Thanks to Dave Huang, who was the first to point out what was wrong with my
'chat' script for my ISDN box.  Figured I'd summarize, because the number
of responses I got indicates a general interest in the problem...

Turns out that using chat to first dial your modem, then having it enter
your id and password bypasses the PAP authentication process.  But an ISDN
connection is almost guaranteed to require PAP.  You need to activate PAP
mode within pppd.  So what you do is:

1) shorten your chat script so that it simply dials, nothing else

2) add the "name" command to your pppd command line: name <login_id>
   (where login_id is the login name given to you by your ISP)

3) create the file /etc/ppp/pap-secrets, with the line:

   <login_id> * <password>

   login_id was mentioned before.  The * indicates that you will accept any
   address assigned to you by the server (dynamic addressing).  Put your
   fixed address here in place of the asterisk, if you have one.  password
   is your PPP password.

4) set the privileges of /etc/ppp/pap-secrets so that it is only readable by
   root.

I suppose I should also add:

0) bone up on the pppd man page, which is a bit obtuse but does contain
   all the information you need.


This got my ISDN box up and running under NetBSD.  For those of you
wondering about the performance of NetBSD with ISDN, don't get too excited.
The fifo overruns and ring buffer overruns come fast and furious.  I
estimate I was getting a maximum of 3500 bytes per second, as compared with
~6000 when I had my PowerMac.

Thanks to all who responded.

-David.


___________________________________________________________________________

David C. Myers                                     dcmyers@access.digex.net
                                                     pp001628@interramp.com
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