Subject: Re: pppd and PPP on Mac
To: None <port-mac68k@NetBSD.ORG>
From: Aaron S. Magill <amagill@uiuc.edu>
List: port-mac68k
Date: 04/20/1996 00:56:59
>I wrote about this about a week ago and have gotten some responses and a
>lot of help from Don Woodward Jr. However, I still can't get the sucker up
>and running. At this point it is simply a matter of solving a "why won't
>this work" problem as I have been using Slirp successfully for a while.
>
>Does anyone connect a Mac (running ConfigPPP) to MacBSD via pppd? There
>have been a number of posts regarding connecting MacBSD to other hosts via
>pppd but I haven't read anything about persons wanting to get internet
>access via their MacBSD box.

I was doing this for awhile, running pppd on a MacBSD machine dialed into
my ISP and another pppd running to my PowerMac.  However, depending upon
how your ISP is providing your service, a couple of different approaches
may be required.

If your ISP has allocated you two (or more, depending upon your needs) IP
addresses, then make sure that they are in fact routing all of them through
the link into your BSD machine.  Then make sure your MacBSD machine can
initiate contact with your other Mac.  The easiest way I've found to do
this is to simply ping your second Mac (this will only work if your Mac has
actually done something involving MacTCP, as the code which responds to
ICMP messages isn't started until TCP is initialized (ie. used.) -- start a
telnet session into your MacBSD machine.)  Another test would be to start
up telnet, make sure FTP enable is turned on and then open the ftp log.  If
ftp'ing your Mac from the MacBSD host gives you the message "Connection
opened from <name>" then the connection works.

Assuming all of this works, what have you told your Mac its DNS address is?
The MacBSD host, or the one provided by your provider?  If it is your
MacBSD machine, does nslookup on the MacBSD machine give correct results?
If not, you probably have a problem in your named configuration files
(though to be honest, I've had sporadic results with nslookup, and I know
mine is set up correctly!)

If that fails, post the results of 'netstat -rn' once you have both your
Mac connected and your host connected to your ISP, because the only thing I
think of left is that your routes are not quite right.

If, as in my case, your ISP only provides one IP address, will only provide
one IP address, and actually looks down on your with disdain if your
request more than one IP address, then you will have to run some sort of
proxy services on your MacBSD host.  I successfully installed TIS's
(Trusted Information Systems)
Firewall Toolkit to do this.  I will have a FAQ concerning this hopefully
avaialablle Sunday or Monday.

Essentially, get the fwtk from ftp.tis.com, and read the README file very
carefully.  It mentions a BSD install script which fixes the Make files to
work with BSD based systems... which MacBSD is.  You will also have to edit
the definition for sys_errlist (or is it syserr_list... do a make and
you'll see the error message soon enough! ;-) in about 4 different files to
match the one in the includes for your system... I forget exactly which
include file it is, but if you do a grep errlist /usr/include/* you'll find
it.  It's spelled out in the FAQ I'm writing.(which is not in front of me
right now, or I'd look it up.  Sorry.)

do a make and then a make install.  Check the configuration files and man
pages carefully to set up your system to provide proxies for ftp, http (www
browser), and telnet.  Others, like SMTP and NNTP are doable, but only with
a plug gateway which, unfortunately, requires you to identify the recipient
host... ie, you can set up a SMTP proxy, but it will mearly forward your
request to one specific machine on the internet, not to anyone you happen
to fancy.

Once this is installed, Your Mac OS machine will telnet by first telnetting
to your MAcBSD machine, and then you'll get a prompt for the remote machine
you want.  For web browsers, tell it that your MacBSD machine is a proxy
server for http, gopher, and ftp all on port 80.  In netscape, this is done
under Network preferences... I don't know about other web clients, but I
assume they can handle proxies.

For FTP, I'd use Fetch 3.0, as it also hides the fact that you are using a
proxy server, one you tell it that your MacBSD is the proxy server.  I
forget where in the preferences this is, however.

If you can wait a couple of days, this is all given in much more detail in
the FAQ I am preparing.

>
>I basically dial in to a modem on the MacBSD box on tty00, login, start
>pppd and click the Start PPP button in my ConfigPPP manual terminal window.
>The negotiation completes successfully and both MacBSD and the Mac say that
>ppp is up. However, I can only telnet to the MacBSD box and no where else.
>Every other attempt at coonecting to another host gets me a Mac OS error
>domain name not found. And yet a netstat -r shows the appropriate routes
>and I can telnet to the others hosts from the MacBSD box.
>

The quickest way to test to see if everything is setup pretty close to
correct is to find out the IP address of a machine out on the internet that
you are trying to get to and then telnet to that from your other Mac.  If
you get through with the IP address, then the problem is with your
nameserver... either the entry under MacTCP (or Open Transport) is wrong,
or your nameserver on the MacBSD host is misconfigured.


>Any ideas? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller...?
>
>___________________________________________________________________________
> University of Iowa                            Voice      : (319) 384 3726
>                                               FAX        : (319) 384 3707

Hope this helps and isn't TOO confusing! ;-)

Aaron


--
Aaron Scott Magill                                             amagill@uiuc.edu
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