[lug] Modem/pppd problem

[Elyse M. Grasso]

The ongoing saga.... I think I fried part of my motherboard when
I opened my server box to put in the new drives, so I'm using my 
laptop for email access until I can afford a new one (Igor's 
motherboard is 3 years old and I was thinking of upgrading anyway 
-- Igor needs a new brain--'
but it wasn't scheduled as part of this month's cash flow.)

Sometimes when I try to start pppd to dial into my ISP using the 
laptop's modem,  it gives me a message about the peer needing to 
authenticate. I have noticed that this message also comes up if I 
have an active ppp0 and accidentally rerun the connect command, 
so I suspect that ppp is thinking that the modem is already running
a ppp0. But I can't find any lock or pid files that might make it think
there is an existing connection. (I use the ppp-off script that comes 
with pppd, and it seems to clean things up pretty well.)

Is there something I can do to force the modem to reset (or whatever 
needs to be done to it) in a controlled fashion?

Thanks in advance

Elyse Grasso