Cannot Login with BestData 56SX-92 rev-2 External Serial Hardware modem (!)
 

Best Data V.92 External serial hardware modem, should be the quintessential no-brainer for Linux, right? Well, it sits on COM1, kppp queries and receives the command set perfectly well, it dials up nicely and connects at whatever speed I tell it to, and when it tries to login with my credentials it just sits there for about thirty seconds and starts over. Endlessly.

And I know what this sounds like; it sounds like I made a booboo entering my username and/or password, but I've checked and rechecked them a dozen times. The username and password are correct. And it works perfectly in XP.

Basically, I don't have a clue. I�ve been all over the 'net, and I can't find a single person that's had trouble using this modem with Linux. Please assist.

Have you checked with your ISP to see if they can grep their logs for your username and find out what error they see there? Probably easiest to go that route, you don't have to tell them that you use Linux, just tell 'em you're troubleshooting a login issue.

is the login protocal set to PAP/CHAP if that doesn't work your isp might use a different one. try using pppsetup or wvdial there's alot of linux dialers

My ISP's authentication type is listed as "MD5 CHAP". I set up ppp manually and dialed in manually. I got about the same results: ppp reported that CHAP Authentication was successful, local and remote IPs were echoed back, and there she sat, deaf and dumb.




Great idea, that. I'm definitely going to try it tomorrow.

I called tech support. It connected me to India of course. The guy at the other end was friendly enough, but he told me that it was absolutely out of his power to pull up any information on my login attempts. That’s what I get for using an immense globe-spanning outfit like AT&T for my provider, I suppose.

He did give me a test login and password used for testing modem settings. It produced precisely the same results as my own account: successful dialup, successful connect and then *thbbbth*.

Worldnet doesn’t have a great deal of support for Linux. Their Linux troubleshooting page was last updated in ’96. Looks like I’m on my own.

Can you run tcpdump or maybe ethereal and see whats going on with the packets back and forth? Sounds like maybe the modem is sending a stop bit to the terminal server.

I gave up on the bloody thing, returned it, and bought a ModemBlaster that was up and running in about 90 seconds including the time it took to unpack it and plug it in.

Regardless, thank you all for the assist.