RH9 authentication problem
 

I upgraded my friend's PC from RH8 to RH9 because I was having trouble getting USB support for a scanner with 8.0. When I tried to connect to his AT&T e-mail it dialed, and said "resolving host netmail.att.net..." near the bottom of the Mozilla screen. It doesn't time out, but it never connects. I looked at /etc/ppp/chap-secrets and all the rest mentioned in AT&T's website message about Linux (some of which are files no longer needed) and nothing made any difference.
I brought the PC back with me (65-mile trip). When I tried to boot, it gave me a message saying BIOS guardian must be turned off before changing any settings. I had never turned on BIOS guardian, and can't get into BIOS to disable BIOS guardian. Could transpoting the PC have caused this, or is it likely to be because the mobo is 2-3 years old?
I took his hard disc out and put it in my spare PC and I'm back to where I was yesterday--dialing through and getting through part of the handshaking, but neither connecting to the internet or e-mail nor timing out. Could RH9 have written over some crucial authentication file that I don't know about? My friend is very upset about my having had to take his PC away!

Sounds like you need to troubleshoot that ppp connection. Can you get an error message from ppp somehow? I've used KPPP frontend for dialup and it worked very well. Whenever there was a problem, it gave me an error message.

I used kppp prior to RH8 but have been using Network Device Controller. But I took your suggestion and tried kppp. Results:
Couldn't find interface ppp0. No such device
Kernel supports ppp alright.
Couldn't find interface ppp0: No such device
Couldn't find interface ppp0: No such device
Opener: received OpenResolv
Opener: received RemoveSecret
Opener: received RemoveSecret
At that point it just sits and does nothing, not even timeout. The bottom of the Mozilla window still says "resolving host netmail.att.net."

I installed my D-Link DI-604 since I brought the computer here to N.O. but it doesn't seem to work with my SpeedStream 5360 ethernet bridge on either machine, but the D-link DFE-530TX+ NICs work fine with the 5360.

I thought ppp was for a plain dialup modem connection. What's this about ethernet?

That's for a different machine, using ADSL. I tried that on this one too since it was easy to start on the other one, just to see if it would work. It didn't. Setting up dialup on the one in question was easy when I first installed 8.0. After the 8.0 dial setup didn't work in 9.0 I tried a new one and that didn't work either.
The machine I am writing this on is the one with ethernet/ADSL.

It seems like the modem is probably ok if it dials. You could probe it with something like "wvdial" to see if it appears to respond properly.

If the modem works properly then it must be your software configuration. You may need to contact the isp to make sure you have everything that's required for authentication....

Did you do an upgrade or something? You should have backed everyting up first! I never do upgrades, I prefer a freshly formatted partition. Good luck...

There are two related howto's at the Linux Documentation Project:

http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/PPP-HOWTO/index.html
http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/mini/ISP-Connectivity.html

Yes, I did an upgrade, which is what I thought someone on this forum was advocating a couple of days ago. Back up everything? I back up all data files, but I think I would have to back up the whole system to et some of these arcane files, and then wouldn't know what to look for if I needed it!
One of the links you gave me reminded me about looking at /var/log/messages. Here is my most recent attempt to connect:
11:21:57 localhost ifup-ppp: pppd started for ppp2 on /dev/ttyS0 at 115200
11:21:57 localhost pppd[3975]: pppd 2.4.1 started by root, uid 0
11:21:58 localhost wvdial[3990]: WvDial: Internet dialer version 1.53
11:21:58 localhost wvdial[3990]: Initializing modem.
11:21:58 localhost wvdial[3990]: Sending: ATZ
11:21:58 localhost wvdial[3990]: ATZ
11:21:58 localhost wvdial[3990]: OK
11:21:58 localhost wvdial[3990]: Modem initialized.
11:21:58 localhost wvdial[3990]: Sending: ATDT*70,5253398
11:21:59 localhost wvdial[3990]: Waiting for carrier.
11:21:59 localhost wvdial[3990]: ADTD*70,5233398
11:22:21 localhost wvdial[3990]: CONNECT 45333/ARQ/V90/LAPM/V42BIS
11:22:21 localhost wvdial[3990]: Carrier detected. Chatmode finished.
11:22:21 localhost pppd[3975]: Serial connection established.
11:22:21 localhost pppd[3975]: Using interface ppp0
11:22:21 localhost pppd[3975]: Connect: ppp0 <--> /dev/ttyS0
11:22:21 localhost /etc/hotplug/net.agent: assuming ppp0 is already up.
11:22:23 localhost modprobe: modprobe: Can't locate module ppp-compress-21
11:22:23 localhost modprobe: modprobe: Can't locate module ppp-compress-21
11:22:23 localhost pppd[3975]: local IP address 209.214.151.192
11:22:23 localhost pppd[3975]: remote IP address 209.215.5.149
11:22:23 localhost pppd[3975]: primary DNS address 205.152.132.235
11:22:23 localhost pppd[3975]: secondary DNS address 205.152.37.254
11:22:24 localhost logger: punching nameserver 205.152.132.235 through firewall
11:22:24 localhost logger: punching nameserver 205.152.37.254 through firewall
11:22:24 localhost su(pam_unix)[4050[: session opened for user root by (uid=0)
11:22:24 localhost su(pam_unix)[4050]: session closed for user root
11:23:17 localhost pppd[3975]: Terminating on signal 15.
11:23:17 localhost pppd[3975]: Connection terminated.
11:23:17 localhost pppd[3975]: Connect time 1.0 minutes.
11:23:17 localhost pppd[3975]: Sent 2838 bytes, received 1889 bytes.
11:23:17 localhost /etc/hotplug/net.agent: NET unregister event not supported
11:23:17 localhost pppd[3975]: Hangup (SIGHUP)
11:23:18 localhost su(pam_unix)[4103]: session opened for user root by (uid=0)
11:23:17 localhost pppd[3975]: Exit.
11:23:18 modprobe: modprobe: Can't locate module ppp0
11:23:18 localhost su(pam_unix)[4103]: session
Comments: (1) Phone number is BellSouth New Orleans. ATT_NO attempts show "no valid phone number" although everything but the number seems the same as BS and ATT-GPT. The latter won't connect from here without area code 228 and a toll charge, but it does give me a recorded "not a working number." I will of course have to change to the Gulfport number when I take the PC back to Pass Christian.
(2) Interface ppp0 is eth0, not connected to anything. My friend's PC doesn't have a NIC and I didn't take this one out when I moved his HD to my spare PC when his mobo apparently failed.
(3) I have never seen module ppp-compress-21 mentioned anywhere. I can't get modprobe to run on either PC, even as root.
(4) hotplug = USB? NET unregister?
I hope this makes sense to you, and really appreciate your efforts.

Don't forget, most BIOS passwords/authentication can be removed by shifting JP9 (usually) to the 2-3 position and then back. That also clears the other settings so make sure to get specs on the drives before doing it.

Actually, I think most of the important files are usually either in /etc or the user's home directory (possiblly hidden files that start with a "."). Backing up anything else should be unecessary. You can store the whole /etc directory in a tar.bz2 that's about 1mb in size, like this:

cd /
su
tar cfj etc.tar.bz2 etc

I backed up /etc from this machine and took it to the ailing one on a diskette using tar cfl etc.tar.bz2 etc, but I can't unzip it. Using tar -xfj etc.tar.bz2 produces
"tar: j: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: Error is not recoverable: exiting now"
Am I using the wrong command, or should I try compressing again?

it's "tar cfj etc.tar.bz2 etc", not "tar cfl etc.tar.bz2 etc", right?

For unzipping it you don't need the "-" and I don't know how that would affect it. The error message "Cannot open: No such file or directory" looks like you typed the path to etc.tar.bz2 wrong. Was it really in the current directory?

I tried tar xfj etc.tar.bz2 after making sure I was in the etc directory. No error message but no unzipping either. A new command line comes up immediately.

If you made etc.tar.bz2 in the / directory that you should also extract it from the / directory.

If you make etc.tar.bz2 from the etc directory then it's like this:

cd /etc
tar cfj ../etc.tar.bz2 .

When you unzip with tar xfj etc.tar.bz2, it won't give you any output when it works. If you wan output, add "v"

tar xvfj etc.tar.bz2

Thanks. tar csvj ../etc.tar.bz2 worked, but put the unzipped files in /etc/etc, a small problem to fix. But it didn't fix the authentication problem, so I did a cp -u to put the original (RH9) files back where they were. Now I can't get all the way through boot and am about to reload RH8.

Maybe you can use your install cd in rescue mode and go fix it. If you have a backup of /etc, you should be able to put it back the way it was. Just remember that the contents of a tar archive have directories relative to the current working directory when you created the archive.