Topic: how to restart PPP connxn?

[Jeff Nelson]

Hi,

Well, I'm on the first day of use of our new e-smith server, and I'm still working out the bugs of our particular setup.  Here in Ecuador, our ISP connection likes to hang without warning.  (This also happened when we were using WinProxy.)  The modem will appear to be still connected, but no packets will be able to get through.  So in order to reconnect with WinProxy, what we had to do was manually hang up and then redial.  

It just happened, and since there were a lot of people using the network I didn't have time to figure out a better solution ... so I turned off the modem, rebooted, and then turned the modem back on during reboot.  To force it to reconnect, I did the access test.  I don't know if it would have dialed on its own.  

So, my question is, how can I hang up and redial without rebooting?  I don't of course want to be always rebooting, since it would disrupt file services.  My apologies if this seems obvious ... I'm still a relative newbie with the Linux command line.  

Jeff Nelson

[Joseph Morrison]

Hello Jeff!

Have you tried just turning off the modem, waiting a few seconds, then turning it on again? That should force the connection to drop completely, after which diald should bring it back up again automatically. There may be a delay before diald calls the ISP again, but it should get going eventually without requiring a reboot. (We are planning to provide more manual control over this in future versions of the software.)

Good luck!
- Joe

[Jeff Nelson]

Thanks, that works.  

The only problem is because of the quality of our ISP connection, it sometimes takes a few minutes to come back up.  :-{

Thanks!
Jeff

[Charlie Brady]

Jeff Nelson wrote:

> The modem will appear to be still connected, but no packets
> will be able to get through.  So in order to reconnect with
> WinProxy, what we had to do was manually hang up and then
> redial.
>
> It just happened, and since there were a lot of people using
> the network I didn't have time to figure out a better solution
> ... so I turned off the modem, rebooted, and then turned the
> modem back on during reboot.  To force it to reconnect, I did
> the access test.  I don't know if it would have dialed on its
> own.

Create an /etc/ppp/options file containing this:

lcp-echo-interval 30
lcp-echo-failure 2

This will send echo requests across the PPP link every 30 seconds, and drop the link if two in a row are not answered.
(You might like to tune the parameters to suit your circumstances.( Your system will then try to restart the link if there is any subsequent traffic.

You will still need to power cycle your modem if the problem is your modem firmware locking up.

I hope you are well clear of Tungurahua..

Charlie