🚀 go-pugleaf

> > Clifford Kite wrote:
> >> Telephone the ISP and ask whether a normal user login is allowed.
> 
> > They only know which M$ cartoon to click on.
> 
> :-}
> --snip--
> 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.
> 
True, I was not specifically given a 'shell login/password user account'.
But his 'pre-ppp' login recognises me because if I give a dud name & 
password, it shows: -----------
CChecking authorization, Please wait...
username:dog
password:

% Authentication failed.   <-- because of dud ID & paswrd

username:2nm4nx6x@za
password:

cas15-rba>?   <-- replies to "?" because of recognised my ID & paswrd
Exec commands:
  disable  Turn off privileged commands
  enable   Turn on privileged commands
... ------  end of extract of log

> 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.
> 
Yes, but I'm hoping that since the 'system' apparently recognises/accepts
me, I can proceed to read my mail.
I'm thinking very much ito old BBS thechnology.
Perhaps inapropriately, and perhaps the mail-server is not 'there' at
the site where I'm logged in, and I'd need ppp to access it.
In which case the exercise is pointless.

> 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).
> >
> 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.
> 
OK
> 
> 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.
> 
Perhaps some one in the Novell group can tell me if/how I can access
the mail server ?
It seems pointless to me to use ppp if the mail-server is right there 
ayt the site ?

> Clifford Kite                Email: "echo xvgr_yvahk-ccc@ri1.arg|rot13"
 
Thanks for the input.

== Chris Glur.

PS. here's some more of my log, which shows that the ISP obeys 
me somewhat:-
...
cas15-rba>ppp   <-- it responded to this
Entering PPP mode.
Async interface address is unnumbered (FastEthernet0)
Your IP address is 0.0.0.0. MTU is 1500 bytes

}#@!}!P} %}"}&} }*} } }#}$@#}%}&jZ__}'}"}(}"}1}$}%t}3}  <--- OK !!