NAME
pppoe
—
PPP Over Ethernet protocol network
interface
SYNOPSIS
pseudo-device pppoe
DESCRIPTION
The pppoe
interface encapsulates
Point-to-Point
Protocol (PPP) packets inside Ethernet frames as defined by RFC
2516.
This is often used to connect a router via a DSL modem to an
access concentrator. The pppoe
interface does not by
itself transmit or receive frames, but needs an Ethernet interface to do so.
This Ethernet interface is connected to the pppoe
interface via
ifconfig(8). The Ethernet interface needs to be marked UP, but does
not need to have an IP address.
There are two basic modes of operation, controlled via the link1 switch. The default mode, link1 not being set, tries to keep the configured session open all the time. If the session is disconnected, a new connection attempt is started immediately. The “dial on demand” mode, selected by setting link1, only establishes a connection when data is being sent to the interface.
Before a pppoe
interface is usable, it
needs to be configured. The following steps are necessary:
- Create the interface.
- Connect an Ethernet interface. This interface is used for the physical communication. As noted above it must be marked UP, but need not have an IP address.
- Configure authentication. The PPP session needs to identify the client to the peer. For more details on the available options see ifconfig(8).
This all is typically accomplished using an /etc/hostname.pppoe0 file. A typical file looks like this:
inet 0.0.0.0 255.255.255.255 NONE \ pppoedev em0 authproto pap \ authname 'testcaller' authkey 'donttell' up dest 0.0.0.1 !/sbin/route add default -ifp pppoe0 0.0.0.1
The physical interface must also be marked
‘up
’:
# echo "up" > /etc/hostname.em0
Since this is a PPP interface, the addresses assigned to the interface may change during PPP negotiation. There is no fine grained control available for deciding which addresses are acceptable and which are not. For the local side and the remote address there is exactly one choice: hard coded address or wildcard. If a real address is assigned to one side of the connection, PPP negotiation will only agree to exactly this address. If one side is wildcarded, every address suggested by the peer will be accepted.
To wildcard the local address set it to 0.0.0.0; to wildcard the remote address set it to 0.0.0.1.
KERNEL OPTIONS
A pppoe
enabled kernel will not interfere
with other PPPoE implementations running on the same machine. Under special
circumstances (details below) this is not desirable, so the
pppoe
driver can be told to kill all unknown PPPoE
sessions received by the Ethernet interface used for a configured
pppoe
interface. To do this, add the following to
your kernel config file:
option
PPPOE_TERM_UNKNOWN_SESSIONS
Note that this will break all userland PPPoE implementations using the same Ethernet interface!
This option is only useful if you have a static IP address
assigned and your ISP does not use LCP echo requests to monitor the link
status. After a crash or power failure the peer device still tries to send
data to the no longer active session on your computer, and might refuse to
reestablish a new connection, because there already is an open session. On
receipt of such packets, the pppoe
driver with this
option set will send a PADT packet (request to terminate the session). The
peer will immediately disconnect the orphaned session and allow a new one to
be established.
If the kernel is compiled with option
PPPOE_SERVER
, there are two modes of connection,
controlled via the link0 switch. The default mode,
link0 not being set, is client mode. The “PPPoE
server” mode, selected by setting link0, is to wait
for incoming PPPoE sessions.
MTU/MSS ISSUES
Problems can arise on machines with private IPs connecting to the
Internet via a machine running both Network Address Translation (NAT) and
pppoe
. Standard Ethernet uses a maximum transmission
unit (MTU) of 1500 bytes, whereas PPPoE mechanisms need a further 8 bytes of
overhead. This leaves a maximum MTU of 1492. pppoe
sets the MTU on its interface to 1492 as a matter of course. However,
machines connecting on a private LAN will still have their MTUs set to 1500,
causing conflict.
While pppoe(8) has an internal option, “mssfixup”,
which is enabled by default and takes care of this,
pppoe
users have to rely on other methods. Using a
packet filter, the maximum segment size (MSS) can be set (clamped) to the
required value. The following rule in
pf.conf(5) would set the MSS to 1440:
match on pppoe0 scrub (max-mss
1440)
Although in theory the maximum MSS over a PPPoE interface is 1452 bytes, 1440 appears to be a safer bet. Note that setting the MSS this way can have undesirable effects, such as interfering with the OS detection features of pf(4).
Alternatively in cases where the remote equipment supports RFC
4638 and the physical interface is configured to support jumbo frames, the
MTU of the pppoe
interface can be raised and it will
attempt to negotiate an increased MTU. For example, in
/etc/hostname.pppoe0:
inet 0.0.0.0 255.255.255.255 NONE mtu 1500 \ pppoedev em0 authproto pap \ authname 'testcaller' authkey 'donttell' up dest 0.0.0.1 !/sbin/route add default -ifp pppoe0 0.0.0.1
The physical interface must also be configured like so:
# echo "up mtu 1508" > /etc/hostname.em0
With this, the previously mentioned MSS clamping rules in pf.conf(5) are no longer necessary.
See pf.conf(5) for more information on MTU, MSS, and NAT.
SEE ALSO
sppp(4), hostname.if(5), pf.conf(5), ifconfig(8), ppp(8), pppoe(8)
STANDARDS
L. Mamakos, K. Lidl, J. Evarts, D. Carrel, D. Simone, and R. Wheeler, A Method for Transmitting PPP Over Ethernet (PPPoE), RFC 2516, February 1999.
P. Arberg, D. Kourkouzelis, M. Duckett, T. Anschutz, and J. Moisand, Accommodating a Maximum Transit Unit/Maximum Receive Unit (MTU/MRU) Greater Than 1492 in the Point-to-Point Protocol over Ethernet (PPPoE), RFC 4638, September 2006.
HISTORY
The pppoe
device first appeared in
OpenBSD 3.7.
CAVEATS
RFC 4638 negotiation is only aware of the MTU configured on the endpoints, but not the maximum MTU supported on the path between them. If the path cannot pass the larger Ethernet frames, negotiation will succeed but the connection will not function correctly.
BUGS
This implementation is client side only.
It is important to specify “netmask
255.255.255.255
” to
ifconfig(8). If the netmask is unspecified, it will be set to 8 when
0.0.0.0 is configured to the interface, and it will persist after
negotiation.
The presence of a mygate(5) file will interfere with the routing table. Make sure this file is either empty or does not exist.