Re: question

[Donald Spoon <dspoon@astcomm.net>]

Bob Schmidt wrote:
> Hi All,
>  
> I have a quick question, I think I asked it before but can't be sure.  I 
> have a 433au, 256M of ram, external 56k modem running debian 3.0 r1.  I 
> have it installed, and everything seems to work except one very 
> important thing.  When I connect using kppp it goes through the motions, 
> I hear the wonderful noise and it connects.   But then it disconnects 
> immediately and when I read the error report it says something like 
> "needs password to authenticate itself"  "can't find appropraite 
> password".  I am using PAP as authentication method.
>  

KPPP by-passes a lot of the stuff the good Debian folks setup so you can 
use the "pon - poff" method of connecting / disconnecting.  It will read 
the /etc/ppp/options file BUT it does not read the 
/etc/ppp/peers/provider file, which will over-ride the "auth" option in 
the "options" file.

This is probably your problem, and is quite common using KPPP with the 
stock Debian ppp files.  What is happening is that the "auth" option is 
requiring your ISP to authenticate itself to your machine, and I havent' 
found one yet that will do this!  The "fix" is to edit the 
/etc/ppp/options file and change the "auth" to "noauth".  This will mess 
up security for PPP dial-ins to your machine, but not a lot of people 
use this capability.  You also will probably have to re-do this edit 
everytime the PPP system gets an upgrade...dunno.

Why didn't you use pppconfig to setup the dialer then use "pon" to dial 
out?  If you use the Debian stuff, you can setup demand-dialing quite 
easily, so it will autodial out whenever it needs something from the 
outside world.  Much better than KPPP, IMHO......


> When I use wvdial it connects and stays connected, but the problem here 
> is that when I try to check my email or surf the web the computer goes 
> to the network instead of the modem.  I can see the lights flashing on 
> my router, and no flashing on the modem.  Any ideas?  thanks in advance.
>  

Check your "defaultroute" when connected ("route" command).   It should 
be pointed at your ISP via ppp0.  It sounds like you have it set to 
point at your network via your NIC. If it is just comment out the 
"gateway" entry in your /etc/network/interfaces file for your NIC (eth0??).

Cheers,
-Don Spoon-