David S. Jackson writes:
> I guess I could just use sudo. After trying that, it seems to be easier
> than getting all the permissions correct for the dialout group.
The dialout group has little to do with ppp. When the device name comes
from a privileged source (as it should) pppd opens it as root.
> For example, the /etc/ppp/options and /etc/ppp/peers/* files are gid dip.
> That doesn't seem to jive very well with the "dialout" group.
It jives very well: it lets the administrator control ppp access and serial
port access independently.
> Can anyone think of any problems with running sudo instead of pon/poff?
It isn't necessary.
> Isn't it safer to use the sudo setup instead of the dialout group?
Forget dialout. Put your users in dip.
'pon' is just '/usr/sbin/pppd call ${1:-provider}' and makes pppd source
its options from /etc/ppp/peers/<provider>, a privileged source. This is
the system recommended by the upstream ppp mainitainers, and it is a good
one. 'poff' is more complicated, but it boils down to 'killall pppd'.
If you must something to click on, here's a little perl-tk dohicky:
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
# pppon by John Hasler 1999. You may treat this program as if
# it were in the public domain.
use Tk;
use strict;
my $main = new MainWindow;
my $filename = $main->Entry(-width => 20);
$filename->pack;
$main->Button(-text => 'Start Connection',
-command => sub{pon($filename)}
)->pack;
$main->Button(-text => 'Stop Connection',
-command => sub{poff($filename)}
)->pack;
$main->Button(-text => 'Help',
-command => sub{help()}
)->pack;
MainLoop;
sub pon {
my ($file) = @_;
my $file_val = $file->get;
system "pon $file_val";
}
sub poff {
my ($file) = @_;
my $file_val = $file->get;
system "poff $file_val";
}
sub help {
my $top = $main->Toplevel(-title=> 'Pppon Help');
$top->Label(-text => 'Leave the entry field blank for the default
"provider" connection. Enter the provider
name to connect to a specific provider.
"Start Connection" runs the command "pon"
and "Stop Connection" runs the command
"poff", passing the contents of the entry
field to the command. See the man pages
for pon and poff for details.')->pack;
}
--
John Hasler
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Dancing Horse Hill
Elmwood, Wisconsin
