Re: Problems with ppp

[turnbull@example.com (Stephen J. Turnbull)]

    Tan> I can't get ppp started when i listed the file, it is as
    Tan> follows: can you tell me why is there the dummy:No statistics
    Tan> available.  I am using kernel 1.3.30, ppp ver 2.2d.  What is
    Tan> eth0?  Thanks, tsle

I'll second Leo's motion that you should upgrade the kernel from
1.3.30 to 2.0.0, and if you do so you *must* upgrade the ppp to
2.2.0f.

You also need to tell us what you mean by "can't get started".  That
covers a whole host of problems, including things that have nothing to 
do with ppp, like whether the modem answers the phone or not.

An "interface" is a "program" that communicates in a standard way
between applications and a device driver, which is specialized to
particular hardware.  The reason why it is not integrated into the
device driver is that it is useful to separate code which handles
categories of similar (or identical) devices, such as "ethernet
boards" or "PPP" which require specific packet formats which are
wrapped around the IP packet, from the specific code that actually
manipulates the hardware.

tsle:~# cat /proc/net/dev
     Inter-|   Receive                  |  Transmit
      face |packets errs drop fifo frame|packets errs drop fifo colls carrier
         lo:      0    0    0    0    0        0    0    0    0     0    0

This is the "localhost" or "loopback" (strictly speaking this is
incorrect) interface.  It is a convenient way to communicate between
independent processes on the same host, which uses the same
application-level functions as TCP/IP communication with a remote
host.  This is how X Windows programs communicate with the server on
the same host, I believe, or Netscape communicates with the httpd on
your same host.

      dummy:No statistics available.

Dummy is a placeholder.  The device driver may need to think it's
talking to something (for example, when addresses are allocated
dynamically), and in those cases a "dummy" interface that goes nowhere
can be used.  Since it doesn't do anything, and you probably aren't
using it, there won't be any statistics available.

       ppp0:      0    0    0    0    0        0    0    0    0     0    0
       ppp1:      0    0    0    0    0        0    0    0    0     0    0
       ppp2:      0    0    0    0    0        0    0    0    0     0    0
       ppp3:      0    0    0    0    0        0    0    0    0     0    0

The usual ppp device driver (which is not the same as the pppd daemon) 
has four channels available.  If you had four modems, each one could
use a separate interface and communicate to a separate remote machine
via ppp.

       eth0:No statistics available.
       eth1:No statistics available.
       eth2:No statistics available.
       eth3:No statistics available.

These are ethernet interfaces.  Again, there are several channels,
each of which will be allocated in turn when a device decides to talk
to the kernel.  Apparently you have no ethernet board installed.

-- 
                           Stephen John Turnbull
University of Tsukuba                                        Yaseppochi-Gumi
Institute of Policy and Planning Sciences  http://turnbull.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp/
Tennodai 1-1-1, Tsukuba, 305 JAPAN                 turnbull@example.com