[geeks] Case for Router/NAT/thingy

[Joshua D Boyd]

On Fri, Mar 22, 2002 at 02:10:17PM -0800, Michael Schiller wrote:
> Joshua D Boyd wrote:
> 
> > Yes well, I can't really argue with them about this till July at this point.
> > Mid March through June are the busy time for Mom, and I keep trying to tell
> > her never to make changes to her production system in the middle of this time,
> > and so now that I want to make a change to a system she depends on, she is
> > holding what I said against me.
> 
> Can't really blame them for this, it IS sound advice. A busy time is NOT the time
> to make any changes. (even ones that will be better) If what they have now is
> working, don't change it.

Well, it isn't really working.  It could be worse though.  Previous years saw
Mom doing things like buying a new notebook in March. She has done this twice.
The most recent time it didn't work properly and it spend a sum total of one
week in her possesion for the first two months.  IE, she sent it to compaq, 
they sent it back.  She has it a day, still not fixed, so send it back, etc.
I learned that if you don't buy your compaq from an authorized dealer, then
official compaq won't honor the original waranty, even if the notebook came
factory sealed in the factory box.

She also upgraded her version of office just as she was entering the busy 
season twice. 

Still, it is a sensible policy.  But, when the new hardware NAT arrives, I'm
installing it anyway.
 
>Get a Sparc Classic, LX or maybe even an IPX, connect it's 'A' serial port 
>to an available serial port on the PC, and run Solaris on it. I'm not arguing
> that Solaris is better/worse/whatever compared to linux/bsd, etc., but it 
>IS a commercial product with a real company behind it, and it sounds like 
>that matters to them. There are lots of folks that think free=toy, but 
>commercial product = good. Any of those 'shoebox' systems would make a good 
>print / file server. As for NAT, are they using more than one computer on the 
>internet? If so, it sounds like you could possibly get them to buy a linksys 
>or other commercial 'router', explain that it will be much more reliable 
>than what they're using now.

Well, despite all the fuss over using a SS2 with NetBSD for a NAT, they are so
far perfectly happy with an IPX with NetBSD as a DHCP server.  I might have 
left out the bit about there being free Windows DHCP servers available instead
when I was setting things up.

Anyway, I ordered a router/NAT/thingy box that Bill recommended.  But, I still
plan to keep the IPX dhcp server up.  Because, as we all know, bootp and
dhcp are tied together.  Hopefully it will fix my Solaris 8 problems so I can
get that project finished and shipped and get back to real work, video 
effects!!!

-- 
Joshua D. Boyd