On Mon, 18 Oct 1999, Greywolf wrote:

> "Why should I have to do this!?"

what?  you said it yourself.  you have a 2.5 minute timeout.  2.5 minutes
is too short, so you have to do weird things to keep your connection up.
makes sense to me.

> I don't want to do this because I want it to drop the connection when the
> sup is done.

sup -smv && skill ping; sleep 1; skill -HUP pppd

but, like you said, ping doesn't work.  maybe you could rig something with
traceroute, wihch sends UDP packets.  there's probably a better solution
though.  dig or nslookup?  certainly nameserver packets count?

> This "CVS likes to think about things" is bull<bleep>!
> "Why can't the CVS server do a ping now and again itself?"

If it has to think, it has to think.  It can't be made not to think so it
will work for your modem.  Does it make sense that there should be code in
cvs to deal with your modem link?  The Internet's IP protocol is designed
with certain assumptions.  If there is a kludge in this equation, it's
your modem link.  At the very least, the modem timeout should have been
something more reasonable, something closer to the time interval of TCP's
SO_KEEPALIVE.  It should have been understood by the designers of the
mdeom timeout that they would be causing problems, and they should have
tried to cause as few as possible.  They didn't.  They obviously don't
give a rat's behind about you weird developer types as long as grandpa's
$20/mo keeps coming in and AOL instant messenger works all right.

Dial-on-demand was supposed to mean each side of the link can bring the
link up when it has traffic waiting, and you can count on always getting
the same ip address.  I set up a Cisco to do that, and it worked tolerably
well.  What you have is an abberation designed for web surfers.  ``You can
get to your Yahoo--your Internet is working.  You what?  On a _what_?  I'm
sorry, sir, but we don't support Macintoshes.  Oh.  no, i haven't heard
of those, but they aren't supported.  We're the Windows 98 team.  Would
you like to talk to the NT team?''

If you want to complain that your Internet connection sucks, I'm right
there with you.  That's an awful net connection.  Dialup is awful.
timeoutts are awful.  dynamic IP addresses are awful.  the recent
tune-in-and-drop-out attitude of the web is awful.  I'm sorry you have to
put up with them.  A dynamic IP address is torture no human being should
be forced to endure.  It's incredible that you can get work done under
such dismal conditions.  My heart goes out to you, as it goes out to
mythical surgeons working with rusty knives in the middle of the amazon
rain forest.  But, you're making everyone feel bad, and I don't understand
what it is that you want!

-- 
Miles Nordin / v:1-888-857-2723 fax:+1 530 579-8680
555 Bryant Street PMB 182 / Palo Alto, CA 94301-1700 / US