partial SUMMARY: PPP 2.4.1 on Solaris 2.5.1 fails to negotiate/authenticate on startup

On Wed, Mar 26, 2003 at 12:04:27PM -0500, Rich Kulawiec wrote:
> Problem: The entire subsystem (PPP et.al.) is known to work when dialing
> ISP #1; in fact, it works like a champ.  I believe this indicates that
> PPP is installed correctly, that the modem is functioning properly, etc.
> However, it does not work when dialing ISP #2; it appears to be having an
> issue trying to negotiate PPP options.

This statement is mostly incorrect.  It isn't failing while trying to
negotiate PPP options: it has already failed by this point.  So the
syslog'd messages of the form:

> Mar 26 11:14:24 cheech pppd[709]: sent [LCP ConfReq id=0x1 <asyncmap 0x0> <magic 0x99e22c89> <pcomp> <accomp>]

represent my end of the PPP connection sending LCP packets to a remote end
that isn't listening: it's not that negotiations are failing, it's that
negotiations are not taking place.

And this is apparently because newer implementations of PPP servers
do not expect to have an ASCII exchange of login/password/etc. as older
ones do; they expect the caller's end (my end) to start up PPP as soon as
a connection is established and to carry out authentication from within PPP.

In other words, the old way was:

	<dial a number>
	Hello, you have reached your ISP.
	Login:
	<send login>
	Password:
	<send password>
	[PPP starts up]

The new way is:

	<dial a number>
	[PPP starts up]

So the core of the problem is contained here:

> 	/usr/local/bin/pppd debug connect \'/usr/local/bin/chat -v \"\" ATDT123456789
> 	CONNECT \"\"\' /dev/cua/d 57600 defaultroute user USER@RADIUSDOMAIN debug kdebug 7"


See the \"\" after the CONNECT?  It sends a newline after the modem signals
that it has established a connection to the remote system.  If this were
one of the older PPP implementations like the example I showed above, then
this would cause the remote end to emit "Hello, you have reached your ISP"
and "Login:".  But this is a newer PPP implementation, and it doesn't expect
this: it expects me to start PPP immediately.  So the newline that's in
there messes this up -- it doesn't need to be sent, in fact, it shouldn't
be sent, because the remote end starts ignoring me from that point forward.

Modifying the script to make this change now allows me to connect.
However, I now have the problem that my Solaris 2.5.1 system crashes
within 30 seconds to 2 minutes after starting a connection to ISP #2,
while running rock-solid indefinitely while connected to ISP #1.  I suspect
that I may need to revert to PPP 2.3.11 or that I may need to shut off
some of the debugging code, hence my labeling this as a partial summary. ;-)

---Rsk
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