PPP and dial in not talking...

[Paul Furness <paul.furness@vil.ite.mee.com>]

Good ["Morning" "Afternoon" "Night"].

Does anyone there know lots about setting up a dial in server using
linux (specifically Red Hat 7.2)?

I have a problem that I just can't pin down. We had a server running
RedHat 6.2 which is our dial-in RAS server. It worked. No problems.

Last week someone upgraded it to RedHat 7.2 and applied all the updates.
He did not change the dial up configuration files in any way.

If you dial in now, the modem connects, hand-shaking and authentication
take place, and the appropriate DHCP information is passed to the
client. It connects as normal, in fact, except that, after about 20
seconds from completing the connection, pings start to fail
intermittently and then stop completely. 

Everyone (both server and client) thinks they are connected and are
showing the correct information for IP, DNS and so on, but the traffic
simply stops. The messages file simply shows the normal connection
information, as though the link is working fine.

Has anyone seen this before? Can you think of a fix? Naturally, it's
urgent (like all computer problems... ;)


Oh, I tried adding 'debug' to the line in login.config, and also
changing the debug level in mgetty.config. but I'm not getting any
increase in error information in /var/log/messages.


Here are the configuration details (with the IPs and Names changed to
protect the innocent... ). I haven't bothered to copy in the comments
from the config file:


ppp version 2.4.1-3
mgetty version 1.1.26-6
Kernel = RedHat out of box + update, 2.4.9-34
Modem = Courier v everything (but it's not that that's broken) 

/etc/mgetty+sendfax:

dialin.config = empty(ie no restriction)

login.config  =
	/AutoPPP/ -     -       /usr/sbin/pppd auth login -chap +pap
	*       -       -       /bin/login @

mgetty.config =
	debug 4
	fax-id 49 115 xxxxxxxx
	speed 38400


/etc/ppp:

options = 
	lock
	name batfink
	debug
	crtscts
	ktune
	modem
	proxyarp
	asyncmap 00000000
	netmask 255.255.255.0
	ms-dns 10.1.1.1
	ms-dns 10.1.1.5

options.ttyS0 =
	batfink:batfink-ppp0

pap-secrets =
	*               batfink  ""                      10.1.1.200
	*               batfink  ""                      10.1.1.201


/etc/passwd = (somewhat trimmed)

	root:x:0:0:root:/root:/bin/bash
	bin:x:1:1:bin:/bin:/sbin/nologin
	daemon:x:2:2:daemon:/sbin:/sbin/nologin
	adm:x:3:4:adm:/var/adm:/sbin/nologin
	nobody:x:99:99:Nobody:/:/sbin/nologin
	+USERNAME1
	+USERNAME2
	+::::::/bin/true








-- 
Paul Furness

Systems Manager

Visual Information Laboratory
Mitsubishi Electric ITE BV