PON(1)

📦
version 2.5.5 · 2 versions
, in alpine 3.22, alpine 3.23, alpine 3.24, arch rolling

PON(1) 💖 the p-commands, bestie

okay so this is the pon, poff and plog family, straight out of Debian's pppd world — the little scripts that let regular humans (well, you) boss their PPP connections around. sit down, grab a snack 🍓, we're doing this.

✨ NAME ✨

pon, poff, plog — starts up, shuts down or lists the log of PPP connections. no cap, that's the whole vibe. 👑

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

pon [ isp-name [ options ] ]
poff [ -r ] [ -d ] [ -c ] [ -a ] [ -h ] [ isp-name ]
plog [ arguments ]

like. look at them. three little icons doing three little jobs. 💅

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

This manual page describes the pon, plog and poff scripts, which allow users to control PPP connections. that's the mission statement, periodt.

💜 pon

pon, invoked without arguments, runs the /etc/ppp/ppp_on_boot file, if it exists and is executable. Otherwise, a PPP connection will be started using configuration from /etc/ppp/peers/provider. This is the default behaviour unless an isp-name argument is given.

so basically: no args → it goes looking for /etc/ppp/ppp_on_boot first, and if that's not there or not executable, it falls back to /etc/ppp/peers/provider. that's the default. that's just how it is. 🙈

For instance, to use ISP configuration "myisp" run:

pon myisp

pon will then use the options file /etc/ppp/peers/myisp. You can pass additional options after the ISP name, too. pon can be used to run multiple, simultaneous PPP connections. multiple!! at the same time!! main character energy fr fr 🔥

💅 poff

poff closes a PPP connection. If more than one PPP connection exists, the one named in the argument to poff will be killed, e.g.

poff myprovider2

will terminate the connection to myprovider2, and leave the PPP connections to e.g. "myprovider1" or "myprovider3" up and running. so it's targeted. surgical. it's giving precision. 💀

poff takes the following command line options:

  • -r — causes the connection to be redialed after it is dropped.
  • -d — toggles the state of pppd's debug option.
  • -c — causes pppd(8) to renegotiate compression.
  • -a — stops all running ppp connections. If the argument isp-name is given it will be ignored. (yeah, it just ignores it. rude but valid.)
  • -h — displays help information.
  • -v — prints the version and exits.

If no argument is given, poff will stop or signal pppd if and only if there is exactly one running. If more than one connection is active, it will exit with an error code of 1. so like — one connection? cool, handled. more than one? it panics and bails with a 1. 💀

🎀 plog

plog shows you the last few lines of /var/log/ppp.log. If that file doesn't exist, it shows you the last few lines of your /var/log/syslog file, but excluding the lines not generated by pppd. This script makes use of the tail(1) command, so arguments that can be passed to tail(1) can also be passed to plog. so it's basically tail with extra lore ✨

Note: the plog script can only be used by root or another system administrator in group "adm", due to security reasons. Also, to have all pppd-generated information in one logfile, that plog can show, you need the following line in your /etc/syslog.conf file:
local2.*       -/var/log/ppp.log

like yes bestie, permissions. root or the "adm" girlies only. that's the rule and honestly? fair. 🔒

🧚 FILES 🧚

  • /etc/ppp/options — PPPd system options file.
  • /etc/ppp/pap-secrets — System PAP passwords file.
  • /etc/ppp/chap-secrets — System CHAP passwords file.
  • /etc/ppp/peers/ — Directory holding the peer options files. The default file is called provider.
  • /etc/chatscripts/provider — The chat script invoked from the default /etc/ppp/peers/provider.
  • /var/log/ppp.log — The default PPP log file.

all the little homes where the magic lives 🏠💖

🌈 AUTHORS 🌈

The p-commands were written by Christoph Lameter <clameter@debian.org>. Updated and revised by Philip Hands <phil@hands.com>. This manual was written by Othmar Pasteka <othmar@tron.at>. Modified by Rob Levin <lilo@openprojects.net>, with some extensions taken from the old p-commands manual written by John Hasler <jhasler@debian.org>.

shoutout to the whole squad honestly, iconic collab 🫶

⭐ SEE ALSO ⭐

pppd(8), chat(8), tail(1).

go read those next, iykyk 👑

and that's the whole page, bestie 💜 this one's a Debian Project situation, dated July 2000, and it's the PON(1) manual — so go forth, dial up, log it, and slay. mwah 🎀✨

📦 where this page comes from