Topic: dialup scheduler

[John_Abell]

Has anyone successfully using an ordinary modem dialup(ie: not ISDN)to operate within the times that the time scheduler indicates it should: ie continuous connection during office hours and 'long' after 6pm?

I have tried several 'clean' installs of 5.6 and 6.0 with everything standard, but the modems never disconnect, and as the ISP charge $1/hr after 6pm it gets expensive.
I have been told that the SME time scheduler only works with an ISDN connection rather than an modem connected to an ordinary phone line, but I can can find no info on this.
I also downloaded the Dungog ISP dialer, but even logged in as root all I got was that each file it tried to install conflicted with the E-smith-ISP dialer.
So if anyone has got any of this working, I would dearly like to know how it was achieved.
thanks
John Abell

[Anonymous]

Well I had a dialup modem that was dropping the connection all the time under 5.5 until I realised it was not set for continuous. I will experiment for you with 6.
regards
briank

[raem]

Dear John Abell

> but the modems never disconnect

I believe the time scheduler does work OK on a dial up modem connection, but there are other issues at work.
The problem of the modem not disconnecting is probably due to the Internet "noise" of various requests to your server eg tcp, udp & icmp packets etc. Whilever these packets are still being sent to your server the diald program will hold the connection open, even after the allocated disconnect time. The connection needs to be inactive for 3 minutes for diald to disconnect.

To look at these do
diald-top

You have to modify the template fragments in
/etc/e-smith/templates/etc/diald.filter

Of course you should copy them to the corresponding templates-custom folder and modify those fragments

eg
20office
40outside
60weekend

After modifying the templates do
/sbin/e-smith/expand-template /etc/diald.filter
service diald restart

You would probably need/want to modify "40 outside" and "60 weekend" to stop the connection staying open after 6pm. I'll leave that part to you to work out.

You can also force the connection to disconnect by restarting diald eg

service diald restart

This will stop the service thus disconnecting the modem. When diald restarts the modem will remain disconnected IF there is no activity on your local network eg http or email requests. As yor modem is not connected at this stage then tcp, udp & icmp will not be a problem.

Hope that helps
Regs
Ray

[John Abell]

Ray
I have found that the server doesn't drop the connection even if not attached to a network, and therefore not subjected to noise.  I can easily reproduce this by formatting a PC(any PC), clean install of 5.6 or 6.0, attach a modem, configure it for continuous during office hours, and "long" ouside of office hours, no network attached, and it will dial into our office, or the ISP Dodo, and it will not disconnect/connect at the times it says it will.

I think if it happens for me for a standard clean install then it must happen for everyone.

A comment you made got me thinking - what if I set up a cron job to stop/start diald at the times i want?
Has the disadvantage of not being usable outside of office hours, but better than $1/hour ISP charges.

I have fiddled with adjusting the times before to better suit the hours the ISP offer the continuous connection for, but that so far isn't the issue if it won't even achieve the basic times it comes with. It would be easier if Mitel just stated it won't work with modems, as I wouldn't waste my time on it, but the documentation seems to imply that it does work, and if a clean unmodified isolated server won't do it then it just beats me.
Many thanks for your Help so far.
John

[raem]

Dear John
> I have found that the server doesn't drop the
> connection even if not attached to a network, and
> therefore not subjected to noise.

From your response you have misunderstood my comments.
The "noise" is not from your local network, the noise is from external Internet requests, if your modem is connected it will be receiving lots of these type of requests from other servers and worms etc on the Internet. The Internet got a whole lot noisier around late 2002 early 2003 and it has been so ever since then.

Run the command
diald-top
and it will show you all the packets being received (and keeping your modem connection active).
Modifying the template fragments as suggested will make your server less responsive to these, there are also other ways to get around this noise, search here on icmp, udp, etc etc.

I did implement a small batch file that allowed me to use different fragments at different times of the day.


> I have fiddled with adjusting the times before to > better suit the hours the ISP offer the continuous
> connection for, but that so far isn't the issue if > it won't even achieve the basic times it comes with.


If you disconnect the phone line from the modem and then run your time tests you will see that the modem does disconnect at the correct times selected. (no noise coming down the line from the Internet).

Persist and you will be rewarded
Regs
Ray