On Sun, 29 Dec 1996, Richard Barker wrote:

> as it turns out
> i log on to UU.NET every day
> NOT
> earthlink.net
> therefor my DOMAINNAME would be at UU.NET
> however both my local host and UU.NET's connection are dynamic
> mine would be 153.36.0.0
> and UU.NETS 207.76.6.0
> with the zeroes representing wildcards
> * - wildcard also
> I can reinstall ppp.setup.tgz till Im blue in the face but it still wont 
> fix my connection problems
> as listed in freePPP I conact a server named eln_thxrci
> and my username is ELN/thxrci
> of course how would unix like this
> s/\$LOGIN/ELN/thxrci/g
> it wouldnt
> the / would screw the whole thing up
> perhaps i CANT dial up earthlink.net from my netbsd1.2 host 
> which incidentaly is
> hobby.netbsd.org
> Im starting to think earthlink.net has deliberatly formated itself so 
> that freeppp is the ONLY way to dial up
> ? mabey thats it
> I dont know
> id appreciate any help and info for this problem im having
> Im affraid ppp.setup.tgz cant help me now :(


  I'm not sure exactally what your problem is comming from, but I would 
think there isn't anything wrong with pppd from netbsd's package.  I 
would not be suprised that earthlink.net's dialup services are 
proprietary, that would go with the territory (sux, but true).  One thing 
I noticed above is you may want to check to ensure your machine is not 
expecting a specific address, as earthlink.net won't assign you that 
way... unless you've acquired an agreement with them otherwise (people 
are usually stingy with their IP numbers)... you mentioned above that 
your machine is expecting to be hobby.netbsd.org... DNS will expect you 
to have the same address every time, and earthlink.net won't want to 
route like that. (if I'm reading it right, I'm not sure I am).

  A question comes to mind how are you setting up your ppp connection?  I 
would recommend using a command line like this:

/usr/sbin/pppd /dev/tty00 19200 defaultroute connect '/usr/sbin/chat "" 
atdt7518112 CONNECT "" ogin: <USER> assword: <PASSWORD>'

  This is the exact line that I use for my mache, I realise however that 
earthlink.net may be far less conformant to standard unix operating 
procedures, thus this may not work for everyone.  My recommendation would 
be to call earthlink and get them to figure out how you can connect... if 
they want to have archaic connect methods, let them deal with how to get 
customers online who use standard methods. ;-)

-Michael D. Peters