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From: morrison@accuvax.nwu.edu (Vance Morrison )
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip,comp.dcom.lans
Subject: Super Cheap IP router ($800) Software Ver 2.0 now beta testing
Message-ID: <823@accuvax.nwu.edu>
Date: 3 Jul 89 22:42:22 GMT
Sender: news@accuvax.nwu.edu
Reply-To: morrison@accuvax.nwu.edu (Vance Morrison )
Organization: Northwestern Univ. Evanston, Il.
Lines: 66


               Call for Beta Testers from PCroute 2.0


Hello All,

I have written debugged, and alpha-tested the next version of the
PCrouter software.  For those of you who don't know what PCroute is,
it is a piece of software can turn an old XT or AT into an IP router.

The best part of all of this is due to the low cost of and XT clone and
ethernet cards, you can make an IP router for under $800.  Not bad since
A Cisco router doing the same thing cost $8000.   (granted, Cisco is
a higher performance machine, but I think you will be pleasantly supprised
by the throughput of this software, we do a fair amount of NFS and FTP
and really don't notice the difference).

I have been testing this code for about 3 weeks now in 9 PCrouters here
at Northwestern and they seem to be operating properly.  But before I
schedule an 'official' release (3 - 4 Weeks), I would like to get some
other people trying PCroute in situation we simply don't have here at
Northwestern.

The software itself as well as the source code can be found on 
accuvax.nwu.edu (129.105.49.1) in pub/pcroute.  The source code is
compressed, and both the source and the software has been 'tarred'.

Please don't go modifying the code until the official release comes out
in several weeks, then you can make LOCAL modifications to your hearts
content. I Reserve the right to be the SOLE person to make modifications
to PCroute that span organizational boundaries.  My motive is simple,
I want there to be only a single varient of PCroute.  If you have a good
idea you want incorporated let me know and I will probably put it in.

People that aren't on the internet, be patient, in a couple of weeks I
will ask UUNET and other UUCP archives to keep a copy, then you can get
it yourself. 

Here are some of the highlights of Version 2.0 (beta)

                      PCroute  Version 2.0

    PCroute, the software that can convert a PC into a IP router for
about $500, is now in its second major Version. As with version 1 
PCroute supports

        1) Western Digital WD8003 Ethernet and Starlan boards.
        2) Static IP routing (up to 250 routes).
        3) IP subneting
        4) ICMP Ping

    But in addition Version 2.0 also supports

        1) Up to 6 networks interfaces
        2) Localtalk interfaces (MacTCP compatable)
        3) SLIP (coming soon)
        4) ICMP TTL, Redirect, Unreachable 
        5) Fragmentation where necessary
        6) RIP dynamic routing protocol
        7) Error loging using BSD syslog
        8) PROXY ARP (if desired)
        9) Bootp forwarding


Vance
morrison@accuvax.nwu.edu