At the end of January, I called out to the Lazy Web [1] for advice on how to get a Cisco 2611 to authenticate a PPPoE (Point-to-Point Protocol over Ethernet) connection and well, it's finally working (with no input from said Lazy Web [2]):
>
```
interface ATM0/0
description XXXXXXXXXX Secondary Internet Connection
no ip address
no atm ilmi-keepalive
pvc 6/42
encapsulation aal5snap
protocol ppp dialer
dialer pool-member 1
!
dsl operating-mode auto
!
interface Dialer0
description Authentication Happens Here
ip address XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX 255.255.255.0
encapsulation ppp
dialer pool 1
dialer-group 1
ppp chap hostname XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
ppp chap password 7 XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
!
dialer-list 1 protocol ip permit
```
But I do have to admit some confusion over why it suddenly started working. I had this configuration pretty much in place by the end of January but I just couldn't even see the customer's router by DSL (Digital Subscriber Line) (which, as you can see there, is a backup connection in case their router's primary connection goes down [3]). It's hard to debug this since you don't even see the traffic unless you pass an authencation request through the physical lines owned by The Monopolistic Phone Company, and because the radius authentication server wasn't getting any requests, that meant that our Cisco router wasn't seeing any DSL traffic from the customer.
Very annoying.
Then earlier this week **BAM** traffic suddenly was getting through. It's almost as if The Monopolistic Phone Company took their own sweet time in actually enabling the DSL circuit on our customer's phone line.
Good thing too, since their current provider is having issues with connectivity (and twice this week I've had to reprogram their router's primary IP (Internet Protocol) address). Now the issue is why the router is prefering the DSL connection over their primary connection (which is the exact opposite of what is supposed to happen).
I found out why why the DSL was being prefered over the Ethernet connection [4].