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List:       familiar
Subject:    [Familiar] Problem with PPP in 0.5.1-rc solved (sort of)
From:       Jay Sekora <js () aq ! org>
Date:       2002-01-31 4:39:59
Message-ID: 22003.1012451999 () js ! aq ! org
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Well, I upgraded via "ipkg upgrade" to the January 30th version of 
the 0.5.1 release candidate in hopes that the kernel/module changes 
might affect my ppp problems.  And sure enough, my ppp problems are 
solved, albeit sort of by accident.

I was doing this all via Ethernet, of course, since I couldn't get 
ppp working.  At some point while the upgrade was happening, I stopped 
being able to ssh to the ipaq, although clearly networking was fine.  
The symptom was that ssh just said "permission denied" as though I'd 
typed the wrong password for root.  I'd seen a lot of "Unresolved 
symbols ..." messages scroll by as the upgrade happened, and so I 
figured maybe there was some sort of inconsistency between something 
running and something newly upgraded in flash (maybe PAM was confused 
or something), so I rebooted, which I'd want to do anyway.  That didn't 
fix the problem.  After poking around for a while, I was struck with 
a flash of inspiration, and tried to log in with the root password 
of "rootme".  Sure enough, that was it - the upgrade had overwritten 
my /etc/passwd file.  (I filed a bugzilla report about that.)  Actually, 
the only config file I was prompted about during the upgrade was 
/etc/ppp/options.

Anyway, my main point here was to see if the new update fixed my PPP 
problems, and I was impatient, so instead of copying the passwords 
for root and ppp over to the ipaq's password file, I just removed 
the password bits from my /etc/ppp/peers/ipaq on the desktop and tried 
to start pppd.  And it worked.  And I put the password file back in 
place (over the ppp connection) and disconnected and tried to reconnect 
and it *didn't* work.  So it's definitely ppp having a password on 
the ipaq that's the problem.

The interesting thing is that the chat script succeeds and pppd starts 
(on the desktop, anyway; I forgot to check on the ipaq); it's not a 
problem with the wrong password or something like that, but with the 
process of logging in with a password leaving something in a state 
that pppd on the ipaq doesn't like.  (I didn't check whether sending 
an extra return or two would make a difference.)

This is definitely different behaviour between 0.5 and 0.5.1-rc, but 
there are so many variables (and things I haven't tried) that I don't 
want to call it a bug, just a source of confusion.  I guess I would 
recommend that the PPP HOWTO and/or the installation instructions 
say something to the effect of "if you're having trouble, make sure 
you try it with no password on the ppp account on the ipaq".  I'm 
not thrilled with having no password on an account on a box that's 
on the net fairly frequently, even if its shell *is* pppd, but I'm 
not sufficiently motivated to dig much further just now.  I'm just 
going to declare myself content that I have PPP working again.

The root password, on the other hand, got changed really quick. :-)

All in all, 0.5.1 is looking great!

-j.

-- 
Jay Sekora             http://www.aq.org/~js/            js@aq.org

`Being the Unix administrator, I can't even spell XP.' - me, 2002.01.04

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