dial up failure

I fear I have to tell the whole story. Until perhaps 18 months ago I
could connect to my ISP using a dial-up modem, both in two versions of
Windows and in Puppy 1.04. Then the latter (only) died, with no
change in my computer. When I found a way to log the responses, I
could see that my username and password were accepted and then I got
the message "ppp not enabled". I found I got the same result using
Hyperterminal under XP. The ISP technical people couldn't help, even
though the change had been at their end. I gave up.

I recently started using Puppy 2.17, and decided to try again with the
dial-up. I got the same result, so then at the command line I tried
to apply W.G.Unruh's paper "How to hook up PPP" (http://axion.physics/
ubc/ca/ppp-linux.html#ISPWant). After many failures, I get to the
point where the log tells me that the ISP is saying "PAP
authentication succeeded" and announcing the local and remote IP
addresses. If still at the command prompt I then ping either of those
addresses I get the expected repeated tests until I press control C,
but if I ping anything else, including the DNS numbers given me by the
ISP, I get no response whatever. If I ping a name instead, it isn't
recognized. /sbin/route -n seems to contain the right information. I
cannot get any further; needless to say a browser doesn't work. What
am I missing? I might add that dialling programs (wvdial etc, and
Cutecom) still give me "ppp not enabled".

In addition, having logged on to the ISP, I can find no way of logging
off, so after two such attempts, leaving me doubly logged on, the ISP
refuses to accept any more, and I have to call to ask to have the
logging on canceled! What command might I send to break contact?

Ken Gundry

(E-Mail Removed) wrote:
> I fear I have to tell the whole story. Until perhaps 18 months ago I
> could connect to my ISP using a dial-up modem, both in two versions of
> Windows and in Puppy 1.04. Then the latter (only) died, with no
> change in my computer. When I found a way to log the responses, I
> could see that my username and password were accepted and then I got
> the message "ppp not enabled". I found I got the same result using
> Hyperterminal under XP. The ISP technical people couldn't help, even
> though the change had been at their end. I gave up.

I have no explanation as to why, with no change in your computer, the
Puppy connection would abruptly start to fail after working some period
of time.

> I recently started using Puppy 2.17, and decided to try again with the
> dial-up. I got the same result, so then at the command line I tried
> to apply W.G.Unruh's paper "How to hook up PPP" (http://axion.physics/
> ubc/ca/ppp-linux.html#ISPWant). After many failures, I get to the
> point where the log tells me that the ISP is saying "PAP
> authentication succeeded" and announcing the local and remote IP
> addresses. If still at the command prompt I then ping either of those
> addresses I get the expected repeated tests until I press control C,
> but if I ping anything else, including the DNS numbers given me by the
> ISP, I get no response whatever. If I ping a name instead, it isn't
> recognized. /sbin/route -n seems to contain the right information. I

It sounds like a routing problem so the output of "route -n" could help
since "seems" leaves some doubt as to how sure you are. The behavior as
described is consistent with no default route set for the PPP interface.
That could be caused by the absence of the pppd defaultroute option,
or by an existing default route - pppd won't replace an existing default
route even with the defaultroute option.

In the case of a ping to a non-local dotted-quad address and no default
route I'd expect a message such as "Network is unreachable" from ping.
In the case of an existing non-Internet defaultroute I'd expect the same
ping to hang (that might be seen as "no response whatever.")

> cannot get any further; needless to say a browser doesn't work. What
> am I missing? I might add that dialling programs (wvdial etc, and
> Cutecom) still give me "ppp not enabled".

> In addition, having logged on to the ISP, I can find no way of logging
> off, so after two such attempts, leaving me doubly logged on, the ISP
> refuses to accept any more, and I have to call to ask to have the
> logging on canceled! What command might I send to break contact?

killall -TERM pppd

--
Clifford Kite