>> But PPP seems so slow. I'm getting transfer rates of under 1kB/s

> Q: Did you take the modem and cable from the IIcx and move it to the
>    IIsi Mac OS 7.5.5 machine and see if you still get 4KB/s ?

Yes, complete with serial cable.

> If the above works ok then your doing someting wrong and you should
> dump all you files to the list where we can see where the problem is.

> read chat(8) and pppd(8) over and over.

I have, thanks. In order to better understand the processes involved, I have abandoned the prefab ppp packages that seemed to complicate the issue. Instead, I've settled on the simple setup below for PPP.

> I get ~7KByte/sec via PPP/NAT on a IIci, if that is any consolation for you
> -- yes, there is hope.  ;)

Thanks Bruce and Hauke for your replies.

After some more testing, it seems that placing the serial port speed in the options file, rather than the calling script in /peers does the trick, though I did not regressively test after seeing the speed fixed.

 --- start set up procedure:
mkdir /etc/ppp
cd /etc/ppp
mkdir peers
mkdir chat

vi pap-secrets #new file
# add:
<user id> * <password>

chmod 600 pap-secrets
ln -s pap-secrets chap-secrets

vi options #new file
tty00 38400
passive
noauth
lock
modem
cdtrcts
defaultroute

vi peers/myisp #new file. Give name of ISP.
# enter:
connect 'chat -f /etc/ppp/chat/myisp'
user <user id>

vi /etc/ppp/chat/myisp #new file
#enter:
ABORT   BUSY
ABORT   "NO CARRIER"
ABORT   "NO DIAL"
TIMEOUT 10
""      AT
OK      ATZ
OK      at&fe0
OK      atdt<phone number>
TIMEOUT 60
CONNECT ""
 --- end setup procedure

I initiate the connection with:
pppd call myisp

I transfered a test file using this command:
ftp http://www.tandb.com.au/fast/smile.sit smile.sit
under some different configs, with these results:

serial   control        init      kB/s    o/flows
115200   modem cdtrcts  at&fe0     3.84    24
 57600   modem cdtrcts  at&fe0     modem hung up on 3 attempts when ftp started
115200   modem cdtrcts  at&fe0     3.26    49 (repeat of test 1)
115200   modem cdtrcts  at&f&d0e0  3.28    51
 38400   modem cdtrcts  at&f&d0e0  3.59     0
 19200   modem cdtrcts  at&f&d0e0  1.85
 38400   <none>         at&f&d0e0  3.65     0
 38400   <none>         at&f       3.62     0
NetBSD thu IIsi/MacOS/IPNetRouter  5.38
Anarchie on IIsi thru IPNetRouter  5.5

Except for the last, the above kB/s figures are the averages given by ftp at the end of the transfer. The transfers peaked at up to a reported 8 kB/s. For the IPNetRouter/MacOS/IIsi test, I still used the IIcx/NetBSD as the ftp client, but routed through the IIsi.

So, my best bet seems to be no extra modem inits (just rely on whatever the at&f defaults are) and no connect script modem controls (again just rely on defaults). But this best situation still only does 3.6 kB/s, not the 5.4 provided by a Mac OS based router on similar hardware. I'll have to check under exactly the same hardware and ISP account.

The "o/flows" are the sum of the silo number in these errors in the message log:
Aug  1 00:09:02 macbsd /netbsd: zstty1: 8 silo overflows, 0 ibuf floods
Should I be concerned about these? Is there any way to achieve those higher serial speeds without errors?

As a side issue, when I start the pppd process, my resolv.conf file is reset to some default. I have not scripted this in my above setup, so what's responsible and how do I stop it?

Any advice welcome, thanks.

Tom
T&B