install

unix and linux net driver

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/pppd.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<UP,POINTOPOINT,RUNNING>
        	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.  Please
note that pppd itself will not appear to do anything but sit there.

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 <IP address of machine>" is successful,
but "telnet <machinename>" 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 and you should use those, not the
ones listed below.  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

----------------------------------------------------------------------

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/pppd.log file.

If you do have troubles, please see the FAQ on:
  http://www.peak.org/next/ppp/


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:
	[e-mail]
with no subject and message body consisting of:
	subscribe nextppp 
(please use your own name ;). To send mail to all the participants on
the list, address your messages to:
       [e-mail]

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 
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 is that if users
have a bad copy of the LKS, the system will panic and will be unable
to boot. So, for the time, it is suggested that you install the package
manually and load the LKS in /etc/rc.local as directed above.


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 "[e-mail]" whose body
consists of the single line "help".


Thanks

Stephen J. Perkins