Subject: pppd config file bug?
To: None <tech-net@netbsd.org>
From: Jon Buller <jon@bullers.net>
List: tech-net
Date: 03/11/2001 20:30:24
I'm trying to setup a PC532 with NetBSD-1.5 from a SparcStation LX
running NetBSD-1.5.1_ALPHA.  The trick to this is that the only
way to get data to the PC532 is via the SCSI bus or a serial port.
Being hardware lazy at the moment, I booted up the PC532 with the
install image (put there with an ~ escape from cu -l /dev/ttya)
labeled the disk and started to configure PPP so I could FTP the
tar balls.

What I discovered is that if I put this in /etc/ppp/options and
start it with "pppd", everything works.  (In fact I am 2% of the
way into FTPing base.tgz as I write this.)

     /dev/ttyb
     38400
     noauth
     crtscts
     passive
     192.168.2.1:192.168.2.2
     debug
     netmask 255.255.255.255
     local

But just before this, I had a zero length options file, and the
exact same file above, less the first line, in /etc/ppp/options.ttyb
the negoation failed when I typed "pppd ttyb".  Syslog had a line
in it saying that one of the two was trying for address 0.0.0.0
and the other end rejected it.

Based on my reading of how the options files are supposed to be
parsed, this appears to be a bug in the code, but possibly a hole
in the documentation.  In any case, it does not appear to follow
the rule of least suprise.

Anybody want to give me a quick explaination, or ask me to file a
PR on this?

Jon