I Hate mgetty And pppd

Why do I hate 'em? They're wonderful tools. For the unfamiliar, mgetty is a tty controller (this is not the correct term, but it is infinitely easier to understand this description than it is to try to wade through the formal definition) that is able to work with modems as well as pure ttys. pppd is (again, a simplified description) a server that allows for "dial-up networking" connections. That's friggin' great. Except for when it doesn't work.

So why wasn't it working? The definition of one of the pppd options changed between the version of pppd that was previously installed and the version that is installed on our new server box. The real problem there, though, is that having done not much more to get mgetty+pppd working aside from copying the configuration from the old server box is that the malfunction that we were experiencing was TERRIBLY FUCKING DIFFICULT to track down. I'm talking about an Amelia Earhart kind of elusive. That's balls.

So, I was sitting at work trying to find the fucking problem. Three hours later, I was ready to burn the office down. There was absolutely no reason that the old configs shouldn't have worked, considering that the behavior of this option hadn't been terribly well-documented, in my opinion. I actually solved the problem by trial-and-error, removing options one-at-a-time until I hit upon something that worked. Then I found the reason behind the breakage. Then I ranted, raved, put on my Hulk Hands, and started beating the hell out of things while listening to them say "HULK SMASH" and the like.

In that respect, at least, I guess it was a good day. HULK SMASH!