I just installed Debian 3.0, (my second attempt), and after some effort got kppp to log on to my ISP without immediately dying with an exit status 2...
However, now, while kppp logs on and stays on, Kmail, Konqueror and Galeon are not communicating with it. I get 'SMTP error' from Kmail and 'Can't find URL' from Konq, and nothing's going out on the modem lights. There are no more informative error messages.
I assume pppd uses some sort of stack to communicate with its clients, I might even guess that maybe there are permissions that need setting. Can someone tell me where to look or point me to a good HOWTO?
(I can't give detail diagnostics since I'm no longer 'in' Debian, I've refitted the drive that has RedHat 7.2 on it - a straightforward but non-trivial job - and when I think I know enough for another attempt, I'll stick the Debian drive back in. One advantage of using a stack of old 2GB drives.... )
pppd creates an interface ppp* (usually ppp0). What you call "its clients", really just applications that use TCP/IP, communicate over this interface in (from their point of view) the same way they would communicate over an eth* interface ... that is, by passing the packets on to the kernel, which uses the system's routing table to route them.
From the error report you post, I would be inclined to suspect a routing problem, or just possibly a DNS problem. After you have kppp running, examine your routing setup using these commands:
ifconfig -a
netstat -nrSee if you can ping by address (a) the other end of the Pt-to-Pt route to your ISP and (b) the default gateway in your routing table.
Next, are you running any firewall script for (probably) iptables? If so, it needs to re-run whenever a ppp connection is made, to handle the newly-assigned address properly.
Finally, check /etc/resolv.conf to verify that the pppd startup script has added the ISP's DNS servers here, and verify (in /etc/nsswitch.conf, I think) that you have the system set up to use DNS.
pppd itself normally logs a bunch of stuff to /var/log/messages when it makes a connection. kppp probably does not change that. You might want to review the messages to see if they hint at the source of the problem.
If you need help interpreting the results of any of those commands, please post their output unedited, in full. Don't paraphrase or tell us "it looks right".
One final long-shot possibility: an actual problem with the modem. Is it known good with Linux on this system? That is, does your alternate Red Hat setup work with it, or can you make a minicom connection to it and execute AT commands?
Oh, there is a PPP HowTo, which you can find at the usual places. I haven't looked at it in years, though, so I can't say how good it is.
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