Very Computer

I'm attempting to set up SLIP on my Linux 1.2.13 machine so I can dial
into Rice's SLIP servers.  I've compiled SLIP support into the kernel
and installed dip-3.3.7n (from the Slackware distribution).

A brief word about Rice's networking:
Our primary terminal server is called charon.rice.edu.  If all the lines
going into charon are busy, tho, the number automatically rolls over
to the secondary server, lethe.rice.edu.  So far as I can tell, charon
only has one IP address.  Judging by the /etc/hosts file on
is.rice.edu (one of Rice's many SunOS machines), where I'm currently
logged on, lethe has 3 different IP's.  I don't know if this will be
problematic or not.  Whichever server you get, things work pretty much
exactly the same -- you give it a username, password, type "slip", it
gives you an IP address (dynamically assigned), and off you go.

Anyway, back to the problem.

I went through the NET-2-HOWTO and did all the steps that seemed
necessary for a SLIP connection: added the commands which establish
the loopback address to rc.inet1, yanked the lines which run inetd &
other net daemons from rc.inet2 (I don't want anyone to be able to
connect to my machine, and of course I'm not always logged on).  I
grabbed the sample dipscript file from the howto, changed it slightly
to reflect my login prompts, etc., and ran it.  Oh, I suppose I should
point out that I have left /etc/HOSTNAME at "darkstar.frop.org" -- I
can't predict what IP address I'll end up with, so it didn't make
sense to give my machine a new name.  Also, I explicitly set the MTU
at 1500.  I know what it says in the README for dip, but Rice
distributes Trumpet Winsock for Windows SLIP connections; they've
preconfigured it, and that's the value they use for MTU.  So anyway, I
run dip:

# dip /etc/dipscript
darkstar: Unknown server error.

To see if it was a problem with my script, I tried:

# dip -t -v
darkstar: Unknown server error.

First off, what does this error message mean?  My local computer
doesn't know what the name "darkstar.frop.org" refers to?  It's got to
be a problem with my computer, because I get the error message before
I hear any sort of noises from the modem which would indicate dialing.

Anyway, if we can figure out what it means, what can I do about it?

Thanks a lot for your help, and I'm sorry I kinda rambled here,

Richard

Quote:># dip /etc/dipscript
>darkstar: Unknown server error.

>To see if it was a problem with my script, I tried:

># dip -t -v
>darkstar: Unknown server error.

>First off, what does this error message mean?  

It means: read those blooming README files in DIP directory!

Quote:>My local computer
>doesn't know what the name "darkstar.frop.org" refers to?

As you correctly guessed - no it doesn't. So why don't you
assign a hostname to your host and put it in /etc/hosts?
--
Regards,
Uri.

<Disclaimer>
I'm not sure which upsets me more:  that people are so unwilling
to accept responsibility for their own actions, or that they are
so eager to regulate everyone else's.