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Frequently Asked Questions
What is this FAQ and what kind of information is in it?
This is a work-in-progress. It is an attempt to answer 90% of the most
frequently asked questions regarding portmasters and Portmasters.com. This is the first place
you should look if you have questions. We will add more information as it is
collected. If you think a particular question and answer should be here,
please
let
us know.
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Why Should I buy from Portmasters.com?
- Necessity: Portmasters.com is the only
authorized service and resale center for the Portmaster. (see the
next section below) and the only entity that Lucent recommends for
Portmaster support. We are the exclusive source for tools necessary
to use the Portmaster such as the Password Override, PMVision. If
you did not buy your Portmaster from us or Lucent, and you do
not have a support
contract, you won't have access to these tools.
- Experience: We have been using portmasters ourselves for
over 14 years, so we know what we are doing. We are an ISP and an
ASP.
- Knowledge: Jake Messinger,
our President and founder, is a contributor to the Linux kernel and
was a part of the early development of today's popular Network
protocols like Network Address Translation (NAT) and NetBeui.
Jake Messinger is also an adjunct professor at the University of
Houston, a leader in the development of the Internet, where he
has taught Networking and Data
Communications for the past 8 years.
- Support: We offer free support to Lucent and
Portmasters.com customers. If you didn't buy your Portmaster from
us, you will have to pay for your support, which may cost more in
the long run especially if you purchased a Portmaster from an
individual or from an online auction site.
- Integrity: We adhere to strict guidelines in the testing
and reconditioning of the portmasters so that when you take it out
of the box, it is complete, it is working, it is what you expect,
and we guarantee your satisfaction. Our reconditioning process
brings the Portmaster back to as close to factory-new as you will
get. This includes powder-coating of the cases, replacing ram, and
performing the same tests that Lucent performed on them before they
are sold.
- Professionalism: We professionally repackage everything
so that it is ready for shipping or resale. We also preconfigure the
portmasters to your specifications at no extra charge.
- Availability: We have the largest inventory of
Portmasters, parts and accessories. We even have the early
prototypes for the PM2, PM3 and PM4. We have the first pm2, and Pm3
made sitting in our Museum Case. We also still have PM11's, the
FIRST true remote access servers that supported stand-alone PPP, TC/PIP
and Radius.
- Longevity: We have been in business for over 32 years,
more than 3 times longer than Lucent.
- Value: We take major credit cards and do not charge extra
for that, or Paypal. We also pass on our great FedEx discounts.
- Service: We have 800 toll free access for our customers.
We have 24 hour support with emergency pager service.
- Internationality: We are experts at International
Shipping and have employees on staff that speak Spanish, Mandarin,
Cantonese, Indonesian, Hindi, Arabic, and Urdu.
- Communication: We host the original portmaster-users and
ComOS mailing lists, which represents a community of thousands of
users, customers, and engineers (some work for Lucent). We have the
official archives going back to the early 90's when the lists were
started by Livingston Enterprises.
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Who is
Portmasters.com and what is their
relationship to Livingston Enterprises and Lucent?
Portmasters.com is not affiliated
with Livingston
Enterprises or Lucent Technology. We are a subsidiary of
Alpha Medix, LP, a medical billing
online service bureau started in 1972. We were one of Livingston's early
customers. Livingston
Enterprises is the original company that developed and marketed the
Portmaster beginning with the PM-11, the first commercially available
stand-alone remote access server supporting such protocols as PPP and Radius
Authentication (a Livingston invention). We began to resell Portmasters in
1993. When Livingston discontinued support for the PM-11, we took up that
responsibility and started the
Portmasters.com website as a user-supported forum. We continued to
support and resell the older Portmaster models and became a dealer for the
newer Portmaster 3
and Portmaster 4.
Lucent purchased Livingston in 1999 and we continued to sell, service and
support Portmasters. Eventually, the Portmaster support mailing lists were
moved to Portmasters.com. When Lucent decided to discontinue the Livingston
Portmaster product line, they recognized that Portmasters.com had become the
premiere site for Portmaster sales, service and support and they officially
granted us the rights to the source code and handed over the entire
support responsibility to us.
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Can I still get service and
support for my portmaster that I bought from Lucent or a Portmaster dealer?
Yes. Portmasters.com still services and supports Portmasters.
Lucent discontinued the Portmaster series in favor of the Ascend Line due
mainly to Ascend's larger install base. They now refer all Portmaster
service and support issues to Portmasters.com. We have an extensive stock of
parts as well as complete units, both new and used. We also custom make
racks, cables and other accessories.
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Does Portmasters.com honor Lucent or
Livingston warranties or maintenance contracts?
Although we took over the support for Portmaster products, we do not honor
Lucent, Livingston, or maintenance contracts purchased from other resellers.
We offer our
warranty and free telephone support if you purchased your Portmaster
products from Portmasters.com. Otherwise you may
purchase telephone support
either hourly or we recommend a
maintenance contract.
Email and online
support will continue to be free for the forseeable future.
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I forgot the password to a Portmaster product. How do I reset it?
This is one of the most commonly asked questions. Follow the
Password Override
instructions. You must be an existing customer to use this tool.
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How do I see the version of ComOS running
on my Portmaster?
Log into as "!root" and type: ver
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What are the latest ComOS versions and where
can I download them?
The latest versions are on the
Downloads page.
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Will V.92 and other Comos upgrades be available for
the Portmaster?
Lucent stopped making the Portmasters; however,
Portmasters.com has been granted a
non-exclusive right to the COMos source code. We have the ability to add
enhancements to COMos and this may include V.92. At this time, the
Portmaster does not have V.92 capability, although V.92 modems should be
able to connect to a Portmaster Digital modem using V.90 modulation. (A
discussion on the future of V.92)
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I am not familiar with portmasters and I need
to get one up and running quickly. What do I need to do first?
Read the QuickStart pages for your portmaster located
on the
Support page.
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What program can I use to monitor,
maintain, and upgrade Portmasters?
Download and install
PMVision.
It is a Java Program that will make configuration and maintenance of a portmaster simple and fun. Note: If you are using Windows XP, you may need to download and install Sun's
latest JDK to make PMVision work properly. Please check the
README for detailed instructions on installation. You can also still
download PMConsole but it will have limited capability.
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I restored a backup of my config but now
users don't authenticate. What is wrong?
For security purposes,
PMVision does not save passwords, including the Radius Secret. You need
to reset your passwords and the Radius Secret on a portmaster after you have
uploaded a configuration file to it.
What is the difference between a PM-2, PM-2i, PM-2E, PM-2Ei and
a PM-25?
The PM-2 is low profile, non expandable 10 port (DB-25F) async remote
access server. The PM-2i is the same but with 5 ISDN-U BRI ports.
The PM-2E is twice the height of the pm2 and can be expanded with serial or
ISDN port cards up to 30 ports. The PM-2Ei is like a PM-2E except its base
configuration is 5 ISDN-U BRI ports and can be expanded with serial or ISDN
port cards up to 30 ports. The PM-25 is a low profile, rack mountable high
density unit. It is newer than the PM-2E, 1/2 the height, and uses a DB-68HD
SCSI Ultra 2 style port to connect to multiple serial devices.
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What are the strange connectors on the
back of a PM-25?
The PM-25 combines 8 serial ports into 1 single physical port using a
DB-68HD SCSI Ultra 2 connector and an 8 headed octopus fan out cable similar
to the configuration used with the
Cisco 2509-2512 series routers. You can actually use Cisco's
CAB-OCTAL-ASYNC cable that terminates into 8 RJ-45 connectors with RJ-45 to
DB-25 adapters but be aware that the pinouts are slightly different.
Portmasters.com makes custom
DC-8DB for connection
to standard DCE serial ports and and
DC-MRJ45 cables to
connect directly to USR MP 16 and Microcom Modem racks. Here is an
Excel Spreadsheet of
the cable pinouts.
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How do you set up a Portmaster as a Dial-Out
modem pool server?
The portmaster 2, 3 and 4 can be set up as a dialout modem pool so that
you can access the modems on the portmaster for dialin and dialout from
other devices. Unix and Linux based servers can do this with remote tty
software that comes with some distributions. Windows based networks can use
a product such as DialOut-IP so that PC's on
the network can map the Portmaster's attached modems to virtual COM ports.
Please read this DialOut-IP configuration
document for more information, specifically on getting it to work with
digital modems in the PM3 and PM4.
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How do you set up a portmaster to
authenticate with Microsoft IAS and Active Directory?
The portmaster will authenticate from any Radius compliant software such
as
Microsoft IAS (Internet Authentication Service). Please read the
tutorial titled Authenticating a Lucent Portmaster 3
with Microsoft IAS and Active Directory submitted by Verizon, a
Portmasters.com client. (Portmasters.com uses Linux based Radius compliant
authentication methods and therefore cannot offer extensive Microsoft
product support.)
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How many digits should the phone
company send on a channeized T1 to our Portmaster?
Sending digits on a channelized T1 refers to DNIS (Dialed Number
Identification Service). It is not supported on the PM3 when the line ports
are configured for channelized T1. Therefore, tell the CT1 provider to
delete all the digits and do not send any on the line. The PM3 is better
suited for a PRI, where you DO have the functionality of DNIS over the ISDN
D channel.
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How
do I get the PM3 to answer calls from a Nortel DMS-10?
The Nortel DMS-10 requires a couple of changes to the default Trunk and
Route configurations to be made for any Remote Access Concentrator to accept
calls. Specifically the TGDP needs to be set for DATA or DIOD, and on the
Route, DEL needs to bet set at 7.
Nortel has written a
whitepaper describing these setting requirements for their access
concentrators and the settings also work for a Portmaster 3:
http://portmasters.com/Nortel_DMS-10_PM3.pdf
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For More Information
Contact support@portmasters.com
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