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- This is the README file for ppp-2.1.1.
-
- See SETUP and README.* for installation instructions.
-
- What is new in ppp-2.1.1:
-
- * Linux is now supported, thanks to Michael Callahan and Al Longyear
- <longyear@netcom.com>.
-
- * Improvements to chat, along with a man page for it, thanks to Al
- Longyear.
-
- * Security improvements:
-
- - pppd now requires the /etc/ppp/options file to be readable, unless
- it is compiled with -DREQ_SYSOPTIONS=0 on the compilation command
- line. If you don't have an /etc/ppp/options file, you will at the
- minimum have to create an empty one.
-
- - pppd now reports an error and exits if the ~/.ppprc file or a file
- specified with the `file' option cannot be read by the user who
- invoked pppd. The file specified with the `+ua' option is also
- subject to the same check.
-
- - pppd now refuses to use an address on the loopback net or a
- multicast address for either end of the link.
-
- - if a netmask has been specified, a further netmask option will be
- rejected if it would "broaden" the netmask, that is, set a bit to
- 0 which was previously 1. Thus the system administrator can put a
- netmask option in /etc/ppp/options without having it overridden by
- an option on the command line.
-
- - chat now takes a -f option which indicates that it should read the
- script from the file. If you include a password in the script,
- you should put the script in a file instead of on the chat command
- line, because the chat command line is visible to anyone running
- ps(1) while chat is running. (You should of course make the
- script file readable only by yourself.)
-
- * pppd can now send an LCP echo-request periodically to the peer, and
- take the link down if no reply is received to a user-specified number
- of echo-requests. This allows pppd to determine if the serial link is
- broken on systems which do not support hardware modem control lines.
- Under Linux, the echo-request is sent if no packets have been received
- from the peer for a user-specified amount of time. Under other
- systems, echo-requests are simply sent periodically at user-specified
- intervals. See the `lcp-echo-interval' and `lcp-echo-failure'
- options. This code is from the Linux port.
-
- * pppd now reads a tty-specific options file after processing the
- command-line options. The file is called /etc/ppp/options.<ttyname>
- (for example, /etc/ppp/options.ttya2 if pppd is using /dev/ttya2).
- The system administrator can use these files to assign an IP address
- based on which tty port a call came in on, for example.
-
- * There is now a `-crtscts' flag (`xonxoff' is a synonym) which
- enables flow control using the DC1 (^Q) and DC3 (^S) characters (and
- disables hardware RTS/CTS flow control). This option is only
- supported under Linux at present.
-
- * There is now a `vj-max-slots' option which controls how many slots
- (connection IDs) the VJ compressor and decompressor will use. It
- takes a parameter which must be between 2 and 16. There is also a
- `-vjccomp' option which disables connection-ID compression.
-
- * Bugs fixed:
-
- - The priority queueing for interactive traffic was not working
- correctly on little-endian machines under BSD and Ultrix. This is
- now fixed.
-
- - If the peer escapes the character 0x5d (']') on transmission, the
- result is the PPP escape character twice in a row ('}}'). This
- case is now handled correctly by the receiver.
-
- - Previously, when the `passive' or `silent' options were used, pppd
- would not exit in response to a SIGTERM or SIGINT if it had not
- successfully established a connection. This bug is now fixed.
-
- * ppp-2.1.1 introduced the receive asyncmap, which was set to
- 0xffffffff (rejecting all received control characters) if it was not
- negotiated. This is in accordance with the relevant RFCs, but it
- apparently caused problems to some people who were trying to
- communicate with other, broken, PPP implementations. So, for
- backwards compatibility, the receive asyncmap is now set to 0x00000000
- if it is not negotiated.
-
-
- -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
- What was new in ppp-2.1:
-
- * Ultrix is now supported, thanks to Robert Olsson and Per Sundstrom.
-
- * An extended asyncmap has been implemented, so you can now ask for
- any character to be escaped on transmission (except 0x20 - 0x3f and
- 0x5e). The new `escape' option for pppd specifies those characters to
- be escaped on transmission (as distinct from the asyncmap option,
- which specifies which characters to ask the peer to escape).
-
- * pppd now has a `mtu' option which specifies the maximum packet size
- that should be transmitted (as distinct from the mru option, which
- specifies the maximum packet size we ask the peer to send).
-
- * The `debug' option to pppd now causes it to log the contents of all
- control packets sent and received in a readable form. In addition
- there is a `kdebug' option to control the debugging level in the
- kernel code.
-
- * Log messages from pppd are now logged using facility `daemon' rather
- than `local2', since pppd is now compiled by default without extra
- debug messages enabled. You probably need to edit your syslog.conf.
- I find it useful to send messages for facility `daemon' at level
- notice (or higher) to the console, and message at level debug (or
- higher) to a log file such as /etc/ppp/ppp-log.
-
- * pppd now includes code to lock and unlock the serial device using a
- UUCP-style lock file. The `lock' option enables this.
-
- * pppd now has a `disconnect' option which specifies a command to be
- run after the link is terminated. It can be used, for example, to
- hang up the modem.
-
- * The ppp drivers now record information which enables pppd to warn
- you if the link only transmits 7 bits/character, i.e. if the 8th bit
- is always 0, 1, even parity, or odd parity.
-
- * A bug in previous versions, where the VJ compressor would use 16
- slots even if the peer requested fewer, has been fixed.
-
-