PPP-2.3 for systems running NeXTSTEP ==================================== Authoritative information can be found at: WWW site: http://www.thoughtport.com:8080/PPP/ FTP site: ftp://ftp.thoughtport.com/pub/next/ppp Mirror FTP: ftp://ftp.duq.edu/pub/next/ppp/ Mirror FTP: ftp://ftp.NMR.EMBL-Heidelberg.DE/pub/next/ppp/ If you have questions or problems, please visit the WWW site for FAQ and mailing list information. NEW: If you want to submit a bug report, use the new MailBug.app provided in this directory. You will need to install it as you would any package. If you don't have email access, please use bug submission form on the WWW site. If you use this software and are pleased with its performance, you are encouraged to make a donation to support continued development. 50% of all donations go to charity. For more information, please see: http://www.thoughtport.com:8080/PPP/donations.html NeXT Specific Installation Instructions ======================================= The procedure for an initial installation and for an upgrade are very similar. However, if this is the first time you are installing PPP, there are a few extra steps that you must do for the initial setup. They will be described later in this document. Making the source files ========================= To install on a computer running NeXTSTEP: 1) Read this file completely through before you start. 2) If you are on an HP-PA system, read the file ./NeXT/hppa/README.hppa and install the serial driver patch. Successfull installation of this patch will require a reboot of your machine. HPPA is not supported. 3) If you have previously installed a SLIP package, comment out the slip configuration code in /etc/rc.local and reboot your machine. SLIP and PPP _should_ interoperate but for initial testing it is best to remove SLIP. 4) If you are using Intel, you _must_ get the latest NeXT serial drivers from NeXTAnswers. You need both the serial and ttyport drivers (version 3.33 or later). Install these according to the directions. PPP-2.3 is optimized to work with the NeXT drivers. It will work with the Mux driver, but that driver has been known to cause panics with PPP. 5) If you plan in using tcpdump to monitor packets, you must enable the Berkley Packet Filter code. Edit ./NeXT/Makefile and make sure the '-DNBPFILTER' option is defined in DFLAGS. WARNING: If you choose to use BPF, you must make sure that you compile _AND LOAD_ the bpf_reloc LKS _BEFORE_ you load the ppp_reloc LKS. Also, make sure you read the installation file in ./NeXT/bpf. You will need to create a few special device files in /dev/. If you don't want to compile in this code, please make sure that '-DBPFILTER' is _not_ defined in the ./NeXT/Makefile DFLAGS. 6) Type ./configure in the top level PPP directory. This will set up some necessary links. 7) If you have developer 3.2, you need to use the old version of chat.c. Perform: a) cd to the chat directory b) backup chat.c (mv chat.c chat.c.orig) c) use the old chat (mv chat.c.3.2 chat.c) 8) Edit ./Makefile and set the installation directories. If you change the ETCDIR you will need to modify pathnames in pppd/pathnames.h. I recommend keeping it set to /etc/ppp. If you don't specifically like that directory, you may also change the Makefile directory and put a link in /etc/ppp that points to the proper place. You will also want to set the -arch flags to the appropriate architectures. Leaving it blank will default to your current architecture. 9) Do a: make 10) If you are satisfied with the results, then as root, type: make install If you are performing an upgrade, you are done after successfully making and installing the latest release. All you need to do is to reboot your machine so that the new loadable kernel server (LKS) is loaded. Make sure you remember to edit /etc/rc.local and add the code to load the bpf_reloc LKS (if you enabled BPF support). You should be able to start the upgraded PPP just like normal. If this doesn't work, see the "Troubleshooting" section later on. Also, you might want to compare the ip-up and ip-down scripts in the ./NeXT/Examples directory with those you have installed in /etc/ppp/ip-up and /etc/ppp/ip-down. Most things included in the examples should be in any installation. Extra Steps for Initial Configuration ===================================== If this is the initial installation of PPP, there are several system administration steps that must be performed. These only need to be done once. These steps do not need to be re-performed for an upgrade. 1) Before PPP can successfully run, a module called the loadable kernel server (LKS) must be linked into the system. This is something that must be done each time the computer boots up. So that you don't have to do this by hand each time the machine boots, you should modify a file called /etc/rc.local. Since this is a system file, you must be root to perform the modification. This file contains code that is run each time the machine is started. This is the standard place where "local" modifications are made to the system. First, make a backup copy of /etc/rc.local (maybe named /etc/rc.local.prePPP). It will be available in case you accidentally mess up the file. Then, using vi or your favorite editor, place the following lines (not includeing the ==...== separators ;) somewhere near the end of the file /etc/rc.local: ====================================================================== # # Load the Berkley Packet Filter LKS # This must be done before PPP. Comment this out # if you disabled BPF. If you use BPF, you _must_ # load it before the PPP LKS. If you chaged pathnames # in the Makefile, make sure the appropriate paths are # used below. # if [ -f /usr/local/bpf/reloc/bpf_reloc ]; then /usr/etc/kl_util -a /usr/local/bpf/reloc/bpf_reloc fi # # Load the selected version of the PPP-2.2 loadable # kernel server (LKS). # if [ -f /usr/local/ppp/reloc/ppp_reloc ]; then /usr/etc/kl_util -a /usr/local/ppp/reloc/ppp_reloc > /dev/console 2>&1 (echo -n ' ppp') > /dev/console fi ====================================================================== If you choose not to use BPF, then comment out the first lines of code by adding the '#' mark in front of them (similar to the comment lines that are already in place). All three lines (including the 'if' and 'fi') need to be commented. This code will now be executed next time you reboot your machine. You can verify that this was executed by checking the output of /usr/adm/messages upon a successful reboot. There should be a section of output that says the PPP-2.2 LKS was successfully loaded. 2) The default Makefile paths place PPP files in a directory called /usr/local/ppp. There are several subdirectories under this directory. However, these directories are not part of the standard UNIX Path. The UNIX Path is a list of directories that UNIX searches when it is trying to find a command. There are two solutions to fix the problem. You may either add specific PPP directories to the current path (must be done for each individual user), or you may add important files to a directory that is already in the standard path. I believe the second approach is the better solution. This step is optional, but highly recommended. As root, execute the following commands to add important files to directories that are already in the Standard UNIX path: /bin/mkdirs -o root -g wheel -m 755 /usr/local/bin /usr/local/man/man8 ln -s /usr/local/ppp/bin/* /usr/local/bin ln -s /usr/local/ppp/man/man8/* /usr/local/man/man8 To get the man program to understand that you have added some pages to the /usr/local/man directory, you need to make sure that the environment variable MANPATH includes the /usr/local/man entry. In my .cshrc file (in my home directory) I have an entry that looks like: setenv MANPATH "/usr/local/man:/usr/man:.:.." See 'man man' for more information. Once these commands are executed, the programs pppd, pppstats, and chat (along with their respective man pages) will become available to you from the command line. However, before you can immediately see them, you may need to log out and log back in. 3) Once you start trying to make PPP connections, it is important to have access to the logging information that PPP generates. This will allow you to follow the progress of PPP and will aid in diagnosing problems. The user level process 'pppd' outputs logging information by using the standard UNIX syslog facility. Part of this facility allows you to select how much (i.e. what level of verbosity) and where (i.e. to which file) this information will be placed. While the following step is optional, it is highly recommended. As root, make a backup copy of /etc/syslog.conf. You may wish to call it /etc/syslog.conf.prePPP. If you run into problems with the system logging error messages, you can replace /etc/syslog.conf with the original, reboot, and then you should be back to normal. Now, as root, use vi or your favorite editor to edit the file /etc/syslog.conf. You need to add the line: local2.debug /usr/adm/ppp2.2.log It is _imperative_ that you place a character between the level "local2.debug" and the file name "/usr/adm/ppp2.2.log. Do _not_ use spaces. If your editor converts tab characters to spaces, you need to use a different editor. Also beware of cutting and pasting between buffers. Sometimes a tab will be converted to spaces during that operation. Below is the actual contents of my /etc/syslog.conf: ====================================================================== local2.debug /usr/adm/ppp2.2.log *.err;kern.debug;auth.notice /dev/console kern.debug;daemon,auth.notice;*.err;mail.crit /usr/adm/messages mark.debug,daemon.info /usr/adm/messages lpr.debug /usr/adm/lpd-errs mail.info /usr/spool/mqueue/syslog *.alert;kern.err;daemon.err operator *.alert root *.emerg * ====================================================================== Once you have modified /etc/syslog.conf, you then need to perform one more step. You need to actually create an empty logging file. This step is necessary because if syslog does not see the file, it will not create it. So, removing the file is a handy way to turn off the logging. To create an empty logging file, as root execute: touch /usr/adm/ppp2.2.log Upon a successful reboot, logging will be enabled for pppd (remember to specify the 'debug' option to pppd to get reasonable information sent to the logging file). 4) You should copy a few files to a new directory. Part of the installation process creates a new directory (or link) called /etc/ppp/. Further, it creates an empty file called /etc/ppp/options. An empty options file is the bare minimum of what is necessary. However, the directory ./NeXT/Examples contains several files that are useful in almost any setup. It is recommended that you perform the following steps to place better files in the directory /etc/ppp. As user root, perform the following commands. It assumes you are in the PPP distribution directory: cp NeXT/Examples/options /etc/ppp/options cp NeXT/Examples/ip-up.example /etc/ppp/ip-up cp NeXT/Examples/ip-down.example /etc/ppp/ip-down /usr/etc/chown root.wheel /etc/ppp/options /etc/ppp/ip-up /etc/ppp/ip-down chmod 644 /etc/ppp/options chmod 511 /etc/ppp/ip-up /etc/ppp/ip-down 5) If you have a standalone machine, it is necessary for you to make sure your system is configured to correctly support a network. The following steps will help in correctly configuring your machine. Please note, if you do not have a standalone machine (i.e. you are on a local network), you need to speak with your system administrator to determine the proper configuration for your machine. In most cases, a machine correctly configured for a network will not need to perform the steps listed here. The following only applies to standalone machines. It is suggested that you reboot your machine _before_ you start these procedures. This is to verify that you successfully completed the previous steps and that your machine does indeed reboot. If it doesn't, you should replace /etc/rc.local with the backup copy and reboot. Then, determine why your modifications failed. After successfully rebooting, you are ready to move on to these steps. As root, make a backup copy of /etc/hostconfig. You might name it /etc/hostconfig.prePPP. If, after the following steps, you run into problems booting your machine, you may replace /etc/hostconfig with the backup and you should be able to successfully reboot. Start up the HostManager.app (under /NextAdmin). After successfully entering the root password, you should get the HostManager Menu. Select the "Local..." menu option to get the main window. Modify it as follows: For "NetInfo Binding", select "use local domain only" and make sure the box for "Readable only by local net" is checked. For "Hostname", fill in your host name as appropriate. Do _not_ add the domain name. For example, use "sidney" rather than "sidney.cps.msu.edu". For "NIS Domain Name", select "None" For "Internet Address", use the provided IP address (probably 192.42.172.1) unless your system administrator has assigned you your own unique IP address. In this case, reverify that you are a standalone machine. Please note... if your PPP service provider has assigned you an IP address, do _NOT_ use that address here. That address will be used later. Use whatever address is already in the display. For "Broadcast Address", select "Default" For "Time Standard", select "Ignore Network Time" For "Netmask", select "Default" For "Router", select "None" When this is complete, click the "Set" button. You will then have the option to reboot or to skip the reboot. Choose the appropriate action. It is suggested that you reboot immediately and verify that your system does indeed reboot (and behave as normal). If it doesn't, replace /etc/hostconfig with the backup copy and then reboot. Once you are back up, determine the problem with your configuration. Please note that this description is generic and will work in most cases. There are lots of variations that people can and will need to make. Your network administrator will be able to provide you with the correct details for your particular site. Congratulations! You have successfully installed PPP and are now ready to start up a connection. See the section "Initial Testing" for steps to verify that PPP works on your system. Initial Testing =============== One of the most notoriously difficult portions of getting PPP links up and running involves writing the script that automatically dials your modem, connects to the peer, and starts the remote ppp process. Once you are connected to the peer, each PPP process will start communications and things become much easier. Before you dive into script writing, there is a simpler solution that will allow you to test the ppp portion. Once this works, getting the dial scripts to work is a matter of sheer determination! The mechanism is this... use a communications package (tip or kermit are good choices) to manually dial the modem and log into the remote server. There, manually start up the pppd process (the remote process, once started, will probably print some garbage on the screen. You can ignore this). Once this is done, you can exit the communications process (to free up the device it is using). Then, start your local pppd on the same device. The pppd processes will then start communicating. The premise is that you manually perform the operations that you would like your dial script to automatically perform. Once you _know_ ppp works, you can spend time on the dial scripts. Please note, you _must_ exit from your communications program before you start your local pppd. If you find that when you exit, your modem immediately hangs up, you need to instruct the modem to ignore DTR. There is an AT command that will do this (AT&D on Supra), but you will need to check your modem manual to determine the correct command. If you are planning on using kermit, Stephane I. Matis , has supplied this excellent definition that you may place inside your .kermrc file to help with PPP testing: ---------------------------------------------------------------------- set term byte 8 # define pppd define pppd - !pppd < \v(line) > \v(line) defaultroute ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To use this, add the above to your ~/.kermrc file (minus the '---...---' separators). Then start kermit. After you have started the remote PPP server by hand and you see garbage being printed on the screen, return back to your local kermit prompt and execute the command 'do pppd'. In this particular circumstance, you will not need to exit completely from kermit. Before you start initial testing, you may want to read the pppd man page. This will allow you to familiarize yourself with the some of the options available to you for starting your local pppd. Of particular interest for most people is the 'defaultroute' option to pppd. If you have a standalone machine, then all your foreign traffic must go to the peer. Adding the 'defaultroute' option to pppd instructs pppd to set your system up in such a manner. Determining if the link is actually up ====================================== There are several ways to determine if the link has actaully been established. I will go through some of them. 1) You may look at the pppd log file (typically /usr/adm/ppp2.2.log). If you see lines that look similar to: Jan 11 23:13:38 sidney2b pppd[2141]: local IP address 35.9.12.55 Jan 11 23:13:38 sidney2b pppd[2141]: remote IP address 35.9.10.13 You are probably up. 2) You may check the status of the PPP interface. Using the command: /usr/etc/ifconfig ppp0 You should see that the interface is UP and that there are valid IP addresses assigned to it (0.0.0.0 is not valid). Here is an example of what you might see: ppp0: flags=51 inet 35.9.12.104 --> 35.9.10.14 netmask ff000000 3) You may check the routing. When the connection comes up, you should get at least one route to the new interface. If you specified 'defaultroute' to pppd, you should also see a default route. The command for checking routes is 'netstat -rn'. Here is an example of what you might see: Routing tables Destination Gateway Flags Refs Use Interface 35.9.10.32 35.9.15.107 UH 0 0 ppp0 127.0.0.1 127.0.0.1 UH 12 2636 lo0 35.9.15.107 127.0.0.1 UH 0 0 lo0 default 35.9.10.32 UG 2 6 ppp0 192.42.172 192.42.172.1 U 15 8872 en0 In the above case, the peer is 35.9.10.32 and my local machine has been assigned 35.9.15.107. All foreign traffic goes through the default route to the peer. If you don't have an ethernet card installed on your system, you will not have an 'en0' interface. The routing issue is important. Discussion of this issue is outside the scope of these instructions, but I thought it might be beneficial to list a few other important tools that may help you out. The man pages can give more details: /usr/etc/ping - send packets to an IP address or hostname traceroute - Show the route to a particular machine The IP address that you use can be negotiated automatically in PPP. Unlike SLIP, you do not have to specify an IP address when the link is brought up. If no address is specified as an argument to pppd, then PPP will negotiate the address with the peer. This is the preferred mechanism of operation. Probably the only time you should specify an IP address as an argument to pppd is if you are assigned your own IP address by your system administrator. Otherwise, sit back and let PPP do the work for you. If you are assigned an address by your PPP provider, that address does _NOT_ go in the hostconfig.app or netinfo. Instead, you provide that IP address as a command line option to pppd when you start it up. See the pppd man page for details on specifying a fixed IP address. A Typical PPP Session ===================== A tyipcal PPP session begins when you log into your system. From a terminal window, you will run your dial script by typing its name at the prompt. If you use the Workspace manager, you can double click on the scripts icon. This will start the chat process that will dial the modem and log into the remote system. It will then turn control over to pppd. If your script is successful (as described in the "Determining if the link is actually up" section), you will be all set. All your apps, OmniWeb, FTP, telnet, etc should work. Once you are through using the connection, you can close down the PPP link by executing the ppp down script. Again, this can be done by typing the name of the pppdown script in a terminal window, or double clicking on the appropriate icon in the Workspace manager. At this point, ppp will terminate the phone connection and pppd will die off. You may start and kill the ppp session as many times as you like while you are logged on. However, if you do not kill the PPP session, it will not die once you log out (unless you use the idle timer option to pppd). Thus your telephone will remain off the hook and your computer will remain connected to the net until you log back in and shut down the connection. Turning off the computer will obviously close the connection. Name Resolution =============== Once you have a ppp connection up, you may notice that your machine will not be able to resolve the names of machines to their IP addresses. You can check this by trying to telnet to a machine outside your local domain. If "telnet " is successful, but "telnet " is not, then your name resolution is not configured correctly. The fix is to edit the file /etc/resolv.conf. This file contains two important items. The first is your domain name. This is the name that is automatically tacked on to a computer name if you don't specify the complete name. For example if my domain is 'cps.msu.edu' and I say 'telnet sidney', the computer will try 'telnet sidney.cps.msu.edu' (although, it will not print this name on the command line). The second thing is a list of name servers. These should be local to your ppp provider. Your network administrator will be able to provide you with the appropriate addresses. There are default name servers to use in case the local provider is not responding. An example file might look like: ---------------------------------------------------------------------- domain cps.msu.edu # # Insert local name servers here # # # MSU name servers # nameserver 35.8.2.41 nameserver 35.8.2.41 nameserver 128.247.160.56 # # Other servers -- hopefully something will work if needed #shadooby.cc.umich.edu nameserver 35.1.1.91 #ns.nasa.gov nameserver 128.102.16.10 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- You will need to reboot your computer for the new nameservers to take effect. Making startup and shutdown scripts =================================== By this time, I'm assuming that PPP has been successfully installed. However, there are a few more steps that you must perform so that using PPP (now and with future upgrades) will be convenient and easy. These steps are optional, but they are highly recommended. Make scripts 'pppup' and 'pppdown' that bring up and shutdown PPP connections. There are a number of example scripts that you can copy and modify. Reading the man page for 'chat' will help you understand these scripts. You should note that once these scripts are made, you probably won't need to change them for future upgrades to PPP. One note that you should be VERY careful about. These file are shell scripts. This means that the contents are executed in a shell just as if you had typed them in by hand. You must make sure that any characters that are treated specially by the shell (such as < > | \ ) are inside quotation marks (""). Otherwise, they will be interpreted by the shell in a manner that is probably to your dislike. For example, if your peer sends you a prompt like MSUnet> you must add it to the chat portion of your script like "MSUnet>". In order to ensure that these scripts are not removed or modified when new versions of PPP are installed, you should copy all important scripts into a new directory. I suggest /usr/local/ppp/scripts. This directory will not be modified during installation. Further, as you did earlier for the important binaries, you may want to add important scripts to a directory that is in the default UNIX Search Path. The mechanism for doing this is as follows. Suppose you have a script 'pppup' (found in /usr/local/ppp/scripts) that you want to be available on your command line. You could execute the commands: /bin/mkdirs -o root -g wheel -m 755 /usr/local/bin ln -s /usr/local/ppp/scripts/pppup /usr/local/bin Once you log out and log back in, this script will be available. If you want to be able to call this script from a non-root account, you need to modify the permission on the file to make it suid root. Please note that this can be a potential security hazard. See your system administrator for more details. As mentioned above, of particular interest for most people is the 'defaultroute' option to pppd. If you have a standalone machine, then all your foreign traffic must go to the peer. Remember to add the 'defaultroute' option to pppd in your startup scripts if necessary (or place it in the /etc/ppp/options file). Troubleshooting =============== Any time that you have a bug report, please use the included MailBug.app (in the NeXT directory) to submit an electronic report. If you don't have email capability, please see the WWW site and use the bug report form found there. Please remember to include your hardware type and the LKS version number in all reports. This number may be found in the file /usr/adm/messages (once the LKS has been installed). Also, for most questions, it is best to append a copy of the /usr/adm/ppp2.2.log file. If you do have troubles, please see the FAQ on: http://www.thoughtport.com:8080/PPP/ Here are a few of the more common problems that this FAQ addresses: ====================================================================== 1) pppd bombs out with an error similar to: Jan 26 14:46:25 localhost pppd[256]: Connected... Jan 26 14:46:26 localhost pppd[256]: ioctl(PPPIOCGUNIT): Inappropriate ioctl for device Jan 26 14:46:26 localhost pppd[256]: Exit. There are two things that can cause this error. The most common error is that you are using the innappropriate device for communication to your modem. You should be using /dev/cufa or /dev/cufb. Second, the Loadable Kernel Server (LKS) and the user level daemon (pppd) must be of the same version. While unusual, the error above can be the result of using the wrong Loadable Kernel Server (LKS) with pppd (or vice versa). Some versions of PPP installed the LKS (ppp_reloc) in /usr/lib/kern_loader/ppp and some in /usr/local/ppp/reloc. The second is going to be the standard place for installation from now on. Solution: Make sure that you are using the appropriate device for communications with your modem. Further, make sure that your /etc/rc.local is loading the correct version of the LKS and make sure you are really calling the correct pppd for use with the LKS that you loaded. ====================================================================== 2) PPP works fine, but when the link is up, netinfo sleeps when you try to print or send mail. This problem is typically a result of an improper routing setup on the PPP client (your host). When PPP starts up, it will dynamically negotiate an IP address for use on the PPP interface (usually ppp0). If you don't specify an IP address to pppd, then the address will usually be provided by the peer. It may change each time that you bring up a PPP link. If you did specify an IP address, pppd will attempt to use that address first. If that fails, it will try to get an address from the peer. Either way, the PPP interface usually has a new IP address. The routing problem can result when trying to access your local host (and netinfo) on the IP address that was dynamically negotiated. Solution: The solution is straightforward. You must add a route from the IP address that your PPP interface uses to the special loopback IP address 127.0.0.1. The 'route' command will allow you to do this. For instance, if you are assigned the address 35.8.74.211 during PPP negotiation, you can add the needed route byentering (as the user root): /usr/etc/route add 35.8.74.211 127.0.0.1 0 This route needs to be added each time the link comes up. However, one problem with hard coding this command into /etc/ppp/ip-up is that you may get a different IP address each time the link comes up. Fortunately, Bill Bereza submitted this nice script clip that can be pasted into /etc/ppp/ip-up. This will create the correct route entry for you automatically. Place this in /etc/ppp/ip-up: /usr/etc/route add $4 127.0.0.1 0 You will also want to add this little clip to /etc/ppp/ip-down:
/usr/etc/route delete $4 127.0.0.1 This removes the route when your link goes down. ====================================================================== 3) People who are trying to set up a NeXT as a PPP server that they dial into often complain that they can make a connection, but the remote machine can only ping the server. No other packets work. Check out the 'proxyarp' option to pppd. Servers (connected to their LAN) must proxyarp for the remote address (i.e. the address of the machine dialing in). ====================================================================== 4) Your pppd/chat dials the modem but you cannot get a negotiation to start. The /usr/adm/ppp2.2.log file shows something similar to: Mar 13 12:02:41 crystal pppd[243]: sent [LCP ConfReq id=0x1 ] Mar 13 12:02:44 crystal pppd[243]: sent [LCP ConfReq id=0x1 ] Mar 13 12:02:47 crystal pppd[243]: sent [LCP ConfReq id=0x1 ] Mar 13 12:02:51 crystal pppd[243]: sent [LCP ConfReq id=0x1 ] Mar 13 12:02:54 crystal pppd[243]: sent [LCP ConfReq id=0x1 ] Mar 13 12:02:57 crystal pppd[243]: sent [LCP ConfReq id=0x1 ] Mar 13 12:03:00 crystal pppd[243]: sent [LCP ConfReq id=0x1 ] Mar 13 12:03:03 crystal pppd[243]: sent [LCP ConfReq id=0x1 ] Mar 13 12:03:06 crystal pppd[243]: sent [LCP ConfReq id=0x1 ] Mar 13 12:03:09 crystal pppd[243]: sent [LCP ConfReq id=0x1 ] Mar 13 12:03:12 crystal pppd[243]: LCP: timeout sending Config-Requests Mar 13 12:03:12 crystal pppd[243]: Connection terminated. Mar 13 12:03:12 crystal pppd[243]: Serial link is not 8-bit clean: Mar 13 12:03:12 crystal pppd[243]: All received characters had bit 7 set to 0 Discussion: This is a common problem. It is typically the result of a failure to properly start the remote PPP process. The problem arises since the local PPP starts sending packets as soon as chat exits. Since there is no remote PPP process running to interpret the packets, the remote command line interpreter starts sending error messages for each received packet (considered garbage to the remote CLI). Thus, your local PPP process is receiveing error message text instead of the expected PPP packets. Since error message text is usually ascii (values < 127) PPP believes that the link is not 8-bit clean. Solution: Make sure you add the '-v' option to chat (in your dial script) and then check the output of /usr/adm/ppp2.2.log to see why chat failed to start the remote PPP process. ====================================================================== 5) NXHosting applications over PPP fails. I don't know why this happens. Rest assured, that I and others do have it working. The most obvious things to check are that you have your system set up as a public window server. Also, make sure that you reset the nmserver in /etc/ppp/ip-up (see the example ip-up file). If it still doesn't work, you might want to add your peer to your /etc/hosts.equiv file. I don't know if that has anything to do with it or not, but I don't know why some people can't NXHost and others can. Updates ======= You may want to join the mailing list for PPP. This will keep you informed of new releases and will provide an arena for discussing problems with the NeXT specific PPP port. To add yourself to the list (or for any other administrative requests), send an email message to: listproc@listproc.thoughtport.com with no subject and message body consisting of: subscribe nextppp Stephen J. Perkins (please use your own name ;). To send mail to all the participants on the list, address your messages to: nextppp@listproc.thoughtport.com If you want announcements only, there is a second "announcements only" list. To subscribe to this, you may use the alternate body: subscribe nextppp-announce Stephen J. Perkins You don't need to subscribe to both. All announcements are forwarded to the regular list. Security ======== Security issues are not dealt with in this document. Please note that the pppd file is installed suid root. This is a potential security hazard. Noted bugs ========== There have been various problems reported when trying to install LKSs the way NeXT intended (i.e. placing them in /usr/lib/kern_loader/* and modifying /etc/kern_loader.conf). The main problem seems to be that after modifying /etc/iftab, /etc/rc.net (on NSFIP) will not correctly configure the interfaces. This means that booting under NSFIP will hang. So, for the time, it is suggested that you install the package manually and load the LKS in /etc/rc.local. Modem Configuration =================== It is important to use hardware flow control if you use a high speed modem. On my supra V.32bis modem, the command to use Hardware Flow Control is 'AT&K3'. Also, you will probably want to set your modem so that when the DTR is dropped, the modem will disconnect. On my modem the command is 'AT&D2' This setting disables auto-answer so if you want to allow dialins, you must read your modem manual to determine the correct setting. Obtaining the Software by Electronic Mail ----------------------------------------- Do not send me requests for the software; they will be ignored (without response). If you cannot use FTP at all, there is a service called "ftpmail" available from decwrl.dec.com: you can send e-mail to this machine and it will use FTP to retrieve files for you and send you the files back again via e-mail. To find out more about the ftpmail service, send a message to "ftpmail@decwrl.dec.com" whose body consists of the single line "help". Thanks Stephen J. Perkins