Three times this week my PPP has simply died during a dialup session after working for months with no problems. Nothing in and dns wouldn't work I could ping the server and received an IP upon redial but that was it. First time I got mildly Irritated and next try it worked (a few hours later). Next time I got REAL irritated. Called my ISP and was told they had a problem but they rebooted and everythings good. Servers fault. This morning it died right in the middle of a session. I got the number,name and password from a friend and after rerunning pppsetup. No Go. I go back to my dialup and edit all the ppp scripts by hand. Found several errors,turned on debugging and ppp-go. Check this /var/debug file.

Feb 16 08:13:28 al pppd[468]: rcvd [LCP ConfAck id=0x1 <asyncmap 0x0> <magic 0xdbd8332c> <pcomp> <accomp>]
Feb 16 08:13:28 al pppd[468]: rcvd [CHAP Challenge id=0x36 <ec4e171959e731c2ae7e3ff154b86959>, name = "hades.texol.net"]
Feb 16 08:13:28 al pppd[468]: sent [CHAP Response id=0x36 <ba78a77c3f26690638c3399db0189cd8>, name = "allenh"]
Feb 16 08:13:29 al pppd[468]: rcvd [CHAP Success id=0x36 ""]

"hades.texol.net" is not my ISP. (not even close) but it ate my username and password and loaded like it should. Now I'm not mad anymore but seriously confused.

I suggest it is a problem with the ISP connection reoccuring again. However, if you are "borrowing" an account from somebody else, then it could be security violation as well. Many ISP's will limit sessions for an ID to just one session. Since only one account was paid for, it is most reasonable. But it can cause some very unusual problems from the user perspective.

Texol.net does appear to be a real company with operations based in Odessa, TX. They have a full web page and do offer dialup internet services. Many larger ISP's have made arrangements with many smaller ISP's to purchase the use of their resources. That way they can offer nationwide services without the cost of maintaining equipment everywhere. They just pay someone else for the actual use. Texol.net may have such an arrangement with your ISP. You would have to check with the ISP if that is the case.

It would appear that hades.texol.net is a server name that is used for the CHAP authentication. However, it doesn't resolve as a valid server name. It is also very difficult for me to imagine an ISP naming a server "hades", unless it was based on MS software. The published name servers for texol.net are ns1.texol.net and ns2.texol.net.

If the user account is borrowed, then you should probably check back with the account holder and make sure that it is not in use somewhere else. The ISP here could of even implemented new security recently to prevent the abuse of accounts so the problem would of only recently appeared. From their web page, texol.net is a fairly restrictive ISP provider.

In addition, they could just be doing some maintenance this morning or have other ongoing issues. I assume you posted here using their service.

Of course, I am just guessing but I hope it helps in some way.