After many days, spread out over many months I got resolved my KPPP dialup and ethenet fault on my Kubuntu 8.10 box. Since I had so much difficulty finding the solution ANYWHERE, I offer my solution consolidated in one place. I am not an expert, I am only posting my solution for review and comments.
This long post is intended to help any other Kubuntu newbies that may be trying to solve a problem similar to mine. Some of my solution below is unique, I discovered, to Kubuntu, and not to PPP and KPPP in general across all Linux distributions.
The Problem:
Normally, I connect to a home-network Ethernet switch for broadband access and to a Windows XP box for SAMBA file sharing reasons. At times I need to access a Dial-Up Internet connection when no Ethernet broadband connection is available. And I want to just Do It. I do not fuss around with Network Manager and DNS, Gateway, Domain etc. This was quite a challenge as Earthlink Tech Support (read: we be 'Fault-Isolation-Script-Readers' only,) were very emphatic that Earthlink Support does not, nor will not, support Linux in any flavor; only Windows and MAC. And sometimes not even MAC.
Step One
My first challenge was to actually get to the real cause of the symptoms. I would dial up the ISP (Earthlink) and get an almost immediate disconnect with an PPPD exit error code of 1. Since I am still a newbie at Linux (and Kubuntu in particular), this is where I spent a lot of time.
From SysLog (/var/log/syslog) fault one was mostly painless. My Syslog kept telling me I was trying to authenticate the IPS login server. I had to search every file in /ect/ppp including all sub-directories to search out each and every instance of PPP command AUTH, and comment that out and insert line with a NOAUTH command. There are many. The way it should work, I authenticate to my ISP, not the other way around.
Second Fault
Syslog now told me that I was actually transmitting a null sting for the password no matter what I did in KPPP.
Skipping about 16 to 20 hours of fault isolation, the cause was a missing " * " in file. (/etc/ppp/pap-secrets) Aside: to edit this file, you must be at (have) root privileges, so in Dolphin open /etc/ppp/ as root. Many other ways to skin this cat including access file from command line.
You need to edit the line (mine was the last line in the file) to insert an asterisk between your dialup <username> and your dialup <password.> The commented line above indicates you should place a period after your asterisk, but don't do it.
example: <email@address> * <loginpassword>
See file /etc/ppp/peers/provider for a clue. In that file, your login is used to find the array of userlogin to passwords in case you have multiple dialup connections.
First two faults were resolved: I could now log on to Dial-Up network.
Third Fault
The DNS and Gateway IP address from the ISP was not being changed, so my system with only a dialup network connection could not resolve to find Google with my FireFox browser. The Gateway was still my Broadband router.
There are two somewhat undocumented PPPD option-command defaultroute and replacedefaultroute. In the Unbuntu and Kunbuntu distributions, 'replacedefaultroute' is needed, but other support web sites, this PPPD option-command is unknown.
Double check file /etc/ppp/peers/wvdial-pipe to have both switches turned on, and in order defaultroute 1st then replacedefaultroute.
I also added the line replacedefaultroute as the last line in /etc/ppp/options.
Search sister forum help.ubuntu.com/community on a DialupModemHowTo thread for justification on this.
I am not sure why but if you search enough you will find that many more experienced posters suggest you comment out the following lines in /ect/ppp/options.....
lcp-echo-interval 30
lcp-echo-failure 4
aside: lcp = Link Control Protocol is useful in RADIUS user authentication and control of a wireless network from what I know, but I don't think it is all that useful for dialup ISP connections.
You may find a few other PPPD option-commands which I found needed to left alone:
usepeerdns
noipdefault
Resolution of Fault
As you can guess, in KPPP, I am using only PAP for authentication.
So, now when I am disconnected from the Ethernet network, and using Dialup, when the dialup connection is made, my eth0 DNS name-servers are replaced during the connection with the name-servers provided by my Dialup connection. The Gateway address is temporarily zeroed out (0.0.0.0) When I disconnect, all goes back to normal.
Hopefully I have remembered all the key steps to make this work.
Thank-you to all those who wrote posts that gave me parts of the story. I hope this is useful to some other newbie who needs this full story.
Phil
This long post is intended to help any other Kubuntu newbies that may be trying to solve a problem similar to mine. Some of my solution below is unique, I discovered, to Kubuntu, and not to PPP and KPPP in general across all Linux distributions.
The Problem:
Normally, I connect to a home-network Ethernet switch for broadband access and to a Windows XP box for SAMBA file sharing reasons. At times I need to access a Dial-Up Internet connection when no Ethernet broadband connection is available. And I want to just Do It. I do not fuss around with Network Manager and DNS, Gateway, Domain etc. This was quite a challenge as Earthlink Tech Support (read: we be 'Fault-Isolation-Script-Readers' only,) were very emphatic that Earthlink Support does not, nor will not, support Linux in any flavor; only Windows and MAC. And sometimes not even MAC.
Step One
My first challenge was to actually get to the real cause of the symptoms. I would dial up the ISP (Earthlink) and get an almost immediate disconnect with an PPPD exit error code of 1. Since I am still a newbie at Linux (and Kubuntu in particular), this is where I spent a lot of time.
From SysLog (/var/log/syslog) fault one was mostly painless. My Syslog kept telling me I was trying to authenticate the IPS login server. I had to search every file in /ect/ppp including all sub-directories to search out each and every instance of PPP command AUTH, and comment that out and insert line with a NOAUTH command. There are many. The way it should work, I authenticate to my ISP, not the other way around.
Second Fault
Syslog now told me that I was actually transmitting a null sting for the password no matter what I did in KPPP.
Skipping about 16 to 20 hours of fault isolation, the cause was a missing " * " in file. (/etc/ppp/pap-secrets) Aside: to edit this file, you must be at (have) root privileges, so in Dolphin open /etc/ppp/ as root. Many other ways to skin this cat including access file from command line.
You need to edit the line (mine was the last line in the file) to insert an asterisk between your dialup <username> and your dialup <password.> The commented line above indicates you should place a period after your asterisk, but don't do it.
example: <email@address> * <loginpassword>
See file /etc/ppp/peers/provider for a clue. In that file, your login is used to find the array of userlogin to passwords in case you have multiple dialup connections.
First two faults were resolved: I could now log on to Dial-Up network.
Third Fault
The DNS and Gateway IP address from the ISP was not being changed, so my system with only a dialup network connection could not resolve to find Google with my FireFox browser. The Gateway was still my Broadband router.
There are two somewhat undocumented PPPD option-command defaultroute and replacedefaultroute. In the Unbuntu and Kunbuntu distributions, 'replacedefaultroute' is needed, but other support web sites, this PPPD option-command is unknown.
Double check file /etc/ppp/peers/wvdial-pipe to have both switches turned on, and in order defaultroute 1st then replacedefaultroute.
I also added the line replacedefaultroute as the last line in /etc/ppp/options.
Search sister forum help.ubuntu.com/community on a DialupModemHowTo thread for justification on this.
I am not sure why but if you search enough you will find that many more experienced posters suggest you comment out the following lines in /ect/ppp/options.....
lcp-echo-interval 30
lcp-echo-failure 4
aside: lcp = Link Control Protocol is useful in RADIUS user authentication and control of a wireless network from what I know, but I don't think it is all that useful for dialup ISP connections.
You may find a few other PPPD option-commands which I found needed to left alone:
usepeerdns
noipdefault
Resolution of Fault
As you can guess, in KPPP, I am using only PAP for authentication.
So, now when I am disconnected from the Ethernet network, and using Dialup, when the dialup connection is made, my eth0 DNS name-servers are replaced during the connection with the name-servers provided by my Dialup connection. The Gateway address is temporarily zeroed out (0.0.0.0) When I disconnect, all goes back to normal.
Hopefully I have remembered all the key steps to make this work.
Thank-you to all those who wrote posts that gave me parts of the story. I hope this is useful to some other newbie who needs this full story.
Phil