[geeks] Rant: Network "Industry Leaders" That Don't.

[Jonathan C. Patschke]

On Thu, 2 May 2002, Kris Kirby wrote:

> I fail to see the problem. You reset the AP into Bridge mode so it echos
> packets from the wireless side to it's ethernet port and vice versa. Then
> the router at the end of the AP's link will (have to) take care of the
> rest.

That'd be great, except that $ISP is only handing us one IP address over
that link, with no provisions to add more--not ant any cost the agency is
willing to put up with, anyway.

That's what's so screwed-up about all this.  One side needs one IP address
because the RS/6000 (VIAS) "needs" telnet open[1] to the public so
$softwareVendor can do maintenance, but nothing else.  That side has a
/24.  The other side (which is where all the stations and printers are)
has one IP address and an Orinoco that doesn't comprehend anything that's
outside of one hop away.

The whole thing is just such a lovely mess.  I promise that, if I can,
I'll snap some pictures of all this.  Entropy is decreasing, though.

> > I "solved" the problem by NATing around the two networks that need
> > bidirectional communication.  It's ugly, but it'll work until we pull
> > those two extra fibre strands and get things divided up like they ought to
> > be.
> 
> By my other message, unnecessary.

Yes, but your method would require purchasing managed Ethernet switches.
The cable-mess still needs to be fixed, and I think that we could convince
them to pay for two more fibre drops than for two managed switches.  In
fact, we've suggested upgrading the hubs to something decent, and that was
shot down.  They also needed this up and running Today.

No doubt that your solution is making better use of the infrastructure
at-hand (no way are they going to use -all- that 100MB/s connection), but
the people holding the checkbook are low-ballers.  They'd probably all
still be using dumb terminals if they didn't need access to email or were
allowed to run PINE on the RS/6000.

--Jonathan
[1] I also neglected to mention to utter idiocy of the software folks
    managing the RS/6000.  They don't believe in TCP-wrappers.