Help on Dialup Parameters

Changing dialup parameters
Remote Name
Dial Retries
Disconnect Time
Connection Time Limit and Connection Time Period

Changing dialup parameters

The Dialup Parameters page for each dialup system allows you change parameters which affect how and when Fire Door will attempt to connect to that dialup host.

To change any of the parameters on this page, simply enter the new value into the appropiate field and press the "Accept" button. The new values will be installed and a new page will be displayed confirming that the new values have been added. At this point, use the "Back" button on your browser to return to the Dialup Parameters page.

Remote Name

The Remote Name parameter identifies a remote host to be used for Internet connections. For Windows/NT, this will be the same as the corresponding Remote Access Service entry name.

Dial Retries

The Dial Retries parameters specifies the maximum number of times Fire Door will attempt to dial the remote host in a single attempt. If a connection is not established after the specified number of redials, then the Fire Door will attempt to connect to the next host in the Dialup Configuration list.

Disconnect Time

Fire Door continuously monitors all data connections for activity. If the the period of time set by the Disconnect Time parameter passes with no activity on any data connection, then Fire Door will hang up the dialup connection to the service provider. This prevents large periods of wasted connect-time due to inadvertantly forgetting to hang up the connection. The default value is 30 minutes.

NOTE: - some FTP and Telnet programs use a feature called "Keep Alive" which will prevent Fire Door from detecting inactive connections. Be careful to ensure that this feature is not used if you wish inactive connections to be detected. "Keep Alives" will also prevent Fire Door from automatically closing unused TCP connections. See the Link Timeout parameter on the Global Parameters screen for more information.

Connection Time Limit and Connection Time Period

Fire Door tracks the amount of time which is spent connected to each dialup host. If the total time spent connected to a dialup host exceeds the amount specified in it's Connection Time Limit parameter within the period specified by the the Connection Time Period parameter, then Fire Door will not use that host for any further connections until the Connection Time Period expires.

This feature allows you to set a maximum amount of connect time for any particular host in a particular time period. For example if the Connection Time Limit is set to 5 hours and the Connection Time Period is set to 7 days, then a site may only be autodialled for 5 hours a week.

Setting either the Connection Time Limit or Connection Time Period parameters to zero allows unlimited connect time.

Note that is does not prevent you from explicitly dialling that remote host via the Status & Control page.