freebsd-dev/usr.sbin/pppctl/pppctl.8

.\" $Id: pppctl.8,v 1.5 1997/11/07 02:54:46 brian Exp $
.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
.Pa /etc/services .

.Pp
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 reading commands, the
.Xr editline 3
library is used, allowing command-line editing (with
.Xr editrc 5
defining editing behaviour).  The history size
defaults to
.Em 20 lines .

The following command line options are available:
.Bl -tag -width Ds
.It Fl v
Display all data sent to and received from the
.Nm ppp
daemon.  Normally,
.Nm pppctl
displays only non-prompt lines received.  This option is ignored in
interactive mode.
.It 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.
.It 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.
.Pp
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:
.Bd -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

.Pp
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
.Pa /etc/ppp/ppp.conf
(in the correct section):

.Bd -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.

.Pp
You can now create some easy-access scripts.  To connect to the internet:

.Bd -literal -offset indent
#! /bin/sh
test $# -eq 0 && time=300 || time=$1
exec pppctl -t 60 /var/run/internet set timeout $time\\; dial
.Ed

.Pp
To disconnect:
.Bd -literal -offset indent
#! /bin/sh
exec pppctl /var/run/internet set timeout 300\\; close
.Ed

.Pp
To check if the line is up:
.Bd -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

.Pp
You can even make a generic script:
.Bd -literal -offset indent
#! /bin/sh
exec pppctl /var/run/internet "$@"
.Ed

.Sh ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
The following environment variables are understood by
.Nm pppctl
when in interactive mode:
.Bl -tag -width XXXXXXXXXX
.It Dv EL_SIZE
The number of history lines.  The default is 20.
.It Dv EL_EDITOR
The edit mode.  Only values of "emacs" and "vi" are accepted.  Other values
are silently ignored.  This environment variable will override the
.Ar bind -v
and
.Ar bind -e
commands in
.Pa ~/.editrc .
.El

.Sh SEE ALSO
.Xr editline 3 ,
.Xr editrc 5 ,
.Xr ppp 8 ,
.Xr services 5

.Sh HISTORY
The
.Nm
command first appeared in FreeBSD 2.2.5.