ppp dial-in

[Anna University <linux@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Dear Linuxers
     I'm not on the ilugc list now, and hence did not see any post-linux
demo day posts on the list. But I assume there were no brickbats, since I
felt everything went on well, and people who came left with a genuine
sense of interest.
     I had been planning to try to get some friends to dial in into my
comp using ppp, so that we could transfer some files ( terminal dial up
and zmodem transfers are easy but slow - dunno why ). Had some problems.
Sorted them all out with excellent advice from Dr. Sriram ( the aero dept.
at iitm has a machine into which he and prabhu dial in ) and everything
seemed ready to work. i wanted a friend to establish a ppp link with linux
on his end too, so that i could get good logs from his side too. but that
wasn't possible. So i settled for windows on the remote end. I didn't try
PAP/CHAP - being content with normal termianl dial-in, and a manual
invoking of pppd by the person logging in. /usr/sbin/pppd has permissions
with "s" instead of "x" for owner and group. Please excuse the crude
statement before this, since i'm not actually sure what you call this
permission. I did a chmod +s /usr/sbin/pppd , and i suppose i've set
/usr/sbin/pppd with SUID root. Please clarify, somebody. 
     My friend logged in, and typed ppp at his prompt. ppp is a file in
$HOME containing the line "/usr/sbin/pppd -detach /dev/ttyS1". On doing
this, pppd started ( as evident from /var/log/messages ), but there was a
curt message......

	kernel: registered device ppp0
	pppd[565]: pppd 2.3.7 started by manoj, uid 502
	pppd[565]: Device ttyS1 is locked by pid 546
	pppd[565]: Exit

     And pid 546 was the login process, as evident from "ps ax | grep 546" 

	546	ttyS1	S	login 	--	manoj

     This might be irrelevant, but i asked my friend to su and then run
ppp. no use - the same message. 

     I've been feeling a little guilty about repeatedly sending Dr. Sriram
the earlier mails and so I decided that this post should go here. And
Prabhu/Arun/anybody, please tell me if these questions should be sent
somewhere else ( i remember you guys discussing ilugc-tech etc. ) .

I'm NOT on the list, so please cc replies to this address AND to 
msridhar@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

regards and tia
mani sridhar
(44)491-9055



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