[pptp-server] CTRL: couldn't read packet header (exit)

[Greg Boehnlein]

Hello all,
	First, PopTop is very very cool. Congratulations on an excellent
piece of software!
	Second, I can't find a searchable archive of the PopTop mailing
list aside from downloading all of the messages and doing it myselg.
Otherwise, I would have seen if this problem had cropped up in the past.
	Thirdly, I am having a fairly serious problem with PoptTop. Daily,
the /var/log/messages file on my PopTOP server is getting slammed with
the following mesage sequence:

pptpd[669]: CTRL: Session timed out, ending call
pptpd[669]: CTRL: Client 207.166.198.45 control connection finished
pptpd[669]: CTRL: EOF or bad error reading ctrl packet length.
pptpd[669]: CTRL: couldn't read packet header (exit)
pptpd[669]: CTRL: Unexpected control message 0 in disconnect sequence
pptpd[669]: CTRL: EOF or bad error reading ctrl packet length.
pptpd[669]: CTRL: couldn't read packet header (exit)
pptpd[669]: CTRL: Unexpected control message 0 in disconnect sequence
pptpd[669]: CTRL: EOF or bad error reading ctrl packet length.
pptpd[669]: CTRL: couldn't read packet header (exit)

As a result, 3 VPN clients are generating 250 megabyte messages files.
I've paired down debugging to the bare minimum, but with log files that
large, syslog takes up all available resources on the machine, eventually
consuming all available swap and killing the machine. All remote clients
are supposedly running Windows 98 second edition, although we have
identified one machine that is only using 40 bit encryption. That,
however, is NOT the one that is causing the trouble we have run into
above.

I have about a gig of logs from the last 7 days, so there is plenty of
information to debug, but if this is a simple fix, I would love to hear
about it.

If it is not a simple fix, I'm willing to put some Cash forward to help
solve this problem and assist in the PopTOP development. I just need to
have some answers quickly...

Here is all the details..

pptpd[669]: CTRL: Client 207.166.198.45 control connection started
pptpd[669]: CTRL: Starting call (launching pppd, opening GRE)
pppd[670]: pppd 2.3.10 started by root, uid 0
pppd[670]: Using interface ppp2
pppd[670]: Connect: ppp2 <--> /dev/pts/2
pppd[670]: MSCHAP-v2 peer authenticationsucceeded for vnc-akr
pppd[670]: found interface eth1 for proxy arp
pppd[670]: local  IP address 10.10.2.247
pppd[670]: remote IP address 10.10.1.6
pppd[670]: MPPE 128 bit, stateless compression enabled
pppd[670]: Modem hangup
pppd[670]: Connection terminated.
pppd[670]: Connect time 97.6 minutes.
pppd[670]: Sent 131216 bytes, received 67583 bytes.
pppd[670]: Exit.
pptpd[669]: CTRL: Session timed out, ending call
pptpd[669]: CTRL: Client 207.166.198.45 control connection finished
pptpd[669]: CTRL: EOF or bad error reading ctrl packet length.
pptpd[669]: CTRL: couldn't read packet header (exit)
pptpd[669]: CTRL: Unexpected control message 0 in disconnect sequence
pptpd[669]: CTRL: EOF or bad error reading ctrl packet length.
pptpd[669]: CTRL: couldn't read packet header (exit)
pptpd[669]: CTRL: Unexpected control message 0 in disconnect sequence
pptpd[669]: CTRL: EOF or bad error reading ctrl packet length.
pptpd[669]: CTRL: couldn't read packet header (exit)
pptpd[669]: CTRL: Unexpected control message 0 in disconnect sequence
pptpd[669]: CTRL: EOF or bad error reading ctrl packet length.
pptpd[669]: CTRL: couldn't read packet header (exit)
pptpd[669]: CTRL: Unexpected control message 0 in disconnect sequence
.... ad infinitum

Our /etc/pptpd.conf info

localip 10.10.2.245-254
remoteip 10.10.1.4-19

Our /etc/ppp/options file

lock
proxyarp
name main
auth
+pap
+chapms
+chapms-v2
mppe-40
mppe-128
mppe-stateless

--
      President of New Age Consulting Service, Inc.  Cleveland Ohio
           http://www.nacs.net   info at nacs.net   (216)-619-2000
         An athletic supporter of the Cleveland Linux User Group
                        http://cleveland.lug.net