[ltp] Problem connecting to ISP with TP600

[Tod Harter]

> >
> > lo        Link encap:Local Loopback
> >           inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
> >           UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1
> >           RX packets:13493 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
> >           TX packets:13493 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
> >           collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
> >           RX bytes:10459494 (9.9 Mb)  TX bytes:10459494 (9.9 Mb)
>
> I get about the same thing, except for the packets size which is only
> 8

Well, your RX and TX packet counts and bytes will of course vary. The 'MTU' 
value should probably not be different though, thats the size of the 
"packets" that the interface supports. Since lo is a complete software 
artifact the value is 16k bytes probably just for maximum efficiency. If you 
have an MTU of 8 though I would think that highly unusual and indicative of a 
problem somewhere.

>
> > and you should also have an entry like
> >
> > 127.0.0.1               localhost.localdomain   localhost
> >
> > in /etc/hosts
>
> Yes, I did have that line.
>
> But, now, I am stuck more than ever, since I can no longer boot my
> system. While booting, after the line :
>
> "bringing up interface lo:   OK
>
> it gets stuck on the next line, which says :
>
> "bringing up interface ppp3"
>
> I can't understand what it is about that new interface... I must have
> done something wrong in the numerous trials that I have carried
> tonight. I is now too late to go any further ; hopefully I will manage
> to watch it to morrow.
>
ppp3 eh? hmmm. ppp can get used for a variety of purposes. Usually dial-up, 
but some DSL setups also require ppp (and there are many other more arcane 
uses for it). I suppose you could have stumbled into a config dialog in 
whatever program you are using to config your machine and turned something on.

As a rough guide to how networking is set up on Linux boxes (at least in the 
Red-hattish part of the Linux world), there is a script /etc/init.d/network 
that is the master network startup script. That generally brings up your lo 
interface and any other interfaces, like eth0 that can be initialized at 
startup. The configuration of your network interfaces is garnered from the 
/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts directory. Each interface has a script there, 
which simply sets some environment variables like the IP number, interface 
name, etc. /etc/init.d/network just calls 'ifup $DEVICE' for each one that is 
marked with 'ONBOOT=yes' at startup. You can call ifup and ifdown yourself 
with an interface name to accomplish the same thing. So you can no doubt get 
rid of the rogue 'ppp3' by deleting 
/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-ppp3. However generally ppp interfaces 
get started by /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifup-ppp which works 
differently. It is in fact way complicated... I don't even pretend to fully 
understand it.

As for PPP configuration... 

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