WINport 6.0

Share modems among machines

Does everyone in your company want a modem and a telephone line to dial out to the Internet? Do different members of your MIS department need access to amodem to download patches and drivers from vendors? How can you create theequivalent of an inbound modem pool for outbound use? WINport, from LANSourceTechnologies, is the product that can meet all these needs.

WINport is a modem-sharing program that includes both a server componentand client components. On the client side, WINport installs a redirector thatfools your operating system into thinking a real modem is connected to your COMport. This redirector then communicates with the server software over yournetwork to establish your communications session, as shown in Screen 1.Redirectors are available for Windows NT, Windows 95, Windows 3.11, and MS-DOS.The server side requires an NT 4.0 or NT 3.51 machine for operation. Thesoftware runs over a TCP/IP, IPX/SPX, or NetBEUI network.

The beauty of WINport is that all of your existing communications softwarewill work with the software. For instance, if you use NT or Win95, you can usethe Windows Dial-Up Networking (DUN) component to access the Internet throughWINport. You can even use a communications program such as HyperTerminal to dialvendor bulletin board systems (BBSs) for updated patches and drivers.

Dialing for Dollars
Installing and setting up WINport requires a little bit of work, but is notoverly difficult. I installed the server software on my NT 4.0 server and usedmy Win95 machine as the client. I then used Hilgraeve's HyperACCESS(HyperTerminal's big brother) and DUN to test WINport. I installed and set upthe software in less than 15 minutes.

After you complete the install process, you must configure the software andmake it operational. This process takes a little more planning than installationdoes, especially when you decide to implement security, because of the varietyof security options.

WINport has extensive security to let you tailor access to your outboundmodem pools. At the basic level is user- and group-level security. This securitylevel operates similarly to NT's user and group-level security. You can permitor deny access to specific modems or, if you create modem groups, specificgroups of modems. Using this level of security lets you ensure that a modem willalways be available for high-priority users on your network. WINport lets youauthenticate users based on their network username or a separate WINport serversign-on.

In addition to modem access restrictions, you can restrict dialing for bothusers and groups. Dialing restrictions include the ability to dial long-distancenumbers, specific area codes, or local numbers. This feature lets you preventabuse of your telephone network. For example, by limiting who can diallong-distance numbers, you can prevent your users from running up expensivephone bills. Naturally, if you decide not to restrict dialing, WINport stillmaintains a log of all activity, so you can track abuse should it occur.

But Wait, There's More
LANSource includes RASport for free with WINport. RASport is LANSource'sRemote Access Service (RAS)-sharing utility for NT. Using this utility, you canshare your WINport modems with NT RAS for dial-in access. The benefit of thisutility is that you do not need to dedicate one or more of your modems in yourmodem pool to RAS and the others to WINport. With RASport, all of your modemscan work with both WINport and RAS for inbound and outbound calls.

You can integrate WINport with FAXport, LANSource's fax-sharing program. Ifyou integrate all three components--FAXport, RASport, and WINport--your entireuser community can share a single modem pool for fax, data, and RAScapabilities. This combination can save you thousands of dollars in extra modemcosts, and LANSource offers special packages that let you purchase all threeproducts at a reduced cost.

WINport is a highly versatile, extremely useful program. It is a systemutility that nearly every systems administrator has searched for since theadvent of modem communications on PCs.