AIX 4.1 support is ported from the SunOS code for ppp 2.2. It requires a streams-based tty and will not work on AIX 3.2. This is the first release of this package for AIX. It is provided free and without warranty of any kind. Introduction PPP implements TCP/IP through serial connections. In ppp 2.2, an interface is established by running the program 'pppd'. pppd opens a serial connection, negotiates link attributes with the peer and configures a TCP/IP interface. The interface remains up as long as the peer stays up and 'pppd' remains running. There are no SMIT menus and ppp interfaces can not be defined through ifconfig. An interface can be brought down by killing pppd. The program 'chat' processes send-expect sequences similar to UUCP Dialers commands or a Systems chat string. It can be used to dial a modem. 'pppstats' prints interface statistics similar to netstat. Some of the statistics are the same as netstat but pppstat also provides additional info specific to ppp interfaces. Installation First execute the following commands in the ppp-2.2 directory: ./configure make install (you need to be root for this) By default, pppd, chat and pppstats are placed in /usr/sbin and the streams modules in /usr/lib/drivers. The modules are loaded by the following 'strload' commands. strload -m /usr/lib/drivers/ppp_if strload -m /usr/lib/drivers/ppp_comp strload -m /usr/lib/drivers/ppp_async 'make install' appends the strloads to /etc/rc.tcpip so the modules will be loaded at boot. A 'pppd' command can be added to start up an interface. 'make install' will also create /etc/ppp/options containing the option 'lock' only (lock tty device when in use). Any other options which will always be used should be added by hand. Man pages for pppd and pppstats are installed. Examples To answer a modem and accept connections, use something like pppd tty1 myhostname:remotehostname persist This will wait for calls on tty1 and establish a connection with any ppp caller. The server will use myhostname and tell the caller to use remotehostname. The persist option tells pppd to remain active and accept another connection after the call terminates. You can use the 'auth' option to force callers to authenticate themselves. See pppd man page for details of authentication protocols. To dial in to a user account and start PPP, use something like pppd tty1 myhostname: connect 'chat -f /etc/ppp/chat-script' where the file /etc/ppp/chat-script should contain something like "" ATDT5551212 CONNECT "" ogin: myname sword: mypassword $ pppd This command uses the chat program to dial the modem, log in and start pppd on the server. No ttyname is needed when starting pppd on the server side because pppd will attach to the current terminal (the tty line), if no device is specified. Any pppd options needed can be set in ~/.ppprc on the called system. The chat -v option may be helpful in debugging connection failures. The chat output and other debug messages are sent to syslog. You may need to edit /etc/syslog.conf and "refresh -s syslogd" to see the debug messages. The simplest way to allow a remote dial-in host to use your network is to use the 'proxyarp' option on the server. This will cause the server to publish an arp entry with the remote's IP address and the server's hardware address. The remote will then appear to be part of local network to other hosts. The address/netmask used by the remote must be suitable for the subnet you wish to connect to. If the remote is a standalone system, or has no other default route, use the 'defaultroute' option when dialing in. This will create a default route on the remote system through the server. If the remote is on another local network, you might not want this because it could conflict with an existing default route. These are just a few examples to help the new user get started. The man page for pppd describes all the options in detail. Charlie Wick