Problems with old Specialix MTS (anyone remember them?)
Elliot J
I am posting this to several newsgroups, considering the age of the device
and the range of users who may have had experience overcoming such problems
in the past.
The company I work for has numerous sites, typically all linked via British
Telecom 64k kilostream connections. Many utilise Specialix MTS serial
adaptors for providing telnet access to our Mandrake Linux servers at HQ,
and serial printing. Despite the age, they have worked well.
Recently we have decided to upgrade our national wide area network to a
private ADSL circuit. The sites are now all effectively connected via the
new ADSL connections, but we are experiencing major problems switching the
site networks over.
Basically, PCs and network/ethernet printers seem fine - PCs can telnet into
our HQ server using Windows based terminal emulator. The problem is with the
Specialix MTS's. The dumb terminals connected to the MTS offer a telnet
login to the HQ server, but as soon as you enter a username, the terminal
locks. Print jobs sent to a serial printer on the MTS device fail after one
to two jobs (same deal with the port/MTS appearing to be locked up).
*All the time*, we can locally ping to the MTS, and telnet into it (ie: from
one of the PCs on the site network), *but* pings from the HQ server cease,
once a terminal has locked, or a printer has stalled. It's as though all
communication via the gateway (ie: non-local network) is frozen. If we
reboot the MTS, we are guaranteed a login again, but the same thing will
happen, as soon as we try to enter a username.
I have trawled the internet for some leads, but information is scarce to say
the least, so I'm really hoping there is someone out there who remembers
these devices from their younger days, and may be able to shed some light on
what may be going on!? The www.perle.com site doesn't appear to hold any
documentation for the MTS in question.
We have switched the MTS with a spare we had, and changed the connectivity
from BNC to ethernet, all to no avail.
When we log into the MTS, we get the following:
----------------------------------------------------
Telnet connect to MTS mts15
Specialix MTS
version 5.01.a i.3
Login:
----------------------------------------------------
Thank you very much for reading.
Best Regards,
EJ
Baron
> Specialix MTS serial
> adaptors
Does this help ?
http://www.multitech.com/DOCUMENTS/Collateral/manuals/S000354B.pdf
--
Best Regards:
Baron.
C.
> Good day,
>
> I am posting this to several newsgroups, considering the age of the device
> and the range of users who may have had experience overcoming such problems
> in the past.
>
> The company I work for has numerous sites, typically all linked via British
> Telecom 64k kilostream connections. Many utilise Specialix MTS serial
> adaptors for providing telnet access to our Mandrake Linux servers at HQ,
> and serial printing. Despite the age, they have worked well.
>
> Recently we have decided to upgrade our national wide area network to a
> private ADSL circuit. The sites are now all effectively connected via the
> new ADSL connections, but we are experiencing major problems switching the
> site networks over.
>
> Basically, PCs and network/ethernet printers seem fine - PCs can telnet into
> our HQ server using Windows based terminal emulator. The problem is with the
> Specialix MTS's. The dumb terminals connected to the MTS offer a telnet
> login to the HQ server, but as soon as you enter a username, the terminal
> locks. Print jobs sent to a serial printer on the MTS device fail after one
> to two jobs (same deal with the port/MTS appearing to be locked up).
Since you seem desperate to spend a large budget, why not replace
these boxes (which most have depreciated to £0 a long time ago).
You could try sniffing the traffic to diagnose the fault but really
its hardly worth it.
I can understand getting rid of the kilostream lines, but *private*
ADSL? If you've spent all your cash on this then try re-purposing some
old PCs with mutiport serial cards (or lots of USB/serial adaptors).
C.