Provided by: pppoe_3.11-0ubuntu1_amd64 bug

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 discovery 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 maintained 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 protocol 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