.Dd 26 June 1997 .Os FreeBSD .Dt PPPCTL 8 .Sh NAME .Nm pppctl .Nd PPP control program .Sh SYNOPSIS .Nm .Op Fl v .Op Fl t Ar n .Op Fl p Ar passwd .Ar [host:]Port | LocalSocket .Op command[;command]... .Sh DESCRIPTION This program provides command line control of the .Xr ppp 8 daemon. Its primary use is to facilitate simple scripts that control a running daemon. .Nm Pppctl is passed at least one argument, specifying the socket on which .Nm ppp is listening. Refer to the .Sq set server command of .Nm ppp for details. If the socket contains a leading '/', it is taken as an .Dv AF_LOCAL socket. If it contains a colon, it is treated as a .Ar host:port pair, otherwise it is treated as a TCP port specification on the local machine (127.0.0.1). Both the .Ar host and .Ar port may be specified numerically if you wish to avoid a DNS lookup or don't have an entry for the given port in
p All remaining arguments are concatenated to form the .Ar command(s) that will be sent to the .Nm ppp daemon. If any semi-colon characters are found, they are treated as .Ar command delimiters, allowing more than one .Ar command in a given "session". For example: pppctl 3000 set timeout 300\\; show timeout Don't forget to escape or quote the ';' as it is a special character for most shells. If no .Ar command arguments are given, .Nm enters interactive mode, where commands are read from standard input. When in interactive mode, the .Fl v option is assumed. Any password negotiation due to the .Fl p option is done prior to enabling the .Fl v option. The following command line options are available: l -tag -width Ds t Fl v Display all data sent to and received from the .Nm ppp daemon. Normally, .Nm pppctl displays only non-prompt lines received. t Fl t Ar n Use a timeout of .Ar n instead of the default 2 seconds. This may be required if you wish to control a daemon over a slow (or even a dialup) link. t Fl p Ar passwd Specify the password required by the .Nm ppp daemon. If this switch is not used, .Nm will prompt for a password once it has successfully connected to .Nm ppp . .El .Sh EXAMPLES Assuming you want to run .Nm ppp in .Fl auto mode, .Nm can be used to automate many frequent tasks. Use of the .Fl p option is discouraged (even in scripts that aren't readably by others) as a .Xr ps 1 listing may reveal your secret.
p In order to have .Nm ppp create a socket for use with .Nm pppctl , you will need to define a password for your local system: d -literal -offset indent # touch /etc/ppp/ppp.secret # chown root.wheel /etc/ppp/ppp.secret # chmod 400 /etc/ppp/ppp.secret # echo "`hostname -s` MyPassword" >>/etc/ppp/ppp.secret .Ed
p The most secure way to allow easy, secure .Nm access, and to make sure you can distinguish between multiple invocations of .Nm ppp is to create a local server socket in
a /etc/ppp/ppp.conf (in the correct section): d -literal -offset indent set server /var/run/internet 0666 .Ed This will instruct .Nm ppp to create a local domain socket rather than the tcp socket that's created by default. Refer to the .Xr ppp 8 man page for further details.
p You can now create some easy-access scripts. To connect to the internet: d -literal -offset indent #! /bin/sh test $# -eq 0 && time=300 || time=$1 exec pppctl -t 60 /var/run/internet set timeout $time\\; dial .Ed
p To disconnect: d -literal -offset indent #! /bin/sh exec pppctl /var/run/internet set timeout 300\\; close .Ed
p To check if the line is up: d -literal -offset indent #! /bin/sh pppctl -p '' -v /var/run/internet '' | grep ^PPP >/dev/null if [ $? -eq 0 ]; then echo Link is up else echo Link is down fi .Ed
p You can even make a generic script: d -literal -offset indent #! /bin/sh exec pppctl /var/run/internet "$@" .Ed .Sh SEE ALSO .Xr services 5 , .Xr ppp 8 .Sh HISTORY The .Nm command first appeared in FreeBSD 2.2.5.