At 11:23 PM -0500 3/13/03, Miles Nordin wrote:
>  >>>>> "mgs" == Michael G Schabert <mikeride@mac.com> writes:
>
>    mgs> I installed rp-pppoe a couple years back and it worked
>    mgs> just fine and took me under a minute to set up from start to
>    mgs> finish.
>
>I'm glad it worked well for you.  I spent a lot more than a minute on
>it before I gave up, and since I was able to get the other supposedly
>less nice procedure to work I'm obviously not an idiot.

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that you were.

>
>It spewed out a bunch of garbage about eth0.

Ummm, did you expect it to work on eth0 when NetBSD doesn't have one? 
While it was easy to set up, it simply *must* be told (1) what 
interface to use, (2) username, and (3) password. Those are the only 
entries I put anywhere. From there, type "adsl-start" and it puts me 
online. Use "persist" in the options file and adsl-start in rc.local 
and never think about it again.

Here's the top of the pppoe.conf file from rp-pppoe:

=====
#***********************************************************************
<snip copyright/description>
#***********************************************************************

# When you configure a variable, DO NOT leave spaces around the "=" sign.

# Ethernet card connected to ADSL modem
ETH=tlp0

# ADSL user name.  You may have to supply "@provider.com"  Sympatico
# users in Canada do need to include "@sympatico.ca"
# Sympatico uses PAP authentication.  Make sure /etc/ppp/pap-secrets
# contains the right username/password combination.
# For Magma, use xxyyzz@magma.ca
USER=vze3sxg6

# Bring link up on demand?  Default is to leave link up all the time.
# If you want the link to come up on demand, set DEMAND to a number indicating
# the idle time after which the link is brought down.
DEMAND=no
#DEMAND=300

# Obtain DNS server addresses from the peer (recent versions of pppd only)
USEPEERDNS=yes

### ONLY TOUCH THE FOLLOWING SETTINGS IF YOU'RE AN EXPERT
=====
So you just look at those very first two entries, and enter the 
*ap-secrets file and you're set up 100%.

>   It was easier for me to
>fix the self-evident problems with PPPoE itself than repair someone
>else's tangled spit-and-duct-tape Linux-specific shell scripts.  It's
>like, they're doing for me something I could easily do myself, except
>incorrectly.  it's like a Pppoe Wizard or something.  All it needs is
>a Tk frontend.
>
>The rp-pppoe documentation was chatty, full of assumptions, and
>arrogant.

I wouldn't know, I didn't look at the docs.

>   rp-pppoe is the sort of thing that belongs on a mailing
>list like what I posted and am posting now, not in a ``finished''
>package.

Apparently you were looking at an entirely-different beast than I was.

>   I do most of my sysadmining these days on the weekends while
>intoxicated, and that tangled mess of Linux bullshit was seriously
>harshing my mellow.  Most importantly apparently it's prone to bit rot
>between when you tried it and the 20021205 snapshot i was using.

Must be. I don't have it installed at the moment, but what you are 
describing isn't even in the same galaxy with my experience. Of 
course, I also didn't come to the table with an irrational bigotry, 
either :P.

>mouse-pppoe presumably hasn't been maintained in years yet worked
>fine, and needed no documentation.  Thank god most people don't need
>mouse-pppoe any more, but thank God again I'm not stuck with the
>Roaring Penguin.  ha ha roaring penguin.
>
>    mgs> adsl-start/stop (1) makes sense, (2) is just like the
>    mgs> ppp-up/down that I was used to for many years (Bill S/Paul G
>    mgs> ppp setup scripts), and (3) is a whole lot nicer than the
>    mgs> procedure you describe below.
>
>to each his own.  I never used any ppp setup 5<r1pt |<1T so I guess I
>didn't appreciate some dumbed-down and highly interactive method for
>bringing links up and down.  Maybe there is some use for this I
>haven't thought of yet.

"Highly-interactive"? I guess that I have a much different 
definition. So "adsl-start/stop" is highly-interactive, while:

ifconfig tlp0 up
mouse-pppoe tlp0 vrsq45dz
<either super-complicated script or SIGkilling the daemon to kill>

is non-interactive? Also, as mentioned above, I stuck adsl-start in 
the rc scripts and persist in the options file. There was no human 
interaction whatsoever.

As you say, to each his own.

Mike
-- 
Bikers don't *DO* taglines.