[NBLUG] diald question?

ME dugan at passwall.com
Sun May 6 13:35:05 PDT 2001


Hello Peter,

(I do not claim to be an expert on this stuff, but here are a few
suggestions...)

Unless you have special needs for the items in diald, there are other
dialup utils out there that are easier to set-up.

You ref debian, so you may want to check out another package that includes
the pon, poff, pppconfig. You can also set up pon/poff to be run by
specified users, but it is done manually.

When you install the pppconfig/pon/poff package, you can then run 
(I think the package is called "pppconfig" and the description is
something about "ppp configuration utility")
# pppconfig
and it will ask you a bunch of questions about your ISP and connection and
try to create a chat/expect script to log in to your ISP for
you. (However, pon/poff is manual not "automagic" like diald, but the
price for the "automagic" connection is to carefully set up the rules for
when to connect and stay connected and for how long and for which
application layer protocols as well as which to ignore. (Also, if you like
that whole GNOME thing, then check out "gpppon" which is supposed to work
with pon/poff/pppconfg for GUI based junk.)

Never used "quickppp" but I seem to recall someone else mentioning
it. (Anyone else want to comment on it?)

I have used diald before and found it to work very well, but the amount of
time required to get it set up was much more than some of the present
tools if a basic connection to the internet is all that you are after.

As for the errors that you report, I would probably look through the diald
"up" script to see what it is trying to do to set your ppp
interface(s) and also see if those interfaces are not in use. (Make sure
you dont have other copies of ppp that are running and have configured the
interfaces.)

The way that diald is supposed to work (if I recall) is to set up a SLIP
interface that is your default gateway. Then diald watches for traffic
that meets certain criteria for out-going connections (say telnet, ssh,
web, but ignoring broadcasts, and certain ICMP packets). If a packet that
wants to go "out" is on the list of packets types (application) to go out,
then diald brings up the ppp link according to your script and then
changes your default gateway to be the new link and either assumes the
application desiring the connection will retransmit the packets after the
link is up, or ...

Things to troubleshoot and Some things to check:
Does your kernel support SLIP and/or PPP?
What do you get when you:
# ifconfig sl0
# ifconfig ppp0
# ifconfig
and
# route -N
before you try to connect?
While you are "connected"
After you disconnect?


Try establishing a simple terminal connection with your ISP. If that
works, go on...
Try using your terminal software to connect up to your ISP specified PPP
and see if it is prompting for a password username, or if it does not (and
alternatively is likely using CHAP, or PAP authentication.) This will not
be a "PPP connection" as your terminal software is not likely to speak the
client side of the PPP arbitration, but it will help you to have a better
guess as to what kind of authentication your PPP server likes.

Try establishing a simple PPP connection using the same connection script
in use by diald with the flags of pppd (or variables set in the options
file) of "connect" (See the man page of pppd for the options files and
locations)

If you can get all of the above to work, and diald still barfs out, then
there is more that cane be done specific to diald.

If this moves beyond 4 re-replies (bidirectional) we can take this off
list so as to not cause grief to the other people on this list.

places where diald is good (IMHO):
"house network" where you dont want people to have shell access to the
gateway.
places where you are charged per minute for connection (or some scale
based on time) and you wish to have some accounting of time-use, and
automatic connection and disconnection to make costs for up-time more
reasonable.
experience to see how a demand-dialer works

Places less ideal:
One station connection to the internet
System/gateway with users that have shell access to pon/poff the link as
needed.
First time users of Linux where you have many many more things on your
list of things to learn.
...

-ME

On Sun, 6 May 2001, Peter D. Lutz wrote:
> I would like to run diald on here, but it won't work right.  It dials,
> but then hangs up after not making the correct connection.  Then dials
> again in a minute.  This seems to continue forever.  Where do I look?
> 
> Sun May  6 12:52:35 2001 PDT Calling site 192.168.0.2
> Initializing Modem
> Dialing system
> Connected
> Sun May  6 12:53:10 2001 PDT Connected to site 192.168.0.2
> Sun May  6 12:53:10 2001 PDT Running pppd (pid = 583).
> Sun May  6 12:53:35 2001 PDT start sl0: SIOCSIFMETRIC: Operation not
> supported

trying to modify the METRIC of the SLIP interface

> Sun May  6 12:53:35 2001 PDT start sl0: SIOCADDRT: File exists

"Add route" for the new route, I would expect this should be del route if
the slip link is being taken down. "Add route suggests the SLIP link is
coming up.

> Sun May  6 12:53:35 2001 PDT start sl0: SIOCADDRT: File exists

"Add route" again. First was prob an attempt to set the route to the
"host" and this was prob an attempt for the default gateway to sl0
interface.

> Sun May  6 12:53:35 2001 PDT stop ppp0: SIOCDELRT: No such process

"Delete Route" now at this point it looks more like we are seeing the ppp
link failed and the ppp route is being deleted (if it existed).

> Sun May  6 12:53:35 2001 PDT start sl0: SIOCSIFMETRIC: Operation not
> supported
> Sun May  6 12:53:35 2001 PDT start sl0: SIOCADDRT: File exists
> Sun May  6 12:53:35 2001 PDT start sl0: SIOCADDRT: File exists

Not sure, but prob expected as the slip interface was not brought
"down" before this attempt to bring it back up.

> Sun May  6 12:53:35 2001 PDT Disconnected. Call duration 25 seconds.
> Sun May  6 12:53:35 2001 PDT IP transmitted 680 bytes and received 0
> bytes.
> Sun May  6 12:53:35 2001 PDT Closing /dev/modem
> Sun May  6 12:53:36 2001 PDT Delaying 30 seconds before clear to dial.
> 
> Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
> Thanks.
> -- 
> Peter Lutz AA6AV
> Debian Linux 2.2
> 




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