Re: Solid DSL gateway for server environment
On Fri, February 6, 2009 1:12 pm, wuerdinger@highspeed-firewall.de wrote:
> Chris Thompson schrieb:
>> Hi all.
>> I run two mail and web servers from my house on a DSL line. Until a few
>> weeks ago I was on cable but a new ISP launched some good SME offers and
>> I
>> decided to make the switch.
>>
> Would be rather helpfull if you could give some numbers like number of
> connections (open and half-open) for each server as well
> as the amount of data that goes through as well as your dsl speed.
>
> Have you considered getting a dedicated server at somehosting site?
> I switched all the servers I used to run at home to a dedicated server 4
> years ago.
>> Both the servers sustain quite some traffic and (especially the mail)
>> need
>> to open many more connections that a mid-level router can handle.
>> After reading some reviews, I decided to purchase a linksys AM200 DSL
>> gateway and configure it to run in half-bridge mode (so that all the
>> public IPs are mapped directly on the servers' network interfaces).
>> Unfortunately, even with the newest firmware, the linksys modem keeps
>> crashing when under load.
>>
>> I am now in the process of selecting a new modem-only device to connect
>> to
>> the DSL and I thought about the DrayTek Vigor 100/110
>> (http://www.draytek.co.uk/products/vigor110.html).
>> My questions are:
>>
>> 1) Does anyone have direct experience with this product in a server
>> environment?
>>
> I run a Linksys DM111PB ADSL 2+ Modem here had no hick ups in 2+ years
> No need to spend more ca$h than needed
>> 2) I understand that the Vigor only takes care of handling the ATM layer
>> stuff, so I will need to run the PPPoE daemon on the server. Will that
>> affect the connection's performance?
>>
> You really want to run the pppoe Daemon on a dedicated (virtual) server
> in your network that also handles all your firewalling, nating and
> traffic shaping needs.
>> 2b) I have no experience whatsoever of ppp configuration on Debian, can
>> you point me toward a good guide/reference?
>>
> man pppoeconf is all you need :-)
>> 3) Is there any other DSL hardware would you recommend that would
>> guarantee connection stability?
>>
> If you really need high stability then do yourself a favour and get a
> dedicated server at some hosting site.
> You will have downtimes with DSL no matter how good you build your side
> of the DSL link
>>
Thank you for your response.
I did in fact consider a dedicated solution but having recently purchased
the server hardware and entered a 2y-long contract with the ISP, I really
don't think that would be an economically viable solution (not to mention
all the migration work). I previously looked into housing my servers
somewhere but there are no datacenters that offer such service in my area
and it would be a hassle having to go there everytime I need to scale the
HW configuration (and that happened a lot lately).
At this right moment, I have 43 open and 11 half-open connections for SMTP
on the mailserver and 30 open connections on port 80 for the webserver.
Unfortunaly the numbers vary much, especially between 5-10pm.
I know this might not sound very specific, but when I was connecting via
the cable the modem was basically acting as a bridge to the servers and I
never had any stability problems whatsoever. I would like to be able to
obtain the same results with my DSL line too.
BTW, I google'd for DM111PB but it only showed up Netgear products - are
you sure linksys makes one with the same name?
Chris
Reply to: