bushell@HAWK.NSTN.NS.CA (11/28/90)
Hello, (I've already posted this on the TCP-IP mailing list. I'm posting it to PCIP as well, to get the broadest coverage I can.) We're about to offer dial in Internet access over SLIP for NSTN (the Nova Scotia Technology Network). Our plan is to let our customers use public domain packages like NSCA Telnet with the Clarkson SLIP packet driver to dial in to a central teminal server, using Hayes compatable modems with their PCs. I've been able to dial the modem from Phil Karn's KA9Q using the "tip" command, but we want to automate this process for our dial in customers, so they just run their applications (Telnet, FTP, whatever) and the connection will be automatically established. We have three main requirements: 1) Must be able to automatically establish a SLIP connection over a modem. 2) Must be able to automatically accept an IP number assigned by the terminal server being dialed into, and run public domain applications like KA9Q and NCSD Telnet with this IP number. 3) To try to minimize connect charges for the users, we want to monitor the line for user activity, and drop it after a specified period if there is none, even if he/she is still in the application. We want to reconnect when activity is detected. I'm currently in the process of coding to solve #1 and #2. Our approach is to use a standalone C program to establish a connection, get the IP number from the terminal server, and use it to modify the configuration file for NSCA Telnet. I'll probably have this working soon, but if someone were to hand me an existing solution on a silver platter, I'd be happy to take it. Requirement #3 looks like a bit of a bitch. Looks like we'll have to write a TSR that grabs the PC's system timer, and decrements a counter for the line idle timeout. If this counter reaches 0, the line is dropped. We'll also have to modify the SLIP packet driver so it resets this counter every time a packet is sent by the user. My questions are: Is this a good approach to meet our three requirements? Has anyone out there already met any or all of these goals? If so, can you share what you did? Thanks in advance to all who take the time to reply. I will post response to the net if interest is sufficient. As an incentive to code sharing, I've been given tenative permission to make the code I'm working on available. Thanks Tom ************************************************************* * Tom Bushell Software Kinetics Ltd * * 101 Ilsley Ave * * E-mail - bushell@hawk.nstn.ns.ca Suite 5 * * Phone (902)468-3680 Dartmouth N.S., Canada * * Fax (902)468-3679 B3B 1S8 * *************************************************************