PPP Question

[Bill Moran]

John Hoder wrote:
> i'm relatively new to freebsd and so far i'm delighted with the 
> performance and stability.  i have a continual problem with ppp 
> though and i've searched the documentation and contacted my isp for 
> an answer.  maybe you have a suggestion.  there are really 2 separate 
> issues:
> 
> 1. authentication is like rolling the dice.  it seems about a 50/50 
> chance that i get the ppp in capitals.  once there, my connection 
> with my isp is rock-solid.  but half the time i get an error (some 
> strange machine code) during what looks like the first stage of 
> authentication (the lower case p's).

My gut instinct says "hardware problem" ... but there's really not
enough information to reasonably assume that.
I would suggest using the script command to capture the strange
error code and then a) search google for that code b) post the code
to the list in a new message.

> 2. (maybe related to number 1?) when i first modified ppp.conf i 
> could not get my modem to be recognized using /dev/cuaa0, 1, etc. 
> (although my modem *is* connected to a serial port).  so i just sort 
> of stumbled on using ttyd0, which works fine except for the problem 
> described above.

Don't quote me on this, because I'm not 100% sure but ...
The cuaa devices are callout devices ... their behaviour (locking and
otherwise) is designed to make sense for making calls out on the modem.
The ttyd devices are receiving devices ... their behaviour (locking
and otherwise) is designed to make sense for programs that are waiting
to receive incomming calls.
ttyd0 and cuaa0 actually point to the same physical devices, which one
you uses depends on whether you're waiting for calls in or calling out.
However (and this is the part I'm not really sure of) if you ONLY call
out, and you never have more than one user trying to access the modem
at a time, I don't think it really matters which one you use.
"man sio" will provide authoritative details on this.

> any help you can offer would be appreciated.

A little more information will produce better answers.  Capture the error
and post it along with details of the hardware involved.

-- 
Bill Moran
Potential Technologies
http://www.potentialtech.com