pppd problems

[Jeffrey Watts]

On Wed, 3 May 2000, Gene and Amy Dascher wrote:

> messages:May 4 21:47:33 printsrv pppd[637]: The remote system is
> required to authenticate itself but I messages:May 4 21:47:33 printsrv
> pppd[637]: couldn't find any secret (password) which would let it use
> an IP address.
> 
> Does anyone have ANY idea what might be the problem?  I have gone
> through EVERY ppp FAQ and HOWTO that I can find, and CANNOT figure
> this out.  Has anyone had this problem before?

PPP is a very flexible protocol, and although most use it for dialup
connections, it is frequently used in WAN networking.

When pppd starts up, it checks to see if you have a default route.  If so,
it assumes that the PPP connection is a WAN link.

Now, normally when you do a dialup connection, you authenticate yourself
to the PPP server on the other side with a username and password.  Well,
it also works the other way.  Again, PPP is a flexible protocol, and when
it is used in WAN applications, typically both sides authenticate
themselves.  So when pppd sees a default route, it assumes that you want
to authenticate both ways.

I assume you have a home network, and that is why pppd is trying to
authenticate your remote PPP server.  To turn this behaviour off, and
return to "normal" PPP behaviour, add the option "noauth" to pppd's
command line arguments.  If you are using Red Hat, it is "PPP_OPTIONS="
(sp?) in your /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-ppp0 file.

Jeffrey.

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| Jeffrey Watts                     |
| watts at jayhawks.net         o-----------------------------------------o
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