Network wizard issues

[Michael A. Peters]

Normally I connect via PPPoE - but my dsl company (sbc/yahoo) has had
major problems last couple of days - gives me IP address and I can ping
around, but it doesn't load pages completely.

No problem - I have a 56k dialup account just for these such occasions.
So I used the wizard to add it as a connection. Took down the pretty
much useless PPPoE and brough up the standard PPP.

Got me an IP address, but I couldn't ping anywhere.
I could get it to work by turning off the PPPoE at boot and turning on
the dialup modem at boot - but then, when looking at the network control
panel - it shows both connections as being down.

I won't attach it because not everyone wants to see it - but you can
view it at

See http://homepage.mac.com/mpeters/misc/fc2_network.png

ppp0 is the dsl configuration
eth2 is the onboard nvidia nic, which is not is use
eth1 is a tulip pci nic, which is what is attached to the dsl modem
eth0 is the onboard 3com nic (a7n8x deluxe), which is connected to my
lan
ppp1 is a us robotics pci hardware modem.

The panel shows both ppp connections inactive - yet the us robotics
dialup modem is in fact active and working, only ifconfig reports it as
ppp0 and not ppp1

ppp0      Link encap:Point-to-Point Protocol  
          inet addr:216.127.178.141  P-t-P:216.127.176.3 
Mask:255.255.255.255
          UP POINTOPOINT RUNNING NOARP MULTICAST  MTU:1514  Metric:1
          RX packets:7293 errors:1 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:6383 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:3 
          RX bytes:7006290 (6.6 Mb)  TX bytes:415417 (405.6 Kb)

Anyway - there seems to a problem with how the network control panel
gets its information. And it also is not as easy to change which
interface is used as the default route when you need to.

While I generally despise Windows, I must confess they make it easier to
deal with when you need to bring down your interface that is the default
route and bring up another one that is to become the default route.

I'm not sure what components need the bug reports filed - but if the
second ppp interface is listed as ppp1 in the network configuration
control panel, then it should come up as ppp1 even if ppp0 isn't active.
I suspect that is why it currently shows it as inactive even though it
is active (hence you getting this e-mail)

I also think that when a default route interface is brought down, that
it should be easier for the OS to bring up a new connection as the
default route.

If I am "doing it wrong" from the gui, then how to do it right needs to
be better defined in the network control panels/wizards (which btw need
to be consolidated into a single tool imho)

If there is any clarification I need to do, please request.

-- 
Cheap Linux CD's - http://mpeters.us/linux/