Subject: pppoe problem
To: None <tech-net@netbsd.org>
From: Christopher Vance <vance@aurema.com>
List: tech-net
Date: 12/14/2001 18:58:40
was
	internet -- adsl modem -- red -- yellow -- ether switch -- blue
								-- green
								-- etc

now
	internet -- adsl modem -- yellow -- ether switch -- blue etc

Yellow is a Cyrix 266 running i386 NetBSD 1.5Z, which I've been
keeping up-to-date using cvsup.  (I came from FreeBSD and am used to
cvsup.)  I chose this OS and version because ipf works for ipv6.  It
was intended as a local server for mail, etc.  It was intended to
filter traffic.

Red was 386sx running FreeBSD 4.4-stable as a filtering firewall with
nat, and used FreeBSD's user space ppp to do pppoe.  A couple of days
ago, red died from bad hardware.  (I had tried to install NetBSD on
it, but I couldn't get it to boot a TINY install kernel (missing
387?), and a SMALL install kernel ran out of memory (8MB).)

Blue is a Pentium II 400 running FreeBSD 4.4-stable, kept up-to-date
using cvsup.

I have now configured pppoe on yellow as well as I can, and connected
it directly to the adsl modem.  It works to some extent, in that I'm
composing this mail over lbx over ssh over my pppoe which has been up
for a number of hours and carried about 8MB of traffic.

However, whenever I try to update yellow or blue using cvsup, I've had
the connection terminated with a write error after about 200kB of
traffic.

What's confusing me is that ssh traffic has no problem keeping going,
while cvsup traffic from two different OSs to different servers always
dies.

My ISP was having authentication problems, but now that traffic is
passing, I don't think it's them.

Are there known problems with NetBSD pppoe?  (I note that some of the
relevant man pages seem new.)  Any suggestions?

(I'm not convinced ifwatchd is working yet, and getting the default
route installed was a pain, but I seem to have done it.)

-- 
Christopher Vance