[pptp-server] 2.4 woes

[Alex King]

Thanks to those who replied, I'm 90% there now.  I thought I'd post an
interim status report on my efforts.

Basically, my target was a Debian potato system with Kernel 2.4 and
pptpd working with ms-chap and ms enccyption.

This is what I did to get it going:

Grabbed modutils (2.4.102) sources from woody and compiled and installed.

Grabbed kernel linux-2.4.1.tar.bz2
grabbed ftp://ftp.binarix.com/pub/ppp-mppe/linux-2.4.0-openssl-0.9.6-mppe.patch.gz
Patched built and installed kernel

Grabbed ppp (2.4.0f-1) sources from woody, and unpacked thru to the
sources.make stage. (ie completed the patching for debian)

Grabbed http://linus.yi.org/linux/smbpw-mppe-stripdom-requiremppe.diff.bz2
and used it to patch the ppp sources.  Only one hunk failed and had to
be manually applied.

Compiled and installed ppp package.

Installed the pptpd (1.0.0-4) package from potato.

Tested against a Win98 client; it can do ms-chap and ms encryption and
basically works.

...Only I didn't do it like that, here are the issues I encountered...

1. checking passwords against /etc/smbpasswd still doesn't seem to
work although I beleive I have it set up correctly.

2. tried to work it with a kernel with everything compiled in - mppe
encryption doesn't seem to work compiled in to the kernel.  I checked
the System.map of the compiled kernel - the mppe functions actually
appear in the kernel - but it  wasn't working.  As soon as I compiled
a modular kernel with ppp_async and ppp_mppe as modules and modprobed
them, it started working - yet nothing else was changed.  My
conclusion is - and I'd like to hear others' experience with this -
even though it compiles into a kernel mppe doesnt work compiled in.

3. Documentation is incomplete and trailing the bleeding edge - the
archives of this list were the best source of documentation.


I'm willing to write up my experiences more fully - if anyone is
interested let me know and I'll post them on a web page.  Also I think
by far the best way to advance pptpd and make it simpler for people
to use would be to integrate some of these kernel/pppd patches with
the upstream sources.  What is preventing this happening?  Anyone
know?

Alex

On Thu, Feb 15, 2001 at 12:00:58AM +1300, Alex King wrote:
> I'm having this basic problem using pptp with linux 2.4.1: it doesn't
> work. (syslog included below:)
> 
> After a little research tonight (reading the list archive) I realise
> one of my problems at least is likely to be my using pppd 2.3.11 (vs
> 2.4.0 which I should have).
> 
> I selected a 2.4 kernel before considering the pptp issues because it
> supports my ide controler natively (an HPT366 on an ABIT MB), I would
> need to find a patch to use 2.2.
> 
> My basic question is is it going to be easier to downgrade the kernel
> or do people have 2.4.1/ppp 2.4.0/pptpd working well now?
> 
> Secondly, I'm just trying with standard kernel/pppd at the moment, no
> encryption.  When I go to using encryption, can I build all the needed
> drivers in to the kernel, or do they need to be modules?  I prefer to
> have my kernels setup without modules if possible.
> 
> Finally, I'm using standard debian packages, I'd be interested in
> other debian users' experiences, and to know if there are debian
> packages floating around for mschap/mppe enabled kernel/pppd.
> 
> Here is my present configuration:
> 
> Win98        Internet       Nokia         Linux Router       Private
> Client  ---            ---  DSL Box  ---  PPTP Box      ---  network
> 
> The nokia pinholes (reverse masquerades) the tcp control conection and
> proto 47 (if I have it set up correctly).
> 
> Here is the extract from the logs:
> 
> Feb 14 13:44:38 server pptpd[6635]: CTRL: Client 202.36.170.118
> control connection started
> Feb 14 13:44:39 server pptpd[6635]: CTRL: Starting call (launching
> pppd, opening GRE)
> Feb 14 13:44:39 server pppd[6636]: pppd 2.3.11 started by root, uid 0
> Feb 14 13:44:39 server pppd[6636]: ioctl(PPPIOCGFLAGS): Invalid
> argument
> Feb 14 13:44:39 server pppd[6636]: tcsetattr: Invalid argument
> Feb 14 13:44:39 server pppd[6636]: Exit.
> Feb 14 13:44:39 server pptpd[6635]: GRE:
> read(fd=5,buffer=804d9c0,len=8196) from PTY failed: status = -1 error
> = Input/output error
> Feb 14 13:44:39 server pptpd[6635]: CTRL: PTY read or GRE write
> failed (pty,gre) =(5,6)
> Feb 14 13:44:39 server pptpd[6635]: CTRL: Client 202.36.170.118
> control connection finished
>   
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