[lug] Sudden pppd problem, Mayday!

[Elyse M. Grasso]

Monday evening I updated from the KRUD June release to the July disks and also 
cleaned out a bunch of packages (mostly devel) to free up some space.

Something in the ppp settings got broken. This is a major problem because I'm 
at a customer site in Minneapolis where I HAVE to use ppp. (I have broadband 
at my hotel).

My laptop that came from the factory 2 years ago with Linux only installed, is 
now a dual boot machine: Windows has no problem connecting. 

I have backups of the old settings on an external drive in Colorado, but that 
doesn't help much here. 

Reloading a partition with a clean RedHat 9 install and trying to set up ppp 
through either kpppd or redhat-network-device-control results in the same 
problems I started seeing after the upgrade.

kpppd makes the connection but fails with messages like
Aug  8 06:30:36 xerxes pppd[3853]: pppd 2.4.1 started by root, uid 0
Aug  8 06:30:36 xerxes pppd[3853]: Using interface ppp0
Aug  8 06:30:36 xerxes pppd[3853]: Connect: ppp0 <--> /dev/ttyS1
Aug  8 06:31:06 xerxes pppd[3853]: Terminating on signal 15.
Aug  8 06:31:12 xerxes pppd[3853]: Connection terminated.
Aug  8 06:31:12 xerxes pppd[3853]: Receive serial link is not 8-bit clean:
Aug  8 06:31:12 xerxes pppd[3853]: Problem: all had bit 7 set to 0
Aug  8 06:31:12 xerxes pppd[3853]: Exit.

the messages log was complaining that modprobe could not find ppp0, so after 
googling I aliased ppp0 to ppp_generic and that problem went away: the 
messages log now looks like:
Aug  8 06:30:36 xerxes pppd[3853]: pppd 2.4.1 started by root, uid 0
Aug  8 06:30:36 xerxes pppd[3853]: Using interface ppp0
Aug  8 06:30:36 xerxes pppd[3853]: Connect: ppp0 <--> /dev/ttyS1
Aug  8 06:30:36 xerxes /etc/hotplug/net.agent: assuming ppp0 is already up
Aug  8 06:31:06 xerxes pppd[3853]: Terminating on signal 15.
Aug  8 06:31:12 xerxes pppd[3853]: Connection terminated.
Aug  8 06:31:12 xerxes pppd[3853]: Receive serial link is not 8-bit clean:
Aug  8 06:31:12 xerxes pppd[3853]: Problem: all had bit 7 set to 0
Aug  8 06:31:12 xerxes pppd[3853]: Exit.

Following another idea from Google, I made sure there is a file named ppp0 in 
/etc/ppp/peers that matches the one with my ISPs nickname. That didn't help 
either.

Trying to activate the connection in Network Configuration 
says:Failed to activate ppp0 with error 28 
and doesn't seem to put anything in the messages log.



My dialup ISP does not allow the terminal interface for logins, so I can't 
debug things that way. And their "Linux setup" page describes setting up with 
tools that haven't been around since RedHat 7.x and tech support says if 
Windows can connect it's not their problem.

I originally signed up with them for out of state dialup connections because 
they claimed to support Linux (they may have been bought out). 
Is there an ISP with national  dialup coverage  with real Linux support? I use 
FRII in Colorado...

Suggestions will be greatly appreciated. Helpful ones even more so.
-- 
Elyse M. Grasso