Changelog extracted from README file: What's new in ppp-2.4.4. ************************ * Pppd will now run /etc/ppp/ip-pre-up, if it exists, after creating the ppp interface and configuring its IP addresses but before bringing it up. This can be used, for example, for adding firewall rules for the interface. * Lots of bugs fixed, particularly in the area of demand-dialled and persistent connections. * The rp-pppoe plugin now accepts any interface name (that isn't an existing pppd option name) without putting "nic-" on the front of it, not just eth*, nas*, tap* and br*. What was new in ppp-2.4.3. ************************** * The configure script now accepts --prefix and --sysconfdir options. These default to /usr/local and /etc. If you want pppd put in /usr/sbin as before, use ./configure --prefix=/usr. * Doing `make install' no longer puts example configuration files in /etc/ppp. Use `make install-etcppp' if you want that. * The code has been updated to work with version 0.8.3 of libpcap. Unfortunately the libpcap maintainers removed support for the "inbound" and "outbound" keywords on PPP links, meaning that if you link pppd with libpcap-0.8.3, you can't use those keywords in the active-filter and pass-filter expressions. The support has been reinstated in the CVS version and should be in future libpcap releases. If you need the in/outbound keywords, use a later release than 0.8.3, or get the CVS version from http://www.tcpdump.org. * There is a new option, child-timeout, which sets the length of time that pppd will wait for child processes (such as the command specified with the pty option) to exit before exiting itself. It defaults to 5 seconds. After the timeout, pppd will send a SIGTERM to any remaining child processes and exit. A value of 0 means no timeout. * Various bugs have been fixed, including some CBCP packet parsing bugs that could lead to the peer being able to crash pppd if CBCP support is enabled. * Various fixes and enhancements to the radius and rp-pppoe plugins have been added. * There is a new winbind plugin, from Andrew Bartlet of the Samba team, which provides the ability to authenticate the peer against an NT domain controller using MS-CHAP or MS-CHAPV2. * There is a new pppoatm plugin, by various authors, sent in by David Woodhouse. * The multilink code has been substantially reworked. The first pppd for a bundle still controls the ppp interface, but it doesn't exit until all the links in the bundle have terminated. If the first pppd is signalled to exit, it signals all the other pppds controlling links in the bundle. * The TDB code has been updated to the latest version. This should eliminate the problem that some people have seen where the database file (/var/run/pppd.tdb) keeps on growing. Unfortunately, however, the new code uses an incompatible database format. For this reason, pppd now uses /var/run/pppd2.tdb as the database filename. What was new in ppp-2.4.2. ************************** * The CHAP code has been rewritten. Pppd now has support for MS-CHAP V1 and V2 authentication, both as server and client. The new CHAP code is cleaner than the old code and avoids some copyright problems that existed in the old code. * MPPE (Microsoft Point-to-Point Encryption) support has been added, although the current implementation shouldn't be considered completely secure. (There is no assurance that the current code won't ever transmit an unencrypted packet.) * James Carlson's implementation of the Extensible Authentication Protocol (EAP) has been added. * Support for the Encryption Control Protocol (ECP) has been added. * Some new plug-ins have been included: - A plug-in for kernel-mode PPPoE (PPP over Ethernet) - A plug-in for supplying the PAP password over a pipe from another process - A plug-in for authenticating using a Radius server. * Updates and bug-fixes for the Solaris port. * The CBCP (Call Back Control Protocol) code has been updated. There are new options `remotenumber' and `allow-number'. * Extra hooks for plugins to use have been added. * There is now a `maxoctets' option, which causes pppd to terminate the link once the number of bytes passed on the link exceeds a given value. * There are now options to control whether pppd can use the IPCP IP-Address and IP-Addresses options: `ipcp-no-address' and `ipcp-no-addresses'. * Fixed several bugs, including potential buffer overflows in chat. What was new in ppp-2.4.1. ************************** * Pppd can now print out the set of options that are in effect. The new `dump' option causes pppd to print out the option values after option parsing is complete. The `dryrun' option causes pppd to print the options and then exit. * The option parsing code has been fixed so that options in the per-tty options file are parsed correctly, and don't override values from the command line in most cases. * The plugin option now looks in /usr/lib/pppd/ (for example, /usr/lib/pppd/2.4.1b1) for shared objects for plugins if there is no slash in the plugin name. * When loading a plugin, pppd will now check the version of pppd for which the plugin was compiled, and refuse to load it if it is different to pppd's version string. To enable this, the plugin source needs to #include "pppd.h" and have a line saying: char pppd_version[] = VERSION; * There is a bug in zlib, discovered by James Carlson, which can cause kernel memory corruption if Deflate is used with the lowest setting, 8. As a workaround pppd will now insist on using at least 9. * Pppd should compile on Solaris and SunOS again. * Pppd should now set the MTU correctly on demand-dialled interfaces. What was new in ppp-2.4.0. ************************** * Multilink: this package now allows you to combine multiple serial links into one logical link or `bundle', for increased bandwidth and reduced latency. This is currently only supported under the 2.4.x and later Linux kernels. * All the pppd processes running on a system now write information into a common database. I used the `tdb' code from samba for this. * New hooks have been added. For a list of the changes made during the 2.3 series releases of this package, see the Changes-2.3 file.