Hello Craig, On Sun, 2012-08-05 at 23:28 +1000, Craig Sanders wrote:
cc-ed back to the list. please don't reply privately when the discussion belongs on the list.
I try to keep things on the list, but also try to not unduly clutter. I am still sorting out the balance point.
On Sat, Aug 04, 2012 at 08:14:26PM +1000, Mark Trickett wrote:
On Sat, 2012-08-04 at 08:59 +1000, Craig Sanders wrote:
On Fri, Aug 03, 2012 at 09:45:57PM +1000, Allan Duncan wrote:
It won't help you with your download problem, but it helps explain strange numbers when MPLS gets invovled.
well spotted.
But since I am not an Internode customer, I cannot get to that page. I
I meant well-spotted RE the fact of MPLS, not the particular web page.
There was a reference to a Cisco site. I visited, and have printed so I can try to get my head around. I will need to reread several times, along with chasing more introductory material.
MPLS is something that is easily googled, whether you have access to one ISP's customer-only web pages or not. someone there will likely know wvdial and modem pppd configuration a lot better than I remember it (i haven't used a modem connection for over 10 years).
There might be a few little items that "itch" if someone like myself asks questions. As to the pppd, I am looking at the configuration file, but finding that I can understand parts. Some of the rest is somewhat network technical in ways that I had not yet encountered.
I think Mark has mentioned problems downloading the Linux Journal before. Makes me wonder what the MTU and MRU on his PPP interface is and whether he (or Telstra) is blocking ICMP packets (in particular ICMP Fragmentation Required msgs).
Tell me where to look, and how to set, and I will try.
you need to mru and mtu values in the pppd config file for your connection. e.g. /etc/ppp/peers/provider. the exact filename depends on your distro and what method you used to configure pppd in the first place (e.g. gui config, dialog text mode config, or just a text editor) see the man page for pppd and the network configuration documentation for your distro for details.
you'll want to add lines like:
mtu 600 mru 600
Found, and uncommented where appropriate, and added 600 as the value. There are other things that I could not find, or misunderstand, such as enabling logging, and setting the default route. There is an entry that mentions proxy, but not quite certain of relevance. Quoting with leading comment follows. # Add an entry to this system's ARP [Address Resolution Protocol] # table with the IP address of the peer and the Ethernet address of this # system. proxyarp
I am currently using wvdial, and want to know what options are passed to pppd.
no idea. i've never used wvdial.
Looks like the contents of /etc/ppp/options is relevant, but does not include everything mentioned in the man pages. Still scratching my head, and getting splinters.
I am also looking to migrate to a desktop running Debian 6, and would very appreciate some pointers to making use of "pon" and "poff", particularly just what is the minimal necessary to configure.
IIRC debian has a curses/dialog pppconfig tool for managing ppp configuration. dunno if they have a gui or not. the abominable gnome Network Manager may do ghastly things in the name of configuring pppd. dunno. vi has always been my configuration tool of choice.
I am looking to at least not start Gnome Network Manager, probably also uninstall, but need to sort out exactly which packages to uninstall. As to vi, I do have the "vi cheat sheet" mug, but currently tending to use gedit. Meat space is where I am at, I want to get better practiced, but trying to keep an income stream from what I can do that is wanted locally. I am valued more for my physical activities at this stage, although I am feeling being over 50, and wanting to be less dependent on physical exertion.
I would also appreciate pointers to more advanced configuration. I need the modem link to be the default route, rather than any Ethernet interface.
1. don't have a gateway line in your ethernet configuration - that tells ifup that you want a default route pointing at the gateway mentioned.
2. add "defaultroute" to your ppp configuration. same place as you add the mtu and mru.
Thanks, noted, will be trying to sort out the desktop soon.
As commented, a little advice would be appreciated. I would also appreciate comments about how wvdial invokes pppd, and why when I use wget, I need to use the --no-proxy option to get anywhere at all.
no idea about wvdial but if you need to specify --no-proxy, that means you have a proxy set in either your environment (type: 'set | grep -i proxy' to check. use 'unset foo_proxy' to remove for the current running shell, edit your bashrc/bash_profile/etc files to remove permanently), or in your wget config. check ~/.wgetrc and maybe /etc/wgetrc.
Will go looking soon. One promising thing, the wget invocation is running well at the moment, I have been running the traceroute command periodically. The first four tries died early, before I issued the traceroute command. I am trying this because that was the difference when I managed to get 36% on a previous session, but with only one invocation. It appears to do something to the traffic that I do not understand.
craig
Regards, Mark Trickett