+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+Q: I'm running pppd in demand mode, and I find that pppd often dials
+out unnecessarily when I try to make a connection within my local
+machine or with a machine on my local LAN. What can I do about this?
+
+A: Very often the cause of this is that a program is trying to contact
+a nameserver to resolve a hostname, and the nameserver (specified in
+/etc/resolv.conf, usually) is on the far side of the ppp link. You
+can try executing a command such as `ping myhost' (where myhost is the
+name of the local machine, or some other machine on a local LAN), to
+see whether that starts the ppp link. If it does, check the setup of
+your /etc/hosts file to make sure you have the local machine and any
+hosts on your local LAN listed, and /etc/resolv.conf and/or
+/etc/nsswitch.conf files to make sure you resolve hostnames from
+/etc/hosts if possible before trying to contact a nameserver.
+
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+Q: Since I installed ppp-2.3.6, dialin users to my server have been
+getting this message when they run pppd:
+
+peer authentication required but no suitable secret(s) found for
+authenticating any peer to us (ispserver)
+
+A: In 2.3.6, the default is to let an unauthenticated peer only use IP
+addresses to which the machine doesn't already have a route. So on a
+machine with a default route, everyone has to authenticate. If you
+really don't want that, you can put `noauth' in the /etc/ppp/options
+file. Note that there is then no check on who is using which IP
+address. IMHO, this is undesirably insecure, but I guess it may be
+tolerable as long as you don't use any .rhosts files or anything like
+that. I recommend that you require dialin users to authenticate, even
+if just with PAP using their login password (using the `login' option
+to pppd). If you do use `noauth', you should at least have a pppusers
+group and set the permissions on pppd to allow only user and group to
+execute it.