PPPOE(8)						      System Manager's Manual							  PPPOE(8)

NAME

       pppoe - user-space PPPoE client.

SYNOPSIS

       pppd pty 'pppoe [pppoe_options]' [pppd_options]

       pppoe -A [pppoe_options]

DESCRIPTION

       pppoe  is  a  user-space client for PPPoE (Point-to-Point Protocol over Ethernet) for Linux and other UNIX systems.  pppoe works in concert
       with the pppd PPP daemon to provide a PPP connection over Ethernet, as is used by many DSL service providers.

OPTIONS

       -I interface
	      The -I option specifies the Ethernet interface to use.  Under Linux, it is typically eth0 or eth1.  The  interface  should  be  "up"
	      before you start pppoe, but should not be configured to have an IP address.

       -T timeout
	      The  -T  option causes pppoe to exit if no session traffic is detected for timeout seconds.  I recommend that you use this option as
	      an extra safety measure, but if you do, you should make sure that PPP generates enough traffic so the timeout will normally  not	be
	      triggered.   The	best  way to do this is to use the lcp-echo-interval option to pppd.  You should set the PPPoE timeout to be about
	      four times the LCP echo interval.

       -D file_name
	      The -D option causes every packet to be dumped to the specified file_name.  This is intended for debugging only;	it  produces  huge
	      amounts of output and greatly reduces performance.

       -V     The -V option causes pppoe to print its version number and exit.

       -A     The  -A  option causes pppoe to send a PADI packet and then print the names of access concentrators in each PADO packet it receives.
	      Do not use this option in conjunction with pppd; the -A option is meant to be used interactively	to  give  interesting  information
	      about the access concentrator.

       -S service_name
	      Specifies  the  desired  service	name.  pppoe will only initiate sessions with access concentrators which can provide the specified
	      service.	In most cases, you should not specify this option.  Use it only if you know that there are multiple  access  concentrators
	      or know that you need a specific service name.

       -C ac_name
	      Specifies  the desired access concentrator name.	pppoe will only initiate sessions with the specified access concentrator.  In most
	      cases, you should not specify this option.  Use it only if you know that there are multiple access concentrators.  If  both  the	-S
	      and -C options are specified, they must both match for pppoe to initiate a session.

       -U     Causes  pppoe to use the Host-Uniq tag in its discovery packets.	This lets you run multiple pppoe daemons without having their dis-
	      covery packets interfere with one another.  You must supply this option to all pppoe daemons if you intend to run  multiple  daemons
	      simultaneously.

       -s     Causes  pppoe  to  use synchronous PPP encapsulation.  If you use this option, then you must use the sync option with pppd.  You are
	      encouraged to use this option if it works, because it greatly reduces the CPU overhead of pppoe.	However, it MAY be  unreliable	on
	      slow  machines -- there is a race condition between pppd writing data and pppoe reading it.  For this reason, the default setting is
	      asynchronous.  If you encounter bugs or crashes with Synchronous PPP, turn it off -- don't e-mail me for support!

       -m MSS Causes pppoe to clamp the TCP maximum segment size at the specified value.  Because of PPPoE overhead, the maximum segment size  for
	      PPPoE  is  smaller  than	for normal Ethernet encapsulation.  This could cause problems for machines on a LAN behind a gateway using
	      PPPoE.  If you have a LAN behind a gateway, and the gateway connects to the Internet using PPPoE, you are  strongly  recommended	to
	      use a -m 1412 option.  This avoids having to set the MTU on all the hosts on the LAN.

       -H MAC Causes  pppoe  to  use  the  indicated Ethernet MAC address as the source address for sending packets.  MAC must be specified in the
	      AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:FF syntax.  If this option is specified, pppoe puts the interface into promiscuous mode.

       -p file
	      Causes pppoe to write its process-ID to the specified file.  This can be used to locate and kill pppoe processes.

       -e sess:mac
	      Causes pppoe to skip the discovery phase and move directly to the session phase.	The session is given by sess and the  MAC  address
	      of the peer by mac.  This mode is not meant for normal use; it is designed only for pppoe-server(8).

       -n     Causes pppoe not to open a discovery socket.  This mode is not meant for normal use; it is designed only for pppoe-server(8).

       -k     Causes  pppoe  to  terminate  an existing session by sending a PADT frame, and then exit.  You must use the -e option in conjunction
	      with this option to specify the session to kill.	This may be useful for killing sessions when a buggy peer  does  not  realize  the
	      session has ended.

       -d     Causes  pppoe to perform discovery and then exit, after printing session information to standard output.	The session information is
	      printed in exactly the format expected by the -e option.	This option lets you initiate a PPPoE discovery, perform some other  work,
	      and  then start the actual PPP session.  Be careful; if you use this option in a loop, you can create many sessions, which may annoy
	      your peer.

       -f disc:sess
	      The -f option sets the Ethernet frame types for PPPoE discovery and session frames.  The types are specified as hexadecimal  numbers
	      separated by a colon.  Standard PPPoE uses frame types 8863:8864.  You should not use this option unless you are absolutely sure the
	      peer you are dealing with uses non-standard frame types.	If your ISP uses non-standard frame types, complain!

       -h     The -h option causes pppoe to print usage information and exit.

PPPOE BACKGROUND

       PPPoE (Point-to-Point Protocol over Ethernet) is described in RFC 2516 and is a protocol which allows the session abstraction to  be  main-
       tained over bridged Ethernet networks.

       PPPoE works by encapsulating PPP frames in Ethernet frames.  The protocol has two distinct stages:  The discovery and the session stage.

       In  the discovery stage, the host broadcasts a special PADI (PPPoE Active Discovery Initiation) frame to discover any access concentrators.
       The access concentrators (typically, only one access concentrator) reply with PADO (PPPoE Active Discovery Offer) packets, announcing their
       presence and the services they offer.  The host picks one of the access concentrators and transmits a PADR (PPPoE Active Discovery Request)
       packet, asking for a session.  The access concentrator replies with a PADS (PPPoE Active Discovery Session-Confirmation) packet.  The  pro-
       tocol then moves to the session stage.

       In  the	session  stage, the host and access concentrator exchange PPP frames embedded in Ethernet frames.  The normal Ethernet MTU is 1500
       bytes, but the PPPoE overhead plus two bytes of overhead for the encapsulated PPP frame mean that the MTU of the PPP interface is  at  most
       1492  bytes.   This  causes all kinds of problems if you are using a Linux machine as a firewall and interfaces behind the firewall have an
       MTU greater than 1492.  In fact, to be safe, I recommend setting the MTU of machines behind the firewall to 1412, to allow  for	worst-case
       TCP and IP options in their respective headers.

       Normally,  PPP  uses  the Link Control Protocol (LCP) to shut down a PPP link.  However, the PPPoE specification allows the link to be shut
       down with a special PADT (PPPoE Active Discovery Terminate) packet.  This client recognizes this packet and will correctly terminate  if  a
       terminate request is received for the PPP session.

DESIGN GOALS

       My design goals for this PPPoE client were as follows, in descending order of importance:

       o      It must work.

       o      It must be a user-space program and not a kernel patch.

       o      The code must be easy to read and maintain.

       o      It must be fully compliant with RFC 2516, the proposed PPPoE standard.

       o      It must never hang up forever -- if the connection is broken, it must detect this and exit, allowing a wrapper script to restart the
	      connection.

       o      It must be fairly efficient.

       I believe I have achieved all of  these	goals,	but  (of  course)  am  open  to  suggestions,  patches	and  ideas.   See  my  home  page,
       http://www.roaringpenguin.com, for contact information.

NOTES

       For  best  results,  you  must  give  pppd an mtu option of 1492.  I have observed problems with excessively-large frames unless I set this
       option.	Also, if pppoe is running on a firewall machine, all machines behind the firewall should have MTU's of 1412.

       If you have problems, check your system logs.  pppoe logs interesting things to syslog.	You may have to turn  on  logging  of  debug-level
       messages for complete diagnosis.

AUTHORS

       pppoe was written by David F. Skoll <dfs@roaringpenguin.com>, with much inspiration from an earlier version by Luke Stras.

       The pppoe home page is http://www.roaringpenguin.com/pppoe/.

SEE ALSO

       pppd(8), pppoe-sniff(8), pppoe-server(8), pppoe-relay(8), /usr/share/doc/pppoe/README.Debian.gz

4th Berkeley Distribution					    3 July 2000 							  PPPOE(8)