🚀 go-pugleaf

In the Usenet newsgroup comp.os.linux.networking, in article
<__SdnZ2dnZ01ptKrnZ2dnQR9mt6dnZ2dRVn-0p2dnZ0@is.co.za>,
news@absamail.co.za wrote:

>Perhaps where I'm mistaken and will fail is that the mail-server
>is not located at the login-site, so I DO need ppp.
>Perhaps I'm thinking too much ito. BBSs ?

Perhaps - on the help menu, I don't see anything that obviously refers
to mail.  But then, what are you looking to do? Sending mail probably
wants a smart-host, and while absamail.co.za does have an A record of
196.36.73.245, the DNS says that the MX host is smtpserv.absamail.co.za
which is 196.35.40.11. On the other hand, if you are trying to _retrieve_
mail, you probably want some POP server, which may or may not be the same
host, or run some mail client - but the menu doesn't seem to offer one.. 

>No. Each ISP can use any OS.  I'm guessing mine uses Novell ?

Doesn't look like any Novell application I've ever used or seen.

>They just tell their clients how to login/connect.
>It's not RFC determined.

Unless they are supplying a floppy with some DOS/Windoze program, they
are limited to the mechanisms they can use to connect. Windoze (3.1, 9x,
ME, whatever) had a crappy terminal program - that would work with a
BBS type setup. DOS had no networking/communications capability, and
you had to have an extra application like ProComm to act as a terminal.
I don't think windoze supports the SLIP or CSLIP protocol, and that
leaves just ppp, and (as far as windoze is concerned) even that is only
in win95 and later..

>OK, that would fix another problem I've got:
>a 486 notebook with Win3.1 installed which used to connect
>nicely to an ISP, before W95 came out and the ISP said I had to
>'upgrade to W95' [so I changed to linux].

What was the application that you used back then?

>Recently I looked into the old scripts of the Trumpet Winsock,
>and found that they 'first login: ID & password' instead of the
>'modern' first ppp then PAP.    So I've been googling to get the
>software [ppp & PAP] for Win3.1.

ppp as a standard didn't happen until the 1990s. The original proposals
date from November 1989 (RFC1134). and July 1990 (RFC1172). The usable
version is described in RFC1331 from May 1992, and PAP authentication
(RFC1334) dates from October of 1992. PRIOR to that, you could have
been using SLIP, which despite the name of the RFC ("Nonstandard for
transmission of IP datagrams over serial lines: SLIP.") was released as a
standard in June 1988.

>I think the previous/old Win3.1 setup used slip ?

That is possible, as SLIP was fairly common, but this would be an add-on
to windoze - 3.1 had no networking capability, and only had "Windows
Terminal" as a pretty crippled terminal emulation program.

I notice in another article in this thread, you show the menu displayed
when you dial in.

]Exec commands:
] disable  Turn off privileged commands
] enable   Turn on privileged commands

You probably would have to pay extra (or be a member of the staff) to
gain access to this

>  exit     Exit from the EXEC
>  help     Description of the interactive help system
>  logout   Exit from the EXEC

Almost looks like an old BBS from years ago ;-)

>  ppp      Start IETF Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP)

>  slip     Start Serial-line IP (SLIP)

There are your two networking possibilities - if they really do want you
logging in as you did, I imagine 'ppp' is the command to start a ppp
session, just as the old HOWTOs described. As for 'slip', you may want
to try that - there were three HOWTOs with two now being unmaintained.

         27896 Feb 27  2001 SLIP-PPP-Emulator
         14710 Jun  2  2003 Dip+SLiRP+CSLIP
          6805 Jun  2  2003 SLIP+proxyARP

The Jun 2003 date was when they were passed into unmaintained status. The
'Dip+SLiRP+CSLIP' is actually dated October 1995, and the SLIP+proxyARP is
dated November 1996.  At "sunsite", they are in the ./docs/HOWTO/unmaintained
directory. Try ftp://ftp.sun.ac.za/mirrorsites/sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/
or  ftp://ftp.is.co.za/mirror/ftp.ibiblio.org/ as starting points.

The menu also offered "rlogin" (possible, but I'd really expect this to
be an extra cost option - your average windoze user's head would explode
if they tried to use it) and 'telnet'.  The 'telnet' doesn't appear to
be configured on the actual server. The 'rlogin' result you showed probably
means it wanted a hostname (rlogin foo.bar.co.za), but I wouldn't expect
anything useful out of that.

        Old guy