Dial-Up PPP Connections on Grex's Modems

May 14 05:46 UTC 1998

We are considering enabling PPP on Grex's dial-in lines.  What this means
is that people could either dial in the same way they do now, or they could
create dial-up PPP connections to Grex just as they do with commerical ISPs.
The difference would be that this PPP connection would allow only access to
Grex (and perhaps a few other sites), not to the whole Internet.

After making a dial-up PPP connection to Grex, you could use all the standard
internet tools, but only to talk to Grex.  You could log in to Grex via
telnet.  You could use Netscape to look at web pages on Grex or to read the
conferences via backtalk.  You could use ftp to transfer files between your
computer and Grex.  You could do all of these at the same time.  This would
most likely be a much nicer interface to Grex than a normal dial-up
connection.

We can do all this with the hardware we have on hand.  We probably want to
do a little new software development but not much.

Issues:

  - Grex and HVCN have a relationship in which Grex is considered the
    main dial-in provider for HVCN.  Currently this doesn't mean much,
    but we can easily set things up so that dial-up PPP users would be
    able to access stuff on hvcn.org as well as stuff on cyberspace.org,
    but still couldn't access any other sites on the net.

    We could also add selected other sites to the list, like maybe the
    washtenaw county pages or the Ann Arbor Public Library pages or whatever.
    My feeling is that we should probably only do that if we have some
    kind of relationship with that site, as we do with HVCN.  I could imagine
    making deals like allowing access to arborweb if they will run ads for
    us.

  - Members probably wouldn't get any special treatment here.  If a member
    wants to telnet to xyz.org, then they could telnet to Grex and then
    from Grex telnet to xyz.org, but they couldn't telnet direct to xyz.org.
    Similarly, any user can access any web page by telneting to Grex and
    then using lynx on Grex to view the page they want to see.  This is
    weird, but what the heck.

  - Any attempts to connect to any site not on our list would fail.  We
    don't want to be a free ISP.  We can probably set it up so that it will
    show some page we design if you try to follow a web page link to an
    address outside our net.  Probably this page would tell about how to
    telnet in and run lynx if you want to access things outside Grex on the
    net.

  - There is some question of how we want to handled E-mail.  We could just
    have people telnet in and run pine or whatever as they do now.  Or we
    could set up a POP server that would work only for people on our dial-in
    ports so they could actually use Eudora or any other mail client on there
    machine to send and receive internet mail.

    Some staff members felt that free POP mail would be such a popular service
    that all our dial-in lines would be jammed all the time with E-mail users,
    and this would prevent the lines from being used by people who actually
    want to use Grex.  Other's felt that this would be very desirable
    community service and might not be as big a hit as all that.

  - There would probably have to be something like a 15 minute idle timeout
    on these connections.

  - It's likely that doing this would pressure us to upgrade the modems we
    now have from 14.4 to something faster.  

  - Likely this isn't going to be easy for new users to set up.  Our current
    hardware doesn't seem to support automatic configuration, so users will
    have to set DNS addresses and such stuff manually.

response 2 of 43:

May 14 16:38 UTC 1998

I agree with jep.  Let's give it a try and see how it goes.

response 4 of 43:

May 14 19:41 UTC 1998

On the subject of POP, I think it should be opened up and offered as a 
service along with every other service Grex offers.  I wouldn't offer it 
exclusively to those on Grex PPP lines, though.  I'd just open it up and 
offer it to anyone.  The fear of Grex being overrun by mail-only users 
is paranoia.

response 6 of 43:

May 15 01:08 UTC 1998

I would support any improvement in Grex's services which did not require
further hardware upgrades at present.

Let us have some time to regroup and evaluate after the upgrade to the new
machine before we go about spending more money on hardware.  Definitely keep
an eye toward the future, and file the hardware upgrade parts of these ideas
away, but remember, we're not here to struggle to keep pace with technology,
just to provide access to it.

response 8 of 43:

May 15 13:51 UTC 1998

Yes, Marcus, I have some idea.  I don't see it as a problem.  I don't 
think Grex has to turn away users of the conferencing system, or party, 
or anything else because of the mail users.  Perhaps POP connections 
should be limited like telnet connections are limited, but I think POP 
is a feature which should be permitted.

response 10 of 43:

May 16 22:06 UTC 1998

What is the feasibility of allowing people to browse to "non-approved"
sites with graphics disabled? Would that be a more intensive use of
system resources than lynx?

This sounds like a very good idea. Run with it.

response 12 of 43:

May 16 22:14 UTC 1998

This would be bad.

response 14 of 43:

May 17 14:36 UTC 1998

I'm heitant about POP mail, too.  If it were possible to limit it to n
sessions at a time as we do with telnet, so that other lines were available
for real grexing, I'd be much happier about it.

Then again, if m-net has been offering it for years without trouble, it may
be worth giving it a three month trial to see what happens.  If POP mail
starts to hogs the majority of the lines to the detriment of Grexers actually
grexing, then how hard is it to pull the plug?

response 16 of 43:

May 17 15:03 UTC 1998

I believe that M-net stopped offering POP about two years ago.  I could
be wrong about this.

In any case, they were offering it to all internet users.  I *thought*
we were talking about offering it only to dial-up PPP users.  We
probably won't get 100,000 dialup PPP user in the Ann Arbor area.
But we could get lots.

response 18 of 43:

May 18 15:31 UTC 1998

If POP can't be limited at all, then it would not be a good idea to 
offer it.  There's no way to limit the number of concurrent POP 
connections, Marcus?  I find that surprising.

I wasn't suggesting POP only through direct dial-up connections, I was 
suggesting POP as an inbound Internet user service with the same 
standing as conferencing, party, and all of the rest of Grex's services.  
I'm not talking about encouraging people to use it, or becoming like 
hotmail.com, but Internet e-mail is part of what Grex is here to 
provide, and people who use it are Grexers just as much as I am.  I 
think POP is a more efficient way to provide it than making people 
telnet in to get their e-mail.

POP-only users would be reaped if they don't log in, like anyone else 
who creates an account but doesn't log in.  That might encourage people 
to stop by and see what Grex is about.  My view is, that would be a 
bonus, it's not the purpose of offering POP.  The purpose of offering 
POP is to give people a service they can use.

response 20 of 43:

May 18 22:57 UTC 1998

Sure you can "limit" the # of pop sessions.  It just doesn't do any
good: pop clients connect, do their thing, and disconnect - so the
system gets real slow long before you start seeing overlapping pop
clients, and the only way to "limit" pop service would be basically to
make it look "broken" - ie, refuse some % of connect attempts.  I'd
expect users of such pop clients would find it easy enough to generate
retries--press the "inc" button again, or whatever, such that even this
might not be much of an obstacle to the determined pop user.

So far as I can see: m-net does not provide pop access:
        % telnet m-net.arbornet.org 109
        Trying 209.142.209.161...
        telnet: Unable to connect to remote host: Connection refused

I think one point of confusion here is whether we're talking about
*INTERNET WIDE* pop access, or *DIAL-UP ONLY* pop access.  When I'm
talking about millions of potential pop users, I'm definitely talking
about internet-wide access.  This is the same territory as hotmail,
juno, etc.  I really don't think we want to go there.  On the other
hand, for dial-up only access, we're really only talking about the Ann
Arbor area - many of these people already enjoy better access elsewhere
(umich, icnet, emu, etc.) and the total # of people is much smaller.  So
the resulting demand for grex should be a *lot* smaller than the
internet at large.  Since we would almost certainly be locking those
users into only accessing grex (& perhaps hvcn) they are much more
likely to become involved in grex itself, and perhaps even become paying
members, if they aren't already.  Providing pop access for these people,
only, is certainly a much more feasible project.

response 22 of 43:

May 19 02:13 UTC 1998

Marcus was testing pop2 services, not pop3:
punk:~> telnet arbornet.org 110
Trying 209.142.209.161...
Connected to arbornet.org.
Escape character is '^]'.
+OK QUALCOMM Pop server derived from UCB (version 2.1.4-R3) at
m-net.arbornet.org starting. quit +OK Pop server at m-net.arbornet.org signing
off. Connection closed by foreign host. punk:~> grep pop /etc/services pop3pw  
       106/tcp    3com-tsmux   #Eudora compatible PW changer pop2           
109/tcp    postoffice   #Post Office Protocol - Version 2 pop2           
109/udp    postoffice   #Post Office Protocol - Version 2 pop3           
110/tcp    #Post Office Protocol - Version 3 pop3            110/udp    #Post
Office Protocol - Version 3

response 24 of 43:

May 19 15:01 UTC 1998

Right.  You could still do exactly what you are doing now, without
change.  You would have the new option of dialing into Grex using a PPP
program instead of the comm program you use now.  In that case you would
be creating a full network connection between your computer and Grex. 
You could use internet client programs like telnet, ftp, netscape, or
internet explorer on your computer to access Grex and HVCN.  However,
the browser running on your computer could only access Grex and HVCN. 
If you wanted to access web pages on other sites, you could telnet from
your computer to Grex, and then run lynx on Grex to access any web page
on the net, just as you can now.