as our secondary DNS. | Whoah, horsie!!! 1) To start with, take DNS. As long as you were NOT connected to the Internet, (directly) your BSD machine is asting as a "fake root" nameserver. Your going to have to do some configuration here. | Here are the parts I don't understand (yet): | | Suppose somebody wants to FTP somewhere. He uses Trumpet Winsock with | the FreeBSD machine configured as gateway. FreeBSD looks up the 2) I have never heard of someone just plugging their local LAN into the Internet and merrily going off into the sunset. To start with, if you intend to configure the BSD machine as a router between the PPP link and the local LAN (which it appears that is what you are doing) then you obviously have to have a set of _registered_ IP numbers for this to work. the traditional way is to request a block from the NIC, and then once you select a provider you have to convince them to start routing those numbers for you. More and more people are getting blocks of class C addresses from their providers. Of course, this means that your ENTIRE internal network will need to be renumbered. | destination on DNS. If it finds that the destination isn't local, it | should dial up our providers host: | - Does pppd (the one that comes with the system) work? | - How do I initiate a communications link (dial on demand) when | somebody requests an internet service? | - How do I close the communications link when the service isn't needed | any longer? | There is a whole bit on DNS here that you are missing. Pages and pages. So much that I'll stop and refer you to the O'Rilley Nutshell handbook titled DNS & BIND. What is going on right now is that your provider is acting as a DNS for whatever domain you are in TO THE REST OF THE WORLD. Your BSD server is acting as a DNS TO YOUR INTERNAL NET. When you plug these 2 systems in together, you obviously can't have both of them claiming to be the master DNS for your domain. OK, you say, I'll make the local server the secondary, and the providers DNS the primary. Of course, once you drop the PPP connection your secondary DNS will stop resolving names. (except for your cache and local records) Of course this totally ignores the issues of registering your nameserver. Furthermore, tying the state of your PPP link to the DNS is not that good an idea. If a user pings a direct IP address, for example, then your DNS won't know it. What then. Most of these "dynamic PPP connection schemes" rely on sensing _packets_ that are directed to the foreign network, they have nothing whatsoever to do with the DNS process. | The same questions apply to other networking related issues: | - If I want to use NNTP, I have to initiate a PPP connection. How? If your PPP link is slow (like a 28.8K) and your provider is willing to feed you news via UUCP your out of your mind to attempt to use your PPP link to transmit news. The smartest thing to do in this situation is to set up a second local BSD server to be just the news server, and have it tied in via UUCP to your provider. This way you will be able to schedule your news transmission to at night, and you will be able to use compressed news batches. (which you are unable to do with NNTP) | - AFAIK now we have to use bsmtp for Internet mail, which is supported | by smail. How do I get and deliver mail via a PPP link? | Say what? My provider uses smail which supports SMTP. (I use Sendmail) A non-permanent PPP link should not be used for SMTP. In fact, since your UUCP-based mail system is working, DON'T SCREW WITH IT!!!) | If there is a document which explains all of this, please point me to | its location. If somebody of you has resolved these issues, please | share your knowledge with me. I'm grateful for every hint I can get. | | Best regards and TIA | | Uwe Gruentjes (uweg@lynet.de) |