Newbie question: modems/paging

[Rick Stevens]

Shane Presley wrote:
> Hello there,
> 
> I hope this is the right list, if not, please point me in the right
> direction.  I'm very new to red hat, and Linux in general.  My
> background is Windows and Solaris.  I am ordering a Dell server w/
> RedHat ES on it, for an opensource monitoring package (Big Brother). 
> I'll need a modem on it to do dial-out paging. Does anyone have any
> experience with this?

We use a similar thing with BigBrother and Linux.  Works fine.

> Will an external US Robotics serial modem work.  How about USB?  Are
> the drivers included in RedHat or will I need to get them from US
> Robotics.

Stick with the external serial modem.  Most USB and PCI modems are 
"winmodems", which are far more trouble than they're worth.  A serial
modem "just works", regardless of OS or driver availability.

> How about paging software?  I dont think Big Brother comes with it, so
> I'll have to fire off an external script?

No, BB doesn't have a pager system, but it will use one if you set it
up.  There are several options.  You can set up BB to send email to the
pager through the pager company's gateway, or you can get one of the
open source pager packages such as QuickPage (http://www.qpage.org).
I've used both mechanisms.  Before I set up QuickPage, I even set up a
version that called a kermit script that talked to the pager company's
modem.  Mondo ugly, but it worked.
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- Rick Stevens, Senior Systems Engineer     rstevens at vitalstream.com -
- VitalStream, Inc.                       http://www.vitalstream.com -
-                                                                    -
-              Death is nature's way of dropping carrier             -
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