feedback to listmembers suggestions on PPP

[John Gatti <gatti gtfo com>]

Thanks to all who responded.
Here's what I've tried based on suggestions
received.
Note that my original email is appended
here for completeness.
First some additional details left out of the
original post:

- my ISP is using CHAP (so leaving name and password out
  of chat-ppp0 got me logged on)
- my ISP has separate shell and ppp acounts - my name option
  in my options file uses the ppp name (username-ppp)
- my nameservers are in fact numeric - I changed the names in my post...

I tried:

- add 0.0.0.0 marius marius to /etc/hosts AND also
- add 0.0.0.0 marius marius.n2.net marius to /etc/hosts
- use the 'noipdefault' option

No help there.

Changed /etc/sysconfig/network GATEWAYDEV=ppp0 (formerly said nothing here)

Still no help.

One suggestion was to use ipforwarding and proxyarp options. I've tried
that in the past out of desperation, but I believe for a strict p-to-p
one computer connection I shouldn't need this, right?

Another suggestion had me editing rc.inetl - a tantalizing solution,
but no help - at least the way that I edited it. The posters suggestion
used env variables GATEWAY and NETWORK and I don't seem to have these?
and when I tried from the command line after log on I got syntax errors.
So comments on this file/a sample file would be great.

Most who responded agreed (with me) that the 0.0.0.0 entries should
be * instead. Interestingly enough, if I type 'route' prior to
starting the ppp daemon, I get:

[root marius /tmp]# route
Kernel IP routing table
Destination     Gateway         Genmask         Flags Metric Ref    Use Iface
127.0.0.0       *               255.0.0.0       U     0      0        0 lo
[root marius /tmp]#

which has the elusive '*',

whereas route -n yields:

[root marius /tmp]# route -n
Kernel IP routing table
Destination     Gateway         Genmask         Flags Metric Ref    Use Iface
127.0.0.0       0.0.0.0         255.0.0.0       U     0      0        0 lo
[root marius /tmp]#

and now we see the pesky '0.0.0.0'. This is what has made me wonder
if the 0.0.0.0 entry is a red herring...

Note that if I type 'route' (as opposed to route -n) once ppp is enabled, the
command line just hangs. So go figure.


I also tried deleting the loopback entry from the routing table - it
went away but the problem remained.

The saga continues - thanks for all of the input.

--John Gatti
******************original post**************************

Hi Linux-Folks:

My recurring nightmare with connecting to my ISP is outlined
below. The frustrating thing is how painless the entire Red
Hat install was up until this point - and in fact I seem to
be so close to connecting that it just adds to the frustration...
This email contains the output of /var/log/messages, ifconfig,
route -n and so should be complete, if long. Let me give thanks
in advance for wading through all of it...

First I activate ppp with : ./ifup-ppp ifcfg-ppp0
from /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts.

My options are:

modem
lock
crtscts
defaultroute
asyncmap 0
mtu 552
mru 552
name my_user_name


My /var/log/messages looks like this:

Jul 14 22:49:52 marius ifup-ppp: pppd started from ifup-ppp
Jul 14 22:49:54 marius kernel: CSLIP: code copyright 1989 Regents of the
University of California
Jul 14 22:49:54 marius kernel: PPP: version 2.2.0 (dynamic channel allocation)
Jul 14 22:49:54 marius kernel: PPP Dynamic channel allocation code
copyright 1995 Caldera, Inc.
Jul 14 22:49:54 marius kernel: PPP line discipline registered.
Jul 14 22:49:54 marius kernel: registered device ppp0
Jul 14 22:49:54 marius pppd[393]: pppd 2.2.0 started by root, uid 0
Jul 14 22:50:14 marius pppd[393]: Serial connection established.
Jul 14 22:50:15 marius pppd[393]: Using interface ppp0
Jul 14 22:50:15 marius pppd[393]: Connect: ppp0 <--> /dev/modem
Jul 14 22:50:20 marius pppd[393]: Remote message: Welcome to NetBlazer
Jul 14 22:50:20 marius pppd[393]: local  IP address 207.113.132.155
Jul 14 22:50:20 marius pppd[393]: remote IP address 207.113.132.73

at this point my ISP says that I'm connected, but he can't ping me,
and I can't ping him (or anything other than 0.0.0.0 and 127.0.0.1).

When I type: 'route -n' I see this:

[root marius network-scripts]# route -n
Kernel IP routing table
Destination     Gateway         Genmask         Flags Metric Ref    Use Iface
207.113.132.73  0.0.0.0         255.255.255.255 UH    0      0        1 ppp0
127.0.0.0       0.0.0.0         255.0.0.0       U     0      0        2 lo
0.0.0.0         207.113.132.73  0.0.0.0         UG    0      0        0 ppp0

This differs from the PPP-HOWTO in that the 0.0.0.0 entries are "*"'s
in the HOWTO, but I'm not sure if that's a problem or a red herring.

I've read NET3-HOWTO - my resolv.conf is this:

search my.domain
nameserver name.server.ip.one
nameserver name.server.ip.two

and my /etc/hosts file is:

127.0.0.1       localhost       loopback

If I ping the router address, the ping just hangs (as opposed to
if I were to ping it when I'm not connected - for that case I get
blown out right away - of course). After the ping I can do an
ifconfig and see the transmit packet count has gone up (although
my ISP never sees them) - here's
the output of ifconfig just for fun:

[root marius network-scripts]# ifconfig
lo        Link encap:Local Loopback
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Bcast:127.255.255.255  Mask:255.0.0.0
          UP BROADCAST LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:3584  Metric:1
          RX packets:14 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0
          TX packets:14 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0

ppp0      Link encap:Point-Point Protocol
          inet addr:207.113.132.159  P-t-P:207.113.132.73  Mask:255.255.255.0
          UP POINTOPOINT RUNNING  MTU:552  Metric:1
          RX packets:8 errors:1 dropped:1 overruns:0
          TX packets:49 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0

I could go in to more details on some of the other files, but
I'm not sure it's pertinent - suffice it to say I've tried to
be rigorous and follow the HOWTO's but I'm really *&^%$* stumped
on this one.

My kernel is 2.0.27 and my PPP is 2.2.0.

My ISP says that it seems as if the packets aren't making it down to
PPP, although ifconfig output seems to belie that point. I haven't
put a protocol analyzer on the modem line (like I even have one),
so hey, I don't know...

Any help is appreciated.

--John Gatti