pppctl(8)

NAME

pppctl - PPP control program

SYNOPSIS

pppctl [-v] [-t n] [-p passwd] [host:]Port | LocalSocket
       [command[;command]...]

DESCRIPTION

This utility provides command line control of the ppp(8)

daemon. Its
primary use is to facilitate simple scripts that control a

running daemon.

The pppctl utility is passed at least one argument, specify

ing the socket
on which ppp is listening. Refer to the `set server' com

mand of ppp for
details. If the socket contains a leading '/', it is taken

as an
AF_LOCAL socket. If it contains a colon, it is treated as a

host:port
pair, otherwise it is treated as a TCP port specification on

the local
machine (127.0.0.1). Both the host and port may be speci

fied numerically
if you wish to avoid a DNS lookup or do not have an entry

for the given
port in /etc/services.

All remaining arguments are concatenated to form the

command(s) that will
be sent to the ppp daemon. If any semi-colon characters are

found, they
are treated as command delimiters, allowing more than one

command in a
given `session'. For example:

pppctl 3000 set timeout 300; show timeout

Do not forget to escape or quote the ';' as it is a special

character for
most shells.

If no command arguments are given, pppctl enters interactive

mode, where
commands are read from standard input. When reading com

mands, the
editline(3) library is used, allowing command-line editing

(with
editrc(5) defining editing behaviour). The history size de

faults to 20
lines.

The following command line options are available:

-v Display all data sent to and received from the ppp

daemon. Nor

mally, pppctl displays only non-prompt lines re

ceived. This
option is ignored in interactive mode.

-t n Use a timeout of n instead of the default 2 seconds

when connect

ing. This may be required if you wish to control a

daemon over a
slow (or even a dialup) link.

-p passwd

Specify the password required by the ppp daemon. If

this switch
is not used, pppctl will prompt for a password once

it has successfully connected to ppp.

ENVIRONMENT

The following environment variables are understood by pppctl

when in
interactive mode:

EL_SIZE The number of history lines. The default is 20.

EL_EDITOR The edit mode. Only values of "emacs" and "vi"

are accepted.

Other values are silently ignored. This envi

ronment variable
will override the bind -v and bind -e commands

in ~/.editrc.

EXAMPLES

If you run ppp in -auto mode, pppctl can be used to automate

many frequent tasks (you can actually control ppp in any mode except

interactive
mode). Use of the -p option is discouraged (even in scripts

that are not
readable by others) as a ps(1) listing may reveal your se

cret.

The best way to allow easy, secure pppctl access is to cre

ate a local
server socket in /etc/ppp/ppp.conf (in the correct section)

like this:

set server /var/run/internet "" 0177

This will instruct ppp to create a local domain socket, with

srw------permissions and no password, allowing access only to the us

er that
invoked ppp. Refer to the ppp(8) man page for further de

tails.

You can now create some easy-access scripts. To connect to

the internet:

#! /bin/sh
test $# -eq 0 && time=300 || time=$1
exec pppctl /var/run/internet set timeout $time; dial

To disconnect:

#! /bin/sh
exec pppctl /var/run/internet set timeout 300; close

To check if the line is up:

#! /bin/sh
pppctl -p '' -v /var/run/internet quit | grep ^PPP

>/dev/null
if [ $? -eq 0 ]; then

echo Link is up

else

echo Link is down

fi

You can even make a generic script:

#! /bin/sh
exec pppctl /var/run/internet "$@"

You could also use pppctl to control when dial-on-demand

works. Suppose
you want ppp to run all the time, but you want to prevent

dial-out
between 8pm and 8am each day. However, any connections ac

tive at 8pm
should continue to remain active until they are closed or

naturally time
out.

A cron(8) entry for 8pm which runs

pppctl /var/run/internet set filter dial 0 deny 0 0

will block all further dial requests, and the corresponding

8am entry

pppctl /var/run/internet set filter dial -1

will allow them again.

SEE ALSO

ps(1), editline(3), editrc(5), services(5), ppp(8)

HISTORY

The pppctl utility first appeared in FreeBSD 2.2.5.

BSD June 26, 1997

BSD