[SLUG] Bigpond Direct ADSL Authentication Problems

["Myles Pope (MLPA)" <mlpope@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi all,

This is my first posting to SLUG ..... so I am dressed in virginal white
accordingly. Be gentle.

Q. Has anyone got bigpond _direct_ ADSL to authenticate?

Background: I concede that the 'standard' bigpond ADSL is essentially a no
brainer to get working with the ol' roaring pengy but BP Direct seems less
obvious....(in fact.... extremely obscure..)

Problem: My debug of the bigpond _direct_ service pppoe attempt shows that
it dies at the CHAP authenication stage in a similar way to the way that it
would if you had an incorrect username/password only it doesn't actually say
'CHAP failure' in the way that it does if I use the wrong username and
password. It just does a modem hangup which is equally useful ! Yep the
username/password is ok (it is in the format user@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx for the
Direct service rather than user@bigpond as it would be for the dynamic IP
home service ). I rang Telstra - they were helpful but stumped (even the
linux aware techs that I spoke to had no idea.)

Actions taken so far: I have read everything (well almost...) on the Net
about rp-pppoe, pppoe in general and DSL and don't believe I have made any
configuration mistakes. Frankly, it all looks pretty straightforward.. I am
using rp-pppoe 3.0-1 (and I tried an older version too) on a 2.4 kernel. I
am NOT using the 2.4 kernel based pppoe and I know my configs are ok because
I can 'see' the Telstra access concentrator and my debug output is fine
apart from the modem hangup failure at CHAP time. I even got Telstra to
change my username/password. I have tried every permutation/variation of my
username in pppoe.conf and pap/chap-secrets. No joy. I even tried lots of
other options for pppoe including explicitly specifying my access
concentrator (-C vet1-exhibition). Still no happiness. The adsl-sniff (which
I ran whilst connecting) gleefully tells me that Telstra use a 'normal'
pppoe implementation which seem unlikely... Then the Telstra
'shastanets.com' box kicks me off! My money is on Telstra having an
unfriendly implementation of DSL for Linux rp-pppoe.... My understanding is
that once I get to the shastanets box it looks at my direct.telstra.net
domain  extension on my username and says to itself 'here is a direct user,
not a bigpond user' and tries to tunnel me off somewhere.....and it just
ain't working...

Interestingly, I note that one other SLUG subscriber reported the same
problem in June this year -  only there was no reply to his SLUG posting....

*** Q: Is anyone operational on Big Pond Direct? Any ideas? ***

(Debug info below)

DEBUG=1 adsl-start

/snip/
Using interface ppp0
Connect: ppp0 <--> /dev/pts/3
sent [LCP ConfReq id=0x1 <mru 1492> <magic 0x7e735756>]
rcvd [LCP ConfReq id=0xf8 <magic 0x7c743e75> <mru 1500> <auth chap MD5>]
sent [LCP ConfAck id=0xf8 <magic 0x7c743e75> <mru 1500> <auth chap MD5>]
rcvd [LCP ConfAck id=0x1 <mru 1492> <magic 0x7e735756>]
sent [LCP EchoReq id=0x0 magic=0x7e735756]
rcvd [CHAP Challenge id=0x1 <627b7235abccc66a5e073e391f9d213e>, name =
"ppp@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx"]
sent [CHAP Response id=0x1 <8adef8111d4dbcacfe20eefc2850621f>, name =
"mycorrectusername@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx"]
rcvd [LCP EchoRep id=0x0 magic=0x7c743e75]
Modem hangup
Connection terminated.

Thanks in advance.

Kind regards,

Myles Pope
Principal
MLPA
mlpope@xxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.mlpa.com.au
tech support   0500 836 836
mobile 0417 20 2244
international +61 500 836 836
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