On Mon, Aug 31, 1998 at 09:29:44AM -0500, Frederick Bruckman wrote:
> 
> It appears that the host expects you to tell it it's ip address! Is your
> chat script providing a login name and password? 

  Yes, my chat script provides login name and password.  Then,
when asked to specify the machine name to connect to, one
enters 'ppp' and it'll switch the session into ppp mode.

> Perhaps you're expected to parse the remote address that it
> gives you after accepting you're login.

  What's weird is that they theoretically have 3000 ``identical''
modems, and 100 ``identical'' servers connected to them.  And
most of the time it Just Works.  Weird.  I'll have to look at
my chat logs when I get home today (my machine was in pieces
last night due to another machine's need for replacement parts).

> You might also like to inquire of your university to see if they use pap.

  It sounds like PAP will solve things (as Tim Rightnour
suggested), though I'm not sure I understand why!  Is it just
that their IPCP negotiation is occasionally broken, but PAP
negotiation is usually better-implemented/more robust?  The
servers in question run some Cisco software (Telesys?), in case
anyone knows of deficiencies in that.

> If not that, maybe they can tell you the address of the flakey
> host/server/gateway. You can supply that, in the options file, preceded
> with a colon. If you also add 'ipcp-accept-remote', you'll be covered in
> case they use more than one terminal server (or change the number).

  Will this work when there are 100 different servers I could get
for any dial-in?  I unfortunately don't know how many of their
servers are misbehaving, but if there's one, it's likely there's
more than one, and the :<remote-address> trick looks like it'll
only work for one flaky server.  (I understand ipcp-accept-remote
will allow _good_ servers to work, but if there are two flakys, I'm
out of luck!)

  I will try to set up a script that just repeatedly dials in for
an hour or two to see how many of their servers are causing me
problems, and to see if the flakiness is temporary or permanent
(i.e., is it true that all logins to telesys53 fail?).  And then
I'll try to get PAP set up, and do another hour or two's worth of
tests....  Good thing local calls are still free!

  Thanks for your help.

  Brian
-- 
"In the dark, the one-eyed man is blind."