[plug] pppd redialling too often

[Brad Campbell]

> 
> I had a similar requirement recently (iinet wnt a 10 minute delay unless
> you've overrun your 200 hours, when they want 30 !), and ended up by
> putting together a quick and dirty shell script that connects, waits to be
> disconnected, sleeps 10 minutes and then goes round the loop again (but
> only up to the usual 'going home' time for the client).
> 
> Like I said, grubby, but it works very well.
> 
> Paul

I did it slightly differently.
In my ip-down script, I do an
echo block > /var/run/diald/diald.fifo
and I put a file called nodial in /etc/ppp
I then set an at command to run a file called /var/diald/unblock
11 minutes after NOW.

/etc/diald/unblock just unblocks diald and removes the nodial file.
The ppp-dial script check for the nodial file, and aborts if it exists.
It also checks for a file called nightdown.

I then have a cron entry to place nightdown in /etc/ppp at 6.15pm
and remove it and run the unblock script at 7.45 am.
This effectively gives me a connection all day during working hours
with no wasted phone calls at night or on the weekend.
It's a little convoluted, but it works exceedingly well..


-- 
Brad....
"The ultimate result is that some innovations that would
truly benefit consumers never occur for the sole reason
that they do not conincide with Microsoft's self-interest"
- Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson
         /"\
         \ /     ASCII RIBBON CAMPAIGN
          X      AGAINST HTML MAIL
         / \