SLIP slipping away

[Bob Johnson]

On 3/15/08, Kai Lockwood <kailockwood at gmail.com> wrote:
> I was just trying to setup a really simple network with a null modem cable.
> I looked into ppp but the documentation I read didn't help and I'm still not
> smart enough to figure out how to do it yet.

I haven't ever used SLIP on FreeBSD, but serial port implementations
can be extremely picky about the use of RS-232 control signals. If
your null modem doesn't at least support DCD you will likely have
problems. In that specific case, slattach -l ... might help (that's a
lower-case "L"). In fact, for a null modem cable, I'd expect the -l
option would be desirable anyway (but as I said, I haven't used SLIP
myself, so that's just conjecture).

slattach(8) seems to say the default behavior is to abort if there is
no reattach script specified (the -r option) unless you specify -l, so
it might even fit the symptoms you describe. In other words, try
slattach -l -s 115200 /dev/cuad0 and see if that helps.

If both systems have Ethernet ports it would be easy (easier, I
suspect) to set up a two-node network with a crossover cable, assuming
that's a workable solution for you.

- Bob