[pptp-server] a future poptop?

[Russell.Dill at asu.edu]

On Tue, 17 Aug 1999, Matthew Ramsay wrote:

> As some of you already know, PoPToP was originally written for Moreton Bay's
> VPN linux router (which runs on a linux coldfire platform)
> http://www.moreton.com.au/mbweb/product/nettel/nettel.htm
> (slipped the link in shamelessly :-)
> 
> Anyways, one of my original goals was to make PoPToP a client as well as a
> server so as to do fancy things like PoPToP to PoPToP blowfish encryption.. the
> reason behind this thinking was that PoPToP would be running on the NETtel and
> we could control both the client and the server end (assuming 2 nettels).
> BUT since the main goal was windows compatibility I never implemented this as it
> would break the protocol..
> 
> I've been thinking about this again recently and was wondering if anyone else
> would be interested in this kind of development. I seem to recall a "vpnd" for
> linux that may do just this.. I'm not sure?

If its not possible to run pptpd and vpnd, possibly, but I like to see stuff
kept small (blowfish as a compile time option?). If you were to do this, you
would definately have to seperate the pptpd.conf into sections ala
dhcpd.conf....You would also probably have to modify ppp to read the
ip-up/down, chap-secrets, etc, from different directories (if its only a user,
proxyarp, if its another network, add routes when the link comes up, etc)

also it would be nice if the patch including ppp striping the domain name from
a win9x user's login
 
> Another idea I was looking into developing (again for our NETtel boards.. and
> hopefully finding use in the linux community) was a VPN directory service:
> 
> Say you have a small office that connects to the Net each morning at 8am and
> disconnects at 5pm.. You get your ip address via dhcp from the isp.. and hence
> every morning your ip changes.. now say you have a salesman on the road who
> wants to VPN (with poptop of course :-).. instead of having to ring up the
> office to find the IP address a VPN directory service online tells him what
> it is and connects him transparently.
> 
> that's another thing i'll be looking into hacking together.. unless someone has
> a better solution?

you could always send out an email to a list of remote users with the ip in
the subject line every time the IP changes. The win9x user connects to the
internet, a small utility reads the email headers from their mailbox, and the
most recent IP is stuffed into the hosts file.

Russ
russell.dill at asu.edu