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PPTP(8)			    System Manager's Manual		       PPTP(8)

NAME
       pptp - PPTP driver

SYNOPSIS
       pptp <pptp-server-IP> <pptp-options> [ppp-options] ...

DESCRIPTION
       pptp establishes	the client side	of a Virtual Private Network (VPN) us-
       ing  the	Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol (PPTP).  Use this program to
       connect to an employer's	PPTP based VPN,	or to certain cable  and  ADSL
       service providers.

       By default, pptp	establishes the	PPTP call to the PPTP server, and then
       starts  an instance of pppd to manage the data transfer.	 However, pptp
       can also	be run as a connection manager within pppd.

OPTIONS
       The first non-option argument on	the pptp command line must be the host
       name or IP address of the PPTP server.

       All long	options	(starting with "--") are interpreted as	pptp  options,
       and a fatal error occurs	if an unrecognised option is used.

       All  command-line arguments which do not	start with "-" are interpreted
       as ppp options, and passed as  is  to  pppd  unless  --nolaunchpppd  is
       given.

       --phone <number>
	      Pass <number> to remote host as phone number

       --nolaunchpppd
	      Do not launch pppd but use stdin as the network connection.  Use
	      this flag	when including pptp as a pppd connection process using
	      the pty option.  See EXAMPLES.

       --quirks	<quirk>
	      Work  around  a  buggy  PPTP implementation, adopts special case
	      handling for particular PPTP servers and ADSL modems.  Currently
	      recognised values	are BEZEQ_ISRAEL only

       --debug
	      Run in foreground	(for debugging with gdb)

       --sync Enable Synchronous HDLC (pppd must use it	too)

       --timeout <secs>
	      Time to wait for reordered packets (0.01 to 10 secs)

       --nobuffer
	      Completely disables buffering and	reordering  of	packets.   Any
	      --timeout	specified will be ignored.

       --idle-wait <secs>
	      Time  to	wait before sending a control connection echo request.
	      The RFC2637 default is 60	seconds.

       --max-echo-wait <secs>
	      Time to wait for an echo reply before closing the	 control  con-
	      nection.	The RFC2637 default is 60 seconds.

       --logstring <name>
	      Use <name> instead of 'anon' in syslog messages

       --localbind <addr>
	      Bind to specified	IP address instead of wildcard

       --rtmark	<n>
	      Use  specified policy routing mark for all packets.  This	causes
	      both the TCP control connection's	packets	as  well  as  the  GRE
	      packets  to bear the given policy	routing	/ netfilter mark. This
	      can be used with ip rule (from iproute2) to use a	separate rout-
	      ing table	for the	pptp client.

	      (requires	root privileges	or the CAP_NET_ADMIN capability.)

       --nohostroute
	      Do not configure a host route pointing towards the PPTP  server.
	      (cf. ROUTING below)

       --loglevel <level>
	      Sets the debugging level (0=low, 1=default, 2=high)

       --test-type <n>
	      Enable  packet reordering	tests that damage the integrity	of the
	      packet stream  to	 the  server.	Use  this  only	 when  testing
	      servers.	 Zero  is the default, and means that packets are sent
	      in the correct order.  A value of	one (1)	causes a  single  swap
	      between two packets, such	that the sequence numbers might	be 1 2
	      3	 4  6  5  7  8 9.  A value of two (2) causes ten packets to be
	      buffered,	then sent out of order but ascending,  such  that  the
	      sequence	numbers	 might be 1 2 3	4 16 6 7 8 9 10	11 12 13 14 15
	      17 18 19 20.  A value of three (3)  causes  ten  packets	to  be
	      buffered,	 then sent in the reverse order, like this; 1 2	3 4 16
	      15 14 13 12 11 10	9 8 7 6	5 17 18	19 20.

       --test-rate <n>
	      Sets the number of packets to pass before	causing	 a  reordering
	      test.  Default is	100.  Has no effect if test-type is zero.  The
	      result of	test types 2 and 3 are undefined if this value is less
	      than ten.

ROUTING
       When  PPTP  is  used  in	conjunction with a default route on top	of the
       tunnel (or just any route encompassing the PPTP server),	the  mechanics
       of  routing  would  cause the PPTP packets themselves to	be routed over
       the tunnel. This	would result in	an encapsulation loop, destroying con-
       nectivity.

       pptp by default works around this by looking up the route  towards  the
       PPTP  server  at	 startup  and  configures a host route with that data.
       This essentially	"freezes" routing for PPTP packets at the startup con-
       figuration. This	behaviour can be disabled with --nohostroute if	 unde-
       sired (like when	using --rtmark to implement policy routing).

       NB: the route added by pptp is currently	not deleted at exit!

QUIRKS
       BEZEQ_ISRAEL
	      modifies	packets	to interoperate	with Orckit ADSL modems	on the
	      BEZEQ network in Israel.

EXAMPLES
       Connection to a Microsoft Windows VPN Server

       pppd noauth nobsdcomp nodeflate require-mppe-128	 name  domain\\\\user-
       name remotename PPTP pty	"pptp 10.0.0.5 --nolaunchpppd"

       Note  that the chap-secrets file	used by	pppd must include an entry for
       domain\\username

STATISTICS
       The pptp	process	collects statistics when  sending  and	receiving  GRE
       packets.	They are intended to be	useful for debugging poor PPTP perfor-
       mance  and  for	general	monitoring of link quality. The	statistics are
       cumulative since	the pptp process was started.

       The statistics can be viewed by sending a SIGUSR1 signal	to  the	 "GRE-
       to-PPP Gateway" process,	which will cause it to dump them to the	system
       logs  (at the LOG_NOTICE	level).	A better way to	present	the statistics
       to applications is being	sought (e.g. SNMP?).

       The following statistics	are collected at the time  of  writing	(April
       2003):

       rx accepted
	      the number of GRE	packets	successfully passed to PPP

       rx lost
	      the  number  of packets never received, and presumed lost	in the
	      network

       rx under	win
	      the number of packets which were duplicates or had old  sequence
	      numbers  (this might be caused by	a packet-reordering network if
	      your reordering timeout is set too low)

       rx over win
	      the number of packets which were too far ahead in	 the  sequence
	      to  be reordered (might be caused	by loss	of more	than 300 pack-
	      ets in a row)

       rx buffered
	      the number of packets which were slightly	ahead of sequence, and
	      were either buffered for reordering, or  if  buffering  is  dis-
	      abled, accepted immediately (resulting in	the intermediate pack-
	      ets being	discarded).

       rx OS errors
	      the number of times where	the operating system reported an error
	      when we tried to read a packet

       rx truncated
	      the  number of times we received a packet	which was shorter than
	      the length implied by the	GRE header

       rx invalid
	      the number of times we received a	packet which  had  invalid  or
	      unsupported  flags  set  in  the header, wrong version, or wrong
	      protocol.

       rx acks
	      the number of pure acknowledgements received (without data). Too
	      many of these will waste bandwidth, and might be solved by  tun-
	      ing the remote host.

       tx sent
	      the number of GRE	packets	sent with data

       tx failed
	      the  number  of packets we tried to send,	but the	OS reported an
	      error

       tx short
	      the number of times the OS would not let	us  write  a  complete
	      packet

       tx acks
	      the number of times we sent a pure ack, without data

       tx oversize
	      the  number  of  times  we couldn't send a packet	because	it was
	      over PACKET_MAX bytes long

       round trip
	      the estimated round-trip time in milliseconds

SEE ALSO
       pppd(8)

       Documentation in	/usr/share/doc/pptp

AUTHOR
       This manual page	was written by	James  Cameron	<james.cameron@hp.com>
       from text contributed by	Thomas Quinot <thomas@debian.org>, for the De-
       bian GNU/Linux system.  The description of the available	statistics was
       written	by  Chris Wilson <chris@netservers.co.uk>. Updates for the De-
       bian distribution by Ola	Lundqvist <opal@debian.org>.

								       PPTP(8)

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