PPTPD(8)

💖 PPTPD(8) — the System Manager's Manual glow-up 💖

okay bestie, sit down, hydrate, and let me tell you about pptpd — it's the Poptop PPTP daemon, and it's literally the main character of tunnelled VPN life. It manages tunnelled PPP connections encapsulated in GRE using the PPTP VPN protocol. ✨

And depending on how it got compiled, it may also contain features like IP address management and TCP wrappers — if they were compiled in. No promises, just vibes and build flags. 🫶

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🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

pptpd [ options ]

that's it. that's the whole thing. a daemon and its options, slaying. 💅

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🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

So pptpd is the Poptop PPTP daemon (yes, "Poptop", iconic name, no notes). It manages tunnelled PPP connections that are encapsulated in GRE using the PPTP VPN protocol. 🎀

If it was compiled with them, it may contain features like IP address management and TCP wrappers. iykyk. 🌈

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✨ OPTIONS ✨

okay so here's where we document the command line options. But listen — for configuration directives, IP address allocation, routing, and firewall rules, you want pptpd.conf(5). Different page, different vibe. 📖

• -b, --bcrelay internal-interface — says that broadcasts received on the server's internal network interface should be relayed to the clients. spreading the gossip, respectfully. 📣
• -c, --conf conf-file — picks the configuration file for pptpd (default is /etc/pptpd.conf).
• -d, --debug — turns on debugging mode, which means more debugging messages get sent to syslog. chatterbox era. 🗣️
• -e, --ppp pppd-program — use pppd-program instead of the default pppd(8).
• -f, --fg — run in the foreground instead of detaching from the terminal. clingy in the best way. 🫂
• -h, --help — display program usage.
• -i, --noipparam — do NOT send the client's IP address to ip-up scripts. This one is required if you're using the pppd(8) ipparam option for some other purpose, so don't skip it or things get messy. 🙈
• -l, --listen x.x.x.x — specifies the local interface IP address to listen on.
• -o, --option ppp-conf-file — says pptpd should specify an alternate configuration file for the ppp daemon. (The default is normally /etc/ppp/options, but ngl it may vary depending on your ppp daemon.)
• -p, --pidfile pid-file — specifies an alternate location to store the process ID file (default /var/run/pptpd.pid).
• -s, --speed baud — says the speed baud should be passed to the ppp daemon as the tty speed to use. heads up though: in some cases this is ignored by the ppp daemon. 😭
• -t, --stimeout seconds — specifies how many seconds to wait for the first packet before dropping the connection. It's a denial of service protection feature, so it's lowkey a bodyguard. 👑
• -w, --logwtmp — update wtmp(5) as users connect and disconnect. See wtmp(1).
• -C, --connections n — limits the number of client connections that may be accepted. This corresponds to the connections option in pptpd.conf. And psst — if pptpd is allocating IP addresses (like, when --delegate is not used) then the number of connections is also limited by the remoteip option in pptpd.conf. double limit, double the drama. 💀
• -D, --delegate — delegates the allocation of client IP addresses to pppd(8). Without this option (and that's the default, btw), pptpd manages the list of IP addresses for clients and passes the next free address to pppd. With this option, pptpd doesn't pass an address, so pppd may use radius or chap-secrets to allocate one. delegating like a true girlboss. 👑
• -V, --vrf vrf-name — specifies the VRF to be used for listening in.
• -v, --version — displays the current version of the pptp daemon.

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🎀 FILES 🎀

• /etc/pptpd.conf
• /var/run/pptpd.pid

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🔥 DEBUGGING 🔥

To turn on debugging, add debug to /etc/pptpd.conf and your PPP options file, then restart pptpd. both places, bestie, don't half-do it. 💅

Typically the PPP options file is options.pptpd in /etc/ppp, though on some distributions it may be pptpd-options. Use your package manager to find it, like:

rpm -ql pptpd | grep options

or

dpkg --listfiles pptpd | grep options

You may need to configure syslogd to catch debug messages. e.g. edit /etc/syslog.conf and add something similar to the example below, then restart syslogd.

# debug logging
*.debug;mail.none                                       /var/log/debug

This will log all debug information, except mail, to the file /var/log/debug. Note that this is a lot of information and might flood your disks. 😭 If performance is an issue, you can try turning off sync during your debugging by prefixing the destination with -:

# debug logging
*.debug;mail.none                                       -/var/log/debug

Disable this line and restart syslog after you are done debugging. See the syslog man pages for more details.

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💜 AUTHORS 💜

Poptop is written by Matthew Ramsay <matthewr@moreton.com.au>, David Luyer <luyer@ucs.uwa.edu.au>, Kevin Thayer <tmk@netmagic.net>, Peter Galbavy <Peter.Galbavy@knowledge.com> and others. Development has been moved to SourceForge and worked on by Richard de Vroede <r.devroede@linvision.com> since June 26, 2002. absolute legends, all of them. 🫶

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🌈 COPYRIGHT 🌈

Copyright © 1999 Matthew Ramsay and others.

Poptop is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2, or (at your option) any later version.

Poptop is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with Poptop; see the file COPYING. If not, write to the Free Software Foundation, 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.

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⭐ AVAILABILITY ⭐

The most recent version of Poptop is available for download from SourceForge at http://sourceforge.net/projects/poptop.

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👑 SEE ALSO 👑

pppd(8), pptpd(8), pptpd.conf(5).

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and that's the whole page, bestie!! 🎀 this one's from the System Manager's Manual, dated 29 December 2005 — yes, we know, vintage, but she still eats 💅 — and you can find her filed under PPTPD(8). go forth and tunnel responsibly. 💖✨