i had a program crash my machine. after fsck my permissions seemed to have changed.
i can run kppp in root mode fine but get "soory, can't find modem" error under user.
please help.
i'm running knoppix 3.1 from hda.

Does the "sorry, can't find modem" message come up from kppp? What I mean is, does kppp run as a user? If so you may want to check out the permissions on the modem.

kppp generates the "sorry, can't find modem" message.
which tells me the program is operating correctly.
i have checked and rechecked the kppp settings to no avail.
kppp runs and connects perfectly as root.
am i just overlooking something?

The problem is probably with the permissions of your modem device. /dev/modem should be a symbolic link to the device where your modem is located. Check the permissions of the modem device.

there is no /dev/modem dir

I have to admit that I am somewhat perplexed. If you don't have /dev/modem
then that would explain why user cannot dial out but then I can't understand how
root can dial out. Unless Mandrake sets up kppp to point directly to the modem device without
going through /dev/modem. Any Mandrake users out there?

Here is a good description of how to set up your modem for kppp to use it.
I am giving you this link to save me having to type a lot.


http://helpdesk.ghg.net/linux/

The problem is not in your kppp permissions. The problem is somewhere inyour /dev directory. You will have to login as root to work on the problem.

There are a wide range of modem hardware devices. They can be attached to many possible locations on the /dev directory. For example:
the first serial port is /dev/ttyS0
the first USB port is /dev/usb/ttyUSB0 (I think)

When you do an complete install or just install a new modem you set up the modem on the appropriate file in /dev. Since there are huge number of possible positions for the modem it is a universal convention to make /dev/modem a symbolic link to where the modem really is installed.

The modem device has permissions just like any other Linux file. The permissions allow or disallow various users to use the device.

Your problem seems to be that your modem device file is set up so that root can use it but usr cannot. kpp is working correctly as root. It is also doing what it is supposed to as usr but probably the kernel is denying usr access to the modem device file because that is what the permissions are set up to do.

i have checked the kppp settings of root. the modem is connecting to ttys0. however, upone looking for the /dev/modem link i discovered that the directory doesn't exist.
the search is as follows:

root@knobbox:/# cd /dev
root@knobbox:/dev# ls -s ttys0 modem
ls: modem: No such file or directory
0 ttys0
root@knobbox:/dev#

does this mean that i merely need to create a symbolic link? if so, how do i do that?

First of all make sure as to whether you are talking about /dev/ttys0 or
/dev/ttyS0. The case of the letter S is hugely important.

To link the modem to /dev/ttyS0 (assuming upper case S) use:
ln -s /dev/ttyS0 /dev/modem

Then check the permissions on /dev/ttyS0 as per the web page instructions.

that must have been a major part of the problem . kppp now finds and dials the modem but doesn't actually connect to the network . rather, it continues to dial my isp, ping and then redials the isp and pings. any ideas why?

I have never used kpp. I use wvdial. kpp probably has a log somewhere. Compare the user kppp log to the root kppp log.

where do i begin looking for log files?

I don't know. Maybe somebody who uses kppp can help you out.

Here are some web sites that might help out.

http://howto.lycos.com/lycos/step/1,...+14228,00.html

http://devel-home.kde.org/~kppp/faq.html

Or you could try these commands:
find /home/user -iname "*kppp*"
find /root -iname "*kppp*"

forget it. i'm going back to win 2k.
this is exactly why linux will never unthrone windows.

is it more powerful? yes. does it "just work"? No.

maybe i'll make it a dual boot so i can continue to learn linux.
meanwhile, i have work to do. windows to the rescue...

Good on ya, windows has, and always will be far superior to linux.

You're absolutely right, Linux maybe powerful, but it will NOT surpass windows, Linux just does not work, it's ok for internal networking, but for the user that wants to use it the way windows is used, forget it!.

Don't bother, you're wasting disk space, use windows. Personally I would suggest using windows xp pro.

WINDOWS IS THE BEST!