🚀 go-pugleaf

Slider@bertste.demon.co.uk (Other World) writes:

> I used NOS for quite a while and it works very well.  I have noticed though
> that it will not "logon" to demon unless there is one ring.  If it connects
> without one ring then it will just sit there doing nothing as you say.
> 
> For some reason there must be one ring but demon has the annoying habit of
> answering your call imediately.

The difference here is that the Ascend terminal servers, which serve
the majority of dialup connections, do not ring. These terminal
servers require an active PPP startup from the client, i.e. your
computer *must* initiate the PPP negotiation, since the Ascend units
will always work in passive mode. There are still some USR modem racks
in use, and these  do ring before answering. The modems in these racks
are connected to unix machines which run different PPP software, and
will work with clients which do a passive open.

Unfortunately, the KA9Q code on which NOS is based appears to be
broken with respect to setting it to open PPP in active mode, and it
will always work passively. Result: both your computer and the Ascend
sit waiting for the other to do something.

There are various work-arounds for this, one of which is to use SLIP
rather than PPP. One of the others is to use the command 'status up'
somewhere... sorry, I can't remember whether is has to appear in the
connect script or be typed at the net> prompt... doubtless others will
be able to say which and provide other solutions which I've missed.
-- 
Simon Oke, Demon Internet Ltd.