Re: How do I become a tiny ISP?

When I worked for an ISP, we used Intel PCs running FreeBSD as the
servers.  (FreeBSD is a free version of Unix for the PC, see
http://www.freebsd.org)  We used multi-port serial cards from Cyclades,
(http://www.cyclades.com) to hook up external modems.
We were a small ISP, we only had 32 phone lines, but it worked well.

At my present employer, I set up a FreeBSD machine out of an obsolete
486 (we were going to throw it away) and stuck a 33.6 bps internal modem
into the machine that we had lying around.   (It originally came free
with a PC that didn't need a modem)  This allowed us to set up a free
dial-up server for nothing.

Using these methods, I was able to create the full services of an ISP.  I
can use it to access my LAN at work, or I can use it as an ISP for my
computer at home.  Works perfectly.

If I only wanted to allow FTP, I could just throw in a firewall rule
that prevented a dial-up user from doing anything else.

Really, though, this isn't a huge deal.  Any server-class operating system
should be able to do this quite effortlessly.   I'm sure NT could do it
(using RAS, most likely) though I'd never recommend Windows.  OS/400 can
also do it.  The BEST choice, IMHO, is a Unix-based system like FreeBSD
or Linux -- they're simply more versatile for something like this.
However, for something as simple as what you need, any of these choices
should work just fine.


On Fri, 1 Mar 2002 tomh@simas.com wrote:
>
> Several of our PC-based customers use AOL to get on the internet and
> transfer files to our system (via FTP batch program).  They're not happy
> with AOL service, for whatever reason, and local ISP connections are an
> expensive option for them.  My boss would like to give them the option of
> us being their ISP, and then letting them FTP the files to us.  FTP only,
> nothing else.
>
> How do I make this happen?
>
> Tom Hightower
> Solutions, Inc
> http://www.simas.com