[NTLUG:Discuss] Re: Prodigy problem, me too

[nrut]

David Bishop wrote:
> 
> -- I too have been having problems connecting to Prodigy since Wednesday.
>    Their techsupport is not certified to help with linux (no surprise), and
>    really could only verify that the dialup numbers "should" work.
> 
>    I was told to simply change my login name from "username" to
>    "username at flash.net" and everything would be fine (using the same dialup
>    number 214-743-1123). Well no luck. This is the part of the output sent to
>    /var/log/messages
> 
>          Password -- got it
>          send (xxxxx)
>          Serial connection established
>          Using interface ppp0
>          Connect: ppp0 <--> /dev/cua0
>          Modem hangup
>          Connection terminated
>          Exit
> 
>    It seems like the username and password are accepted, but then the connection
>    is closed. So I tried minicom to do the connection manually, and then start
>    the pppd daemon. In minicom, I dial the number ATDT2147431123, and I get the
>    request for login and password. It seems to be accepted, but then about 6
>    seconds later I receive a NO CARRIER message.
> 
>    With minicom, I tried to dial Prodigy's access number 214-461-0095. Entering
>    the username and password, I am told that the username/password pair is not
>    valid. The weird thing, is that I can go to prodigy.net (using a friends
>    Windows machine) and login to my.prodigy.net using the same username and
>    password. I called Prodigy, and they confirmed my username and password.
> 
>    Any help or advise would be greatly appreciated.
>    David G Bishop
>    bishopdg at flash.net

Well, In case you didnt see my follow up to myself in
news://ntlug.org/linux.help
I find wvdial (source at
http://www.worldvisions.ca/wvdial/wvdial-1.41.tar.gz)
to be a dandy solution.  

Stracing wvdial reveals that just after it says "it doesnt know what to
do,
starting pppd") it writes to /etc/ppp/pap-secrets and
/etc/ppp/chap-secrets
but it does this before actually starting pppd.  So I decided to loosely
follow
the instructions of http://pages.prodigy.net/len_mullen/linux/

and create this file:

[root at localhost /root]# cat dial.prodigy 
#!/bin/sh 
/usr/sbin/pppd /dev/modem 19200 connect  '/usr/sbin/chat ""
ATDT8176983010 CONNECT'  -detach noipdefault defaultroute user
flygal at flash.net
[root at localhost /root]#

and it connects to prodigy as well without modifiying the files created
by wvdial
In short, yes it appears that Prodigy uses PAP.

here is my modified pap-secrets file (because I dont use PASSWORD as a
password!).

[root at localhost /root]# cat /etc/ppp/pap-secrets 
# Secrets for authentication using PAP
# client        server  secret                  IP addresses
flygal  ppp1    PASSWORD
word    ppp0    PASSWORD
flygal at flash.net        *       PASSWORD
[root at localhost /root]# 

and in case anybody wonders, I didnt pick the username :)

--
The reason that every major university maintains a department of
mathematics is that it's cheaper than institutionalizing all those
people.