PPPOED(8)

NAME
pppoed - handle incoming PPP over Ethernet connections

SYNOPSIS
pppoed [-Fd] [-P pidfile] [-a name] [-e exec] [-p provider] interface

DESCRIPTION
The pppoed program listens to the given interface for PPP over Ethernet (PPPoE) service request packets, and actions them by negotiating a session then envoking a PPP program. The negotiation is implemented by the “pppoe” netgraph node. See ng_pppoe(8) for details.

pppoed will only offer services to clients requesting services from the given provider, which is taken as an empty name if not provided. If a provider name of “*” is given, any PPPoE requests will be offered service.

The supplied name will be given as the access concentrator name when establishing the connection. If no name is given, the current base hostname is used.

After receiving a request (PADI) from the PPPoE netgraph node, pppoed fork(2)s a child process and returns to service further requests. The child process offers service (using name) and waits for a SUCCESS indication from the PPPoE node. On receipt of the SUCCESS indication, pppoed will execute

    exec /usr/sbin/ppp -direct provider

as a shell sub-process. It is possible to specify another command using the exec argument. This is mandatory if provider is not given. The child process will have standard input and standard output attached to the same netgraph(4) data socket (see ng_socket(8)) when started.

Upon invocation, pppoed will attach a “pppoe” netgraph node to the relevant “ether” node using “interface”: as the node name, and then connect that “pppoe” node to a local “socket” node. If the -F flag has not been given, pppoed will then go into the background and disassociate itself from the controlling terminal. When the -F flag is given, pppoed stays in the foreground.

If the -d flag is given, additional diagnostics are provided (see the DIAGNOSTICS section below).

If pidfile is given, pppoed will write its process ID to this file on startup.

DIAGNOSTICS
After creating the necessary netgraph(4) nodes as described above, pppoed uses syslogd(8) to report all incoming connections. If the -d flag is given, pppoed will report on the child processes creation of a new netgraph socket, it's service offer and the invocation of the PPP program.

It is sometimes useful to add the following to /etc/syslog.conf:

    !pppoed
    *.* /var/log/pppoed.log

and the following to /etc/newsyslog.conf:

    /var/log/pppoed.log 640 3 100 * Z

SEE ALSO
netgraph(4), syslog.conf(5), ng_pppoe(8), ng_socket(8), ppp(8), syslogd(8)

BUGS
If another netgraph node is using the given interface, pppoed will fail to start. This is because netgraph(4) does not currently allow node chaining. This may change in the future.

HISTORY
The pppoed program was written by Brian Somers <brian@Awfulhak.org> and first appeared in FreeBSD 3.4.