> I'm interested in stories of people using PM2's for users
> other than dialin remote access, with modems attached to the serial ports.
>
> Perhaps as:
> A true terminal server, with Dumb terminals attached to the Sx ports.
> A dialout pool for corporate dial out ppp access.
> Has anybody been able to share a modem from a PC through the
> ethernet and establish an outbound PPP conecction on the PC. This
> would require off course a virtual serial driver on the PC.
> A dialout FAX modem pool.
> Sending faxes from a PC's on an ethernet. Also would require a
> virtual serial driver, or possible a UNIX faxserver (faximum,hylafax,etc).
> Also FAX software on the PC being able to print to the virtual serial
> driver.
[ etc. ]
I'm not sure that i can give you any really useful info, but we're using them
in the first situation above: a true terminal server, with Dumb terminals
attached to the Sx ports. We're a public library with banks of dumb terminals
(Wyse 60s, in vt100 emulation) connected to term servers, which all rlogin or
telnet to a single Unix system that the central library database is on. We
had a stack of old 8-port term servers, but as they've started dying off we've
been replacing groups of them with 20- and 30-port Portmonsters. We set the
default host to our system, turned on autologging and set the autolog name,
and turned on modem control so the PMs would sense when the terminals were
turned off and close the connection, or would open a connection and log them
into the public catalog system when the terminals were turned on. It's
painlessly easy for the staff and patrons, no logins or passwords to type,
nothing really to worry about, just turn them on / off. We had to wire a
special connector that connected pin 20 (from the terminal) to pin 6 (on the
PM port), i think, so the port wouldn't keep trying to make connections and
log in even when the terminal was turned off.
> I will summarize;
Please cc me a copy, if you get anything interesting, as i'm no longer on the
Portmaster list.