Modem Pooling with Samba

[Geoff Lane]

Jonathan Cort wrote:
>
> Has anyone used samba v2.0 to share pooled modems. I have a large pool of
> identical modems available as a single TCP service on a terminal
> server with
> Samba running under HP-UX 10.20 . Any ideas how to make this modems an
> accessible share for Windows 95 clients
>
> Reply to jcort at medisys.co.uk
>
---
Hi Jonathan,

For which purposes do you want to share the modems?

Because you mention TCP, I guess that you want to use them to give Internet
access.  In that case, I'd start by finding out how to configure the HP-UX
box as a proxy server and then how to fire up and shut down PPP/SLIP on
demand.  If this is the case, then perhaps it's not a job for Samba.

Do you want to use the modems for fax?  In that case, you should be able to
configure sendmail and efax to provide the fax gateway.  Another alternative
is HylaFax.  This allows you to share the fax port as a Samba printer.  The
user just prints PostScript to this port and ensures that they have
something like "Fax No. <number>" once only within the fax message.  Hylafax
parses the incoming faxes for strings in this format to obtain the number to
dial.

Anyway -- The above is probably of limited use.  Both of these topics are
something that I've been trying to implement on my setup (Red Hat 5.2 with a
single modem).  Unfortunately, I've not been able to get it to work
(probably because I don't yet understand enough of the subject).  If this is
what you're trying to do, please post the solutions -- they will be
gratefully received.

HTH and thanks,

Geoff Lane
Cornwall, UK
geoff at gjctech.force9.net