> 
> ok, i have a feeling i'm doing something pretty stupid, so, if you have a
> few minutes, read this and help me find my problem:
> problem: pppd works, but is not fully properly configured.

Hmm. Let's have a look.

> ---cut here---
> Dec 1 20:32:59 friction pppd[93]: pppd 2.3.0 started by root, uid 0
> Dec 1 20:33:32 friction pppd[93]: Connect: ppp0 <--> /dev/tty00
> Dec 1 20:33:34 friction pppd[93]: local IP address 199.232.252.127
> Dec 1 20:33:34 friction pppd[93]: remote IP address 128.103.21.15
> ---cut here---
> okay, ppp works great now. no problems at all.
> to disconnect, people to tell me to kill ppp, so i look it up in the
> process table and kill it. "kill -9 <pid-of-pppd>". i manually reset the
> modem by shutting it off and turning it back on.

I've started getting the "you have to turn the modem off by hand" bit
too, but it's not always the case. You shouldn't have to! And kill -9
should be all you need to do.

Oh, I can log off and then back on many times. There was a bug (which I
think we squished for 1.2; not sure) where if you had crtscts on (as
you should!), the line froze hard after the second time you restarted
ppp, but that's not what you're seeing. pppd wouldn't get far-enough to
squalk about routes.

> now, i get THIS while attempting to restart pppd:
> ---cut here---
> Dec  1 20:39:49 friction pppd[105]: pppd 2.3.0 started by root, uid 0
> Dec  1 20:40:26 friction pppd[105]: Connect: ppp0 <--> /dev/tty00
> Dec  1 20:40:27 friction pppd[105]: Couldn't set interface address: Address
> alre
> ady exists
> Dec  1 20:40:27 friction pppd[105]: Couldn't add default route: File exists
> Dec  1 20:40:27 friction pppd[105]: Couldn't add default route: File exists
> Dec  1 20:40:27 friction pppd[105]: local  IP address 199.232.253.20
> Dec  1 20:40:27 friction pppd[105]: remote IP address 128.103.21.15
> ---cut here---
> what are the errors for?

As someone (Bob or Paul) mentioned, I think it's that pppd isn't cleaning
up after itself.

What does netstat -r say after you've shut pppd down once, and before
you bring it up again? That'll show the dangling routes.

> by the way, since my IP is dynamically assigned, and the ISP is rather
> large, there are 4 modem pools (with the same phone number), and each pool
> has a different IP address, so i don't know how i could set *that* up (i
> mean, specifying the gateway host somewhere). all four modem pools are
> connected to the same router, though (probably obvious, anyway). maybe i
> could use the router's IP address for something...?

Don't have to! ppp will negotiate all that stuff on connect. I
regularly phone into Stanford's modem pool, which has 10 or 12
modem servers, each with a different IP address. The IP addresses
chance each time I dial in. :-)

Take care,

Bill