I have tried using "demand", with extremely long idle time to imititate
a permanent connection. With demand set, pppd allocates unit numbers
differently, and makes sure that they remain constant. I will see how
this goes.

Thanks

Rex McMaster writes:
 > Thanks, I am using the same /etc/rc.conf method, but without demand -
 > they ar permanent connections. It is the "fault situations" that I am
 > trying to plan for - line faults, pppd dropouts etc - which occur over
 > long periods of unattended uptime. As I see it at the moment, a
 > monitor to maintain a set of pppd processes would have to start them
 > in a specific order to get the unit number allocations right. This is
 > turn makes later pppd processes dependent on earlier connections being
 > established.
 > 
 > Frederick Bruckman writes:
 >  > On Wed, 13 Oct 1999, Rex McMaster wrote:
 >  > 
 >  > > It seems that the unit number is allocated to pppd by an ioctl
 >  > > (PPPIOCGUNIT), and with random disconnections and re-connections it
 >  > > appears to be possible to end up with the unit numbers reversed.
 >  > > 
 >  > >   ... or am I missing something?
 >  > 
 >  > fredb@handy-> grep ppp /etc/rc.conf
 >  > ppp_peers="enteract laptop"		# /etc/ppp/peers to call
 >  > 
 >  > The isp is set up with "demand", and the laptop "silent persist".
 >  > Works for me.
 >  >