Linux Network Administrator Guide, Second Edition

Each network protocol that is routed across the data link (like IP and AppleTalk) is configured dynamically using a corresponding Network Control Protocol (NCP). To send IP datagrams across the link, both sides running PPP must first negotiate which IP address each of them uses. The control protocol used for this negotiation is the Internet Protocol Control Protocol (IPCP).

Besides sending standard IP datagrams across the link, PPP also supports Van Jacobson header compression of IP datagrams. This technique shrinks the headers of TCP packets to as little as three bytes. It is also used in CSLIP, and is more colloquially referred to as VJ header compression. The use of compression may be negotiated at startup time through IPCP, as well.

PPP on Linux

On Linux, PPP functionality is split into two parts: a kernel component that handles the low-level protocols (HDLC, IPCP, IPXCP, etc.) and the user space pppd daemon that handles the various higher-level protocols, such as PAP and CHAP. The current release of the PPP software for Linux contains the PPP daemon pppd and a program named chat that automates the dialing of the remote system.

The PPP kernel driver was written by Michael Callahan and reworked by Paul Mackerras. pppd was derived from a free PPP implementation[47] for Sun and 386BSD machines that was written by Drew Perkins and others, and is maintained by Paul Mackerras. It was ported to Linux by Al Longyear. chat was written by Karl Fox.[48]

Like SLIP, PPP is implemented by a special line discipline. To use a serial line as a PPP link, you first establish the connection over your modem as usual, and subsequently convert the line to PPP mode. In this mode, all incoming data is passed to the PPP driver, which checks the incoming HDLC frames for validity (each HDLC frame carries a 16-bit checksum), and unwraps and dispatches them. Currently, PPP is able to transport both the IP protocol, optionally using Van Jacobson header compression, and the IPX protocol.

pppd aids the kernel driver, performing the initialization and authentication phase that is necessary before actual network traffic can be sent across the link. pppd 's behavior may be fine-tuned using a number of options. As PPP is rather complex, it is impossible to explain all of them in a single chapter. This book therefore cannot cover all aspects of pppd, but only gives you an introduction. For more information, consult Using& Managing PPP or the pppd manual pages, and READMEs in the pppd source distribution, which should help you sort out most questions this chapter fails to discuss. The PPP-HOWTO might also be of use.

Probably the greatest help you will find in configuring PPP will come from other users of the same Linux distribution. PPP configuration questions are very common, so try your local usergroup mailing list or the IRC Linux channel. If your problems persist even after reading the documentation, you could try the comp.protocols.ppp newsgroup. This is the place where you can find most of the people involved in pppd development.

Running pppd

When you want to connect to the Internet through a PPP link, you have to set up basic networking capabilities, such as the loopback device and the resolver. Both have been covered in Chapter 5, Configuring TCP/IP Networking, and Chapter 6, Name Service and Resolver Configuration. You can simply configure the name server of your Internet Service Provider in the /etc/resolv.conf file, but this will mean that every DNS request is sent across your serial link. This situation is not optimal; the closer (network-wise) you are to your name server, the faster the name lookups will be. An alternative solution is to configure a caching-only name server at a host on your network. This means that the first time you make a DNS query for a particular host, your request will be sent across your serial link, but every subsequent request will be answered directly by your local name server, and will be much faster. This configuration is described in Chapter 6, in 'Caching-only named Configuration'.

As an introductory example of how to establish a PPP connection with pppd, assume you are at vlager again. First, dial in to the PPP server c3po and log in to the ppp account. c3po will execute its PPP driver. After exiting the communications program you used for dialing, execute the following command, substituting the name of the serial device you used for the ttyS3 shown here:

# pppd /dev/ttyS3 38400 crtscts defaultroute

This command flips the serial line ttyS3 to the PPP line discipline and negotiates an IP link with c3po. The transfer speed used on the serial port will be 38,400 bps. The crtscts option turns on hardware handshake on the port, which is an absolute must at speeds above 9,600 bps.

The first thing pppd does after starting up is negotiate several link characteristics with the remote end using LCP. Usually, the default set of options pppd tries to negotiate will work, so we won't go into this here. Expect to say that part of this negotiation involves requesting or assigning the IP addresses at each end of the link.

For the time being, we also assume that c3po doesn't require any authentication from us, so the configuration phase is completed successfully.

pppd will then negotiate the IP parameters with its peer using IPCP, the IP control protocol. Since we didn't specify any particular IP address to pppd earlier, it will try to use the address obtained by having the resolver look up the local hostname. Both will then announce their addresses to each other.

Usually, there's nothing wrong with these defaults. Even if your machine is on an Ethernet, you can use the same IP address for both the Ethernet and the PPP interface. Nevertheless, pppd allows you to use a different address, or even to ask your peer to use some specific address. These options are discussed later in the 'IP Configuration Options' section.

After going through the IPCP setup phase, pppd will prepare your host's networking layer to use the PPP link. It first configures the PPP network interface as a point-to-point link, using ppp0 for the first PPP link that is active, ppp1 for the second, and so on. Next, it sets up a routing table entry that points to the host at the other end of the link. In the previous example, pppd made the default network route point to c3po, because we gave it the defaultroute option.[49] The default route simplifies your routing by causing any IP datagram destined to a nonlocal host to be sent to c3po; this makes sense since it is the only way they can be reached. There are a number of different routing schemes pppd supports, which we will cover in detail later in this chapter.

Using Options Files

Before pppd parses its command-line arguments, it scans several files for default options. These files may contain any valid command-line arguments spread out across an arbitrary number of lines. Hash signs introduce comments.

The first options file is /etc/ppp/options, which is always scanned when pppd starts up. Using it to set some global defaults is a good idea, because it allows you to keep your users from doing several things that may compromise security. For instance, to make pppd require some kind of authentication (either PAP or CHAP) from the peer, you add the auth option to this file. This option cannot be overridden by the user, so it becomes impossible to establish a PPP connection with any system that is not in your authentication databases. Note, however, that some options can be overridden; the connect string is a good example.

The other options file, which is read after /etc/ppp/options, is