Re: PPP Internet Connection Not Working

[Peter Christensen <christenpet@snip.net>]

I was hoping this thread would answer a question that's been puzzling me 
concerning defaultroute.  Some months ago there was a question about PPP on 
this list and someone referred to "How to Hook Up PPP" by W. G. Unruh at 
http://axion.physics.ubc.ca/ppp-linux.html

This document helped me past a problem with defaultroute when I installed 
Woody this summer:
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No Default Route Your computer passes messages for addresses it does not know 
to the default route. ppp assumes that there can only be one default route on 
any system. This is almost always the route to ISP's computer. However, if 
pppd finds that a default route already exists, it will not set up one to 
your ISP, causing problems (nothing gets through). In order that you not have 
any conflicts between the routing across ppp and onto some network you have, 
run 
/sbin/route -n 
(or you can also run 
/bin/netstat -nr 
which does the same thing) 
while not connected via ppp, and look for a default entry. (First entry in 
line is 0.0.0.0). This almost certainly should not be there. (Unless you 
already have a hookup to the internet via an ethernet connection, you do not 
want such a default route.) Unless you know that your computer has an 
ethernet connection to other computers already, the only thing there should 
be a route to 127.0.0.1 or 127.0.0.0 If there is such a default route (line 
starting with 0.0.0.0), and you want the ppp interface to be your default 
route, (the usual situation), run 
/sbin/route del default 
Also find out what was setting that wrong default route, and stop it from 
doing so. (If you cannot figure out what is doing so, put that line 
/sbin/route del default 
at the end of whichever of /etc/rc.local or /etc/rc.d/rc.local exists on your 
system.) 
**********************************************************
Before dialling out I always check for a default route (0.0.0.0) with "route 
-n" and find it quite often.  So then I have to type "route del default" 
before "pon."  

Rather than automate the "route del default" command by putting it in 
rc.local, I'd like to know why it keeps coming back.  Is it possible to 
prevent the default route from going back to 0.0.0.0?  

Thanks,
Peter Christensen