🚀 go-pugleaf

news@absamail.co.za wrote:
> Clifford Kite wrote:
>> Telephone the ISP and ask whether a normal user login is allowed.

> They only know which M$ cartoon to click on.

:-}

>> The ISP may be waiting for a menu command.  Try "ppp", "?", "menu", and
>> "terminal" and see what you get from the ISP.  Even if none of them work
>> you may get some insight into what the prompt expects.

> Yes  Good, that got me started.  Here's my log, [but I still don't know 
> how to access the mail server]:--------

> Opened ...
> |ATZ
> OK
> ATX
> OK
> ATM2D 3407501
> CONNECT
> CChecking authorization, Please wait...
> username:2nm4nx6x@za
> password:

> cas6-rba>enable  <--- see menu below
> password:  <--- I used my login password
> % Access denied

I'm fairly sure this means you don't have a shell login/password user
account on the ISP host, just a PPP account and authentication is via
PAP or CHAP during PPP negotiations.  It's very likely the menu only
appears when you don't start PPP right away, or the ISP host receives
a carriage-return.

I suspect you have to work for the ISP to have shell login access
- again, that option has almost, if not entirely, disappeared for
ISP clients.

The ISP that allowed shell login was small, used a BSD system and, as
I recall, seemed to have only two hosts.  One was the both the client
PPP connection and administrative host; it allowed the login.  I think
the other was the POP/SMTP mail server which was accessed from a shell
login connection with a user mail agent, just as is the case for a PPP
client at home.  This was a rather long time ago (in Internet time).

> cas6-rba>help
> Help may be requested at any point in a command by entering
> a question mark '?'.  If nothing matches, the help list will
> be empty and you must backup until entering a '?' shows the
> available options.
> Two styles of help are provided:
> 1. Full help is available when you are ready to enter a
>    command argument (e.g. 'show ?') and describes each possible
>    argument.
> 2. Partial help is provided when an abbreviated argument is entered
>    and you want to know what arguments match the input
>    (e.g. 'show pr?'.)

> cas6-rba>rlogin
> % Incomplete command.

According to the rlogin man pages rlogin needs a host name specified.
I've never used rlogin, but if you don't have a shell account on the
host then I strongly doubt that it will work.

It should added that the ISP with the menu was not the same as the
ISP that allowed shell logins - a distinction I should have made in
my previous response.

> cas6-rba>telnet
> Host: absamail.co.za
> Translating "absamail.co.za"...domain server (168.210.2.2) [OK]
> Trying absamail.co.za (196.36.73.245)... 
> % Connection timed out; remote host not responding

> cas6-rba>?
> Exec commands:
>   disable  Turn off privileged commands
>   enable   Turn on privileged commands
>   exit     Exit from the EXEC
>   help     Description of the interactive help system
>   logout   Exit from the EXEC
>   ppp      Start IETF Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP)
>   rlogin   Open an rlogin connection
>   slip     Start Serial-line IP (SLIP)
>   telnet   Open a telnet connection

> cas6-rba>
> cas6-rba>logout

> NO CARRIER
> ---------------  end of log.
> Previously some traces from the mail server indicated 'novell'.
> But not lately.
> But I guess that is irrelevant, since it's the OS that counts ?

Yes, and on both sides.  I don't know of any i286 Linux with networking,
and, in fact, I think Linux was developed for i386 architecture from the
very beginning.  Only fairly recently has a port to i268 been mentioned,
as determined from a google search.  So unless you are using such a port
on your "device," this is the wrong newsgroup, and I don't know any other
group to suggest.

I've never used a minix system, from which Linux sprang, but there are
hints it could run on an i268.  Or, as Tauno Voipio suggested, regress
to Windows 3.1 under DOS with Trumpet Winsock - if you can find them.

> I don't know enough about 'rlogin' and 'telnet' to know if they
> would help get to my mail-box.

> How should I proceed ?
> Thanks for any advice.

The only advice I can give is to give up attempting to by-pass PPP
and start trying to find an OS with PPP-capable networking that can
run on your i286 device.  Login at the menu didn't work, and neither
did the telnet and rlogin attempts to access the mail server, so it's
very likely that some kind of network connection will be necessary to
retrieve mail.

-- 
Clifford Kite                Email: "echo xvgr_yvahk-ccc@ri1.arg|rot13"