Configuring your linux machine as a SLIP or PPP server is a deceptively simple thing to do. The actual process is simple, but there are a number of different aspects to the configuration and understanding how each of the stages interact with each other is what will help you diagnose any problems you experience. Here are the steps that you must follow to configure your linux machine as a SLIP or PPP server:
16550AFN
UART's. This will help ease some of the work of handling interrupts generated by the serial ports.IP Forwarding
enabled if you want users to route via your server and SLIP
or PPP
configured as is appropriate for your configuration. Make sure you configure CSLIP
if you wish to use it. Double check you have IP Forwarding
enabled if you don't then dialin users will only be able to connect directly to your machine./proc/net/dev
file and make sure that you have sl*
ppp*
devices listed. If not then you have probably made some error in configuring your kernel, or you are not actually running your new kernel. Double check that you have actually run lilo to install the new kernel.DCD
pin tracks received carrier, this is how most getty programs detect an incoming call (mgetty
is an exception to this and uses the RING
message so you must be sure you have your modem configured to generate it: ATQ0V1
is usually enough).login:
prompt and be able to login to a shell account normally. Check for lost or garbled characters that
might indicate a flow control problem.static
server, if you want to minimise the number of addresses you use and don't care what address your users are allocated then you want a dynamic
server./etc/sliplogin and
/etc/SLIPlogout
files if you are using the sliplogin package. If you are configuring a PPP server then make sure you use the pppd proxyarp
option. If the addresses you are allocating are from a network seperate to your ethernet network then you will need to use a routing daemon program like gated. If you use gated then refer to the "gated" section.