[PLUG] ISP shell access still in demand?

[Paul Mullen]

On Thu, Mar 13, 2003 at 01:20:12PM -0800, Rich Shepard wrote:
> 
>   I guess that I've been missing something here. Unless I have a shell
> account, to what am I connecting via ppp when I call the ISP's phone number?
> Don't I want a system prompt so I can then ssh to my network?

This is my understanding: When you dial-up to your ISP, your dialer
program is met with a login/password prompt, and shortly after
authentication a PPP daemon is spawned that takes over the connection
and sets up an IP link to the ISP's host. After that, you effectively
have a direct connection to the ISP's network, which means you have
direct access to the Internet. It does not mean that you can login to
any of the ISP's servers and get a shell. You can, though, start up a
shell on your local machine and then use that to ssh into the remote
host of your choice (assuming you have an account on it).

When you dial-up to an ISP account that *does* provide shell access, you
never set up an IP connection between your local machine and the ISP's
host. The only connection you have is through your terminal app. You
could not, AFAIK, start up a local web browser and expect anything to
happen.

Anyhow... That's what I know. Corrections and clarifications welcomed.
:-)


Paul