-This is the README file for ppp-2.2, a package which implements the
+This is the README file for ppp-2.4, a package which implements the
Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP) to provide Internet connections over
serial lines.
Introduction.
*************
-The Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP) provides a standard way to transmit
-datagrams over a serial link, as well as a standard way for the
-machines at either end of the link (the `peers') to negotiate various
-optional characteristics of the link. Using PPP, a serial link can be
-used to transmit Internet Protocol (IP) datagrams, allowing TCP/IP
-connections between the peers. PPP is defined in several RFC (Request
-For Comments) documents, in particular RFCs 1661, 1662, 1332 and 1334.
-Other RFCs describe standard ways to transmit datagrams from other
-network protocols (e.g., DECnet, OSI, Appletalk), but this package
-only supports IP.
+The Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP) provides a standard way to establish
+a network connection over a serial link. At present, this package
+supports IP and the protocols layered above IP, such as TCP and UDP.
+The Linux and Solaris ports of this package have optional support for
+IPV6; the Linux port of this package also has support for IPX.
This software consists of two parts:
- Kernel code, which establishes a network interface and passes
packets between the serial port, the kernel networking code and the
PPP daemon (pppd). This code is implemented using STREAMS modules on
-SunOS 4.x, AIX 4.1 and OSF/1, and as a line discipline under Ultrix,
-NextStep, NetBSD, FreeBSD, and Linux.
+Solaris, and as a line discipline under Linux.
- The PPP daemon (pppd), which negotiates with the peer to establish
the link and sets up the ppp network interface. Pppd includes support
for authentication, so you can control which other systems may make a
PPP connection and what IP addresses they may use.
+The platforms supported by this package are Linux and Solaris. I have
+code for NeXTStep, FreeBSD, SunOS 4.x, SVR4, Tru64 (Digital Unix), AIX
+and Ultrix but no active maintainers for these platforms. Code for
+all of these except AIX is included in the ppp-2.3.11 release.
+
Installation.
*************
that system. The supported systems, and the corresponding README
files, are:
- SunOS 4.x README.sun
- NetBSD, FreeBSD README.bsd
- Ultrix 4.x README.ultrix
Linux README.linux
- OSF/1 README.osf
- AIX 4.x README.aix4
- NeXTStep README.next
+ Solaris README.sol2
In each case you start by running the ./configure script. This works
-out which operating system you are using and creates symbolic links to
-the appropriate makefiles. You then run `make' to compile the
-user-level code, and (as root) `make install' to install the
-user-level programs pppd, chat and pppstats.
+out which operating system you are using and creates the appropriate
+makefiles. You then run `make' to compile the user-level code, and
+(as root) `make install' to install the user-level programs pppd, chat
+and pppstats.
+
+N.B. Since 2.3.0, leaving the permitted IP addresses column of the
+pap-secrets or chap-secrets file empty means that no addresses are
+permitted. You need to put a "*" in that column to allow the peer to
+use any IP address. (This only applies where the peer is
+authenticating itself to you, of course.)
+
+
+What's new in ppp-2.4.3.
+************************
+
+* The configure script now accepts --prefix and --sysconfdir options.
+ These default to /usr/local and /etc. If you want pppd put in
+ /usr/sbin as before, use ./configure --prefix=/usr.
+
+* Doing `make install' no longer puts example configuration files in
+ /etc/ppp. Use `make install-etcppp' if you want that.
+
+* The code has been updated to work with version 0.8.3 of libpcap.
+ Unfortunately the libpcap maintainers removed support for the
+ "inbound" and "outbound" keywords on PPP links, meaning that if you
+ link pppd with libpcap-0.8.3, you can't use those keywords in the
+ active-filter and pass-filter expressions. The support has been
+ reinstated in the CVS version and should be in future libpcap
+ releases. If you need the in/outbound keywords, use a later release
+ than 0.8.3, or get the CVS version from http://www.tcpdump.org.
+
+* There is a new option, child-timeout, which sets the length of time
+ that pppd will wait for child processes (such as the command
+ specified with the pty option) to exit before exiting itself. It
+ defaults to 5 seconds. After the timeout, pppd will send a SIGTERM
+ to any remaining child processes and exit. A value of 0 means no
+ timeout.
+
+* Various bugs have been fixed, including some CBCP packet parsing
+ bugs that could lead to the peer being able to crash pppd if CBCP
+ support is enabled.
+
+* Various fixes and enhancements to the radius and rp-pppoe plugins
+ have been added.
+
+
+What was new in ppp-2.4.2.
+**************************
+
+* The CHAP code has been rewritten. Pppd now has support for MS-CHAP
+ V1 and V2 authentication, both as server and client. The new CHAP
+ code is cleaner than the old code and avoids some copyright problems
+ that existed in the old code.
+
+* MPPE (Microsoft Point-to-Point Encryption) support has been added,
+ although the current implementation shouldn't be considered
+ completely secure. (There is no assurance that the current code
+ won't ever transmit an unencrypted packet.)
+
+* James Carlson's implementation of the Extensible Authentication
+ Protocol (EAP) has been added.
+
+* Support for the Encryption Control Protocol (ECP) has been added.
+
+* Some new plug-ins have been included:
+ - A plug-in for kernel-mode PPPoE (PPP over Ethernet)
+ - A plug-in for supplying the PAP password over a pipe from another
+ process
+ - A plug-in for authenticating using a Radius server.
-The procedures for installing the kernel code vary from system to
-system. On some systems, the kernel code can be loaded into a running
-kernel using a `modload' facility. On others, the kernel image has to
-be recompiled and the system rebooted. See the README.* files for
-details.
+* Updates and bug-fixes for the Solaris port.
+* The CBCP (Call Back Control Protocol) code has been updated. There
+ are new options `remotenumber' and `allow-number'.
-What is new in ppp-2.2.
-***********************
+* Extra hooks for plugins to use have been added.
-* More systems are now supported:
+* There is now a `maxoctets' option, which causes pppd to terminate
+ the link once the number of bytes passed on the link exceeds a given
+ value.
- AIX 4, thanks to Charlie Wick (cwick@quaver.urbana.mcd.mot.com)
- OSF/1 on DEC Alpha, thanks to Steve Tate (srt@zaphod.csci.unt.edu)
- NextStep 3.2 and 3.3, thanks to Philip-Andrew Prindeville
- (philipp@res.enst.fr) and Steve Perkins (perkins@cps.msu.edu)
+* There are now options to control whether pppd can use the IPCP
+ IP-Address and IP-Addresses options: `ipcp-no-address' and
+ `ipcp-no-addresses'.
-in addition to NetBSD 1.0, SunOS 4.x, Ultrix 4.x, FreeBSD 2.0, and
-Linux.
+* Fixed several bugs, including potential buffer overflows in chat.
-* Packet compression has been implemented. This version implements
-CCP (Compression Control Protocol) and the BSD-Compress compression
-scheme according to the current draft RFCs. This means that incoming
-and outgoing packets can be compressed with the LZW scheme (same as
-the `compress' command) using a code size of up to 15 bits.
-* Some bug fixes to the LCP protocol code. In particular, pppd now
-correctly replies with a Configure-NAK (instead of a Configure-Reject)
-if the peer asks for CHAP and pppd is willing to do PAP but not CHAP.
+What was new in ppp-2.4.1.
+**************************
-* The ip-up and ip-down scripts are now run with the real user ID set
-to root, and with an empty environment. Clearing the environment
-fixes a security hole.
+* Pppd can now print out the set of options that are in effect. The
+ new `dump' option causes pppd to print out the option values after
+ option parsing is complete. The `dryrun' option causes pppd to
+ print the options and then exit.
-* The kernel code on NetBSD, FreeBSD, NextStep and Ultrix has been
-restructured to make it easier to implement PPP over devices other
-than asynchronous tty ports (for example, synchronous serial ports).
+* The option parsing code has been fixed so that options in the
+ per-tty options file are parsed correctly, and don't override values
+ from the command line in most cases.
-* pppd now looks at the list of interfaces in the system to determine
-what the netmask should be. In most cases, this should eliminate the
-need to use the `netmask' option.
+* The plugin option now looks in /usr/lib/pppd/<pppd-version> (for
+ example, /usr/lib/pppd/2.4.1b1) for shared objects for plugins if
+ there is no slash in the plugin name.
-* There is a new `papcrypt' option to pppd, which specifies that
-secrets in /etc/ppp/pap-secrets used for authenticating the peer are
-encrypted, so pppd always encrypts the peer's password before
-comparing it with the secret from /etc/ppp/pap-secrets. This gives
-better security.
+* When loading a plugin, pppd will now check the version of pppd for
+ which the plugin was compiled, and refuse to load it if it is
+ different to pppd's version string. To enable this, the plugin
+ source needs to #include "pppd.h" and have a line saying:
+ char pppd_version[] = VERSION;
+
+* There is a bug in zlib, discovered by James Carlson, which can cause
+ kernel memory corruption if Deflate is used with the lowest setting,
+ 8. As a workaround pppd will now insist on using at least 9.
+
+* Pppd should compile on Solaris and SunOS again.
+
+* Pppd should now set the MTU correctly on demand-dialled interfaces.
+
+
+What was new in ppp-2.4.0.
+**************************
+
+* Multilink: this package now allows you to combine multiple serial
+ links into one logical link or `bundle', for increased bandwidth and
+ reduced latency. This is currently only supported under the
+ 2.4.x and later Linux kernels.
+
+* All the pppd processes running on a system now write information
+ into a common database. I used the `tdb' code from samba for this.
+
+* New hooks have been added.
+
+For a list of the changes made during the 2.3 series releases of this
+package, see the Changes-2.3 file.
+
+
+Compression methods.
+********************
+
+This package supports two packet compression methods: Deflate and
+BSD-Compress. Other compression methods which are in common use
+include Predictor, LZS, and MPPC. These methods are not supported for
+two reasons - they are patent-encumbered, and they cause some packets
+to expand slightly, which pppd doesn't currently allow for.
+BSD-Compress and Deflate (which uses the same algorithm as gzip) don't
+ever expand packets.
Patents.
********
The BSD-Compress algorithm used for packet compression is the same as
-that used in the Unix "compress" command. It is apparently covered by
-U.S. patents 4,814,746 (owned by IBM) and 4,558,302 (owned by Unisys),
-and corresponding patents in various other countries (but not
-Australia). If this is of concern, you can build the package without
-including BSD-Compress. To do this, edit net/ppp-comp.h to change the
-definition of DO_BSD_COMPRESS to 0. The bsd-comp.c files are then no
-longer needed, so the references to bsd-comp.o may optionally be
-removed from the Makefiles.
+that used in the Unix "compress" command. It was apparently covered
+by U.S. patents 4,814,746 (owned by IBM) and 4,558,302 (owned by
+Unisys), and corresponding patents in various other countries (but not
+Australia). I believe the Unisys patent expired in the US on 20 June
+2003, and that the IBM patent was older.
+
+If these patents are of concern in your situation, you can build the
+package without including BSD-Compress. To do this, edit
+net/ppp-comp.h to change the definition of DO_BSD_COMPRESS to 0. The
+bsd-comp.c files are then no longer needed, so the references to
+bsd-comp.o may optionally be removed from the Makefiles.
Contacts.
*********
-Bugs in the the SunOS, NetBSD and Ultrix ports and bugs in pppd, chat
-or pppstats should be reported to:
-
- paulus@cs.anu.edu.au
- Paul Mackerras
- Dept. of Computer Science
- Australian National University
- Canberra ACT 0200
- AUSTRALIA
+The comp.protocols.ppp newsgroup is a useful place to get help if you
+have trouble getting your ppp connections to work. Please do not send
+me questions of the form "please help me get connected to my ISP" -
+I'm sorry, but I simply do not have the time to answer all the
+questions like this that I get.
-Bugs in other ports should be reported to the maintainer for that port
-(see the appropriate README.* file) or to the above.
+If you find bugs in this package, please report them to the maintainer
+for the port for the operating system you are using:
-Thanks to:
-
- Brad Parker (brad@fcr.com)
- Greg Christy (gmc@quotron.com)
- Drew D. Perkins (ddp@andrew.cmu.edu)
- Rick Adams (rick@seismo.ARPA)
- Chris Torek (chris@mimsy.umd.edu, umcp-cs!chris).
+Linux Paul Mackerras <paulus@samba.org>
+Solaris James Carlson <carlson@workingcode.com>
Copyrights:
+***********
-Most of the code can be freely used and redistributed. The STREAMS
-code for SunOS 4.x, OSF/1 and AIX 4 is under a more restrictive
-copyright:
+All of the code can be freely used and redistributed. The individual
+source files each have their own copyright and permission notice.
+Pppd, pppstats and pppdump are under BSD-style notices. Some of the
+pppd plugins are GPL'd. Chat is public domain.
- This code is Copyright (C) 1989, 1990 By Brad K. Clements,
- All Rights Reserved.
- You may use this code for your personal use, to provide a non-profit
- service to others, or to use as a test platform for a commercial
- implementation.
+Distribution:
+*************
- You may NOT use this code in a commercial product, nor to provide a
- commercial service, nor may you sell this code without express
- written permission of the author.
+The primary site for releases of this software is:
- Otherwise, Enjoy!
+ ftp://ftp.samba.org/pub/ppp/
-This copyright applies to (parts of) the following files:
- sunos/ppp_async.c
- sunos/ppp_if.c
- osf1/ppp_async.c
- osf1/ppp_if.c
- aix4/ppp_async.c
- aix4/ppp_if.c
- net/ppp_str.h
- pppd/sys-str.c
- pppd/sys-osf.c
- pppd/sys-aix4.c
+($Id: README,v 1.31 2004/11/04 11:58:14 paulus Exp $)
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