I wonder if someone would mind helping me with a mystery that is causing me to pull my hair out...... I have been using a Linux server based on RedHat 5.2 for some time to connect to the Internet and provide masquerade for a bunch of Windows boxes on a private network behind it. Today I decided to redo the server to incorporate a few more sophisticated things like DNS, DHCP and HTTP serving for a prototype intranet. All went very well with one small hiccup. There seems to be an undocumented change in the behavior of ppp between RedHat 6.1 and 5.2. Using 5.2 invoking "ifup ppp1" will result in the server making one and one only attempt to connect to the internet. This is exactly what I want Using 6.1 if the dialout attempt fails, it simply loops and tries again and again until it either connects or is stopped. I don't want this, nor do I think it is intelligent designed behaviour. I have compared all the relevant (I hope) scripts between 5.2 and 6.1 but I cannot find a difference that would account for the changed behavior. I have the awful feeling I've missed something important (it's been a long day), could someone please tell me what it is? On the other hand, it just might be a genuine bug..... Tony Smith
I believe the ppp-watch process started in the ifup-ppp script is what you're looking for here. It monitors the interface and continues trying to bring it up until the interface has been connected at least once. This eliminates problems caused by intermittent dialing and connecting errors, which is generally a good thing. I'm not completely sure if this will work or not, but commenting these lines out from /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifup-ppp should restore the behavior you want: #if [ "$1" != daemon ] ; then # # just in case a full path to the configuration file is passed in # ifcfg=$(basename $1) # shift # # let ppp-watch do the right thing # exec /sbin/ppp-watch "$ifcfg" "$@" #fi #shift