[aclug-L] Re: PPPD Demand Dial

[Bob_Deep <bobd@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

"Carl B. Davis" wrote:
> 
> Greetings,
> 
> I have a small network with Redhat 6.0 linux server.  The server runs
> file and print sharing, email and internet access.  I have pppd starting
> with the demand dial option and it worked fine for several weeks.  From
> a Win95 client, I would start netscape and a minute later it would be
> connected through the server and be off an running.  Last week, though,
> it started connecting and staying connected even though there was no
> traffic intended for the internet.
> I have checked the hosts file and lmhosts file on the clients and on the
> server.  I use static assigned ip addresses.  I am running sendmail,
> POP3 server with Eudora as the email client.  I have checked  the
> /var/log/messages file and see nothing different our out of the ordinary
> from when it worked.  I also checked /var/log/maillog and there is
> nothing extraordinary there.  There was a returned mail message
> yesterday related to incorrect email address, but it bounced and that
> should be the end of it.
> 
> My problem is I don't know how to find the source of the problem.  There
> is some traffic that is heading out to the internet that needs to be
> redirected.  How can I find out the source of  traffic.  If I can do
> that, maybe I can trouble shoot this issue.
> 
> Thanks for any suggestions.

You need to restrict what diald will accept to bring up the line, and
what counts to reset the timeouts on dropping the line to only specific
things.. Like DNS lookups, HTTP, Telnet, FTP, mail, and shut down
diald's responce to the rest.  You also need to further restrict what
brings up the line after normal business hours...  We shutdown diald to
the absolute minimums at night, to keep our dialup line down, even if
someone has a web page that is automaticly re-loading every few min.  We
then turn it back up about an hour before we open our doors and collect
our pending mail before everybody arrives in the morning.

What's happening, is what happened to us.  Some microsoft programs send
packets every 2 or three min.. Like AOL instant messager and the
like...  Or somebody could have a web page loaded that refreshes every
few min (say they are watching some stock price or something) and that
is keeping the line up all night.

You should be able to  turn on some logging and see what diald is
comming up for.

-- 
      -=  Bob =-
Hey.. This is my mail and I charge for SPAM I receive...