Subject: Some Win95 PPP "How to?" questions

From: John Martz <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 1 Dec 1997 14:52:31 -0500

Folks,

I really, really, really do NOT want to start a flame war here. So please take
10 deep breaths before replying to this post.

Over the last few days I've been getting some questions about how to do some
things in Win95 PPP that I think are just not supported. However, I have no way
of knowing whether something is not supported in the Win95 PPP implementation
or whether I just do not know how to do it. Was hoping I could find out by
posting to this list.

If there *IS* a way to do the following under Windows '95, would someone please
tell me how to do it?

- CHAP periodic rechallenge of Win95. It seems to me that Win '95 ignores any
CHAP challenge sent to it after the authentication phase has completed. Is
there a way to enable Win '95 to be compliant with RFC 1994?

- Win95 CHAP authentication of peer. I don't know of a way to get Win95 to
authenticate it's peer via CHAP (or PAP for that matter). Is this possible or
does Win95 only provide for authentication of itself to the peer, not the other
way around?

- Win95 CHAP periodic rechallenge of peer. (If I can't get Win95 to issue a
CHAP challenge, then I certainly don't know how to get it to periodically
rechallenge it's peer :-).

Has anyone put together a list of what (otherwise mandated) portions of the
RFC's are not supported in the Win95 PPP implementation? If so, I'd appreciate
a pointer to it.

Thanks,
-john martz, IBM AS/400 PPP development

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From: James Carlson <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 1 Dec 1997 15:40:06 -0500

> or whether I just do not know how to do it. Was hoping I could find out by

I'm not trying to flame your request, but it would probably be better
to contact the folks at Microsoft directly.

> there a way to enable Win '95 to be compliant with RFC 1994?

No.

> does Win95 only provide for authentication of itself to the peer, not the other

No.  Win95 PPP appears to believe in the "client/server" model of
computing, rather than PPP's standard peer-to-peer model.  Since it's
always a "client" (by definition; if you want a "server," then you run
NT), there's no need to validate the peer.

(Before others flame me:  I am NOT endorsing this view of the world.
It is clearly wrong.)

> rechallenge it's peer :-).

No.

> RFC's are not supported in the Win95 PPP implementation? If so, I'd appreciate

If Microsoft doesn't publish such a specification, then I strongly
doubt that it exists.

If you do obtain one under terms which will permit you to post it to
this list, please do.  I think we'd all be interested.

-- 
James Carlson, Consulting Engineer                <[email-masked]>
IronBridge Networks / 5 Corporate Drive            Vox:  +1 978 691 4644
Andover MA  01810-2448 / USA                       Fax:  +1 978 691 6300

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From: David Woolley <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 2 Dec 1997 08:18:05 +0000 (GMT)

> RFC's are not supported in the Win95 PPP implementation? If so, I'd appreciate

I can't remember whether it is Win 95 and or NT, and which NT, but the
IPX routing protocol negotiation is highly suspect.  There seems to
be a problem in this area anyway as the specs seem to be too open to
interpretation.  (The Linux implementation went round in several circles
and I don't think it yet agrees with my interpretation, but I think it
now interworks with Microsoft and itself, which probably covers most
people's wants.)  I'd have to search back to find the exact details,
but it was to do with unsupported protocols and/or multiple options.