Bug 65568 – Inconsistent options between ppp and pptpclient

• Product: Gentoo Linux
• Status: RESOLVED FIXED

[Description Edwin Shin 2004-09-27 12:24:45 UTC]

Firstly, I don't seem to have permissions to file a bug against the correct product (Gentoo Linux). Hopefully the right person will move this (and allow me to file future bugs correctly?).

The latest pptpclient ebuild (1.5.0) includes a options.pptp file which is installed to /etc/ppp/. However, the options in that file correspond to the options naming scheme from ppp-2.4.0 (e.g. mppe-40), so starting a tunnel (e.g. pon tunnelname) results in pppd complaining about an unrecognized option and exiting. 

Note, not only has the options naming changed with 2.4.2, but the patch used with ppp when built with USE=mppe-mppc has its own idiosyncratic options naming which is inconsistent with the official PPP projects. See: <a href="http://pptpclient.sourceforge.net/howto-diagnosis.phtml#pppd_options">http://pptpclient.sourceforge.net/howto-diagnosis.phtml#pppd_options</a>

Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
1. # USE="mppe-mppc" emerge ppp && emerge pptpclient
2. Create /etc/ppp/peers/TunnelName and corresponding /etc/ppp/chap-secrets
3. # pon TunnelName


Actual Results:  
/usr/sbin/pppd: In file /etc/ppp/options.pptp: unrecognized option 'mppe-40'


The mppe options in options.pptp that come with the pptpclient ebuild should be
fixed to correspond with ppp-2.4.2 options.

However, the latest ppp ebuild (2.4.2-r5), built with USE=mppe-mppc, is patched
with http://www.polbox.com/h/hs001/ppp-2.4.2-mppe-mppc-1.1.patch.gz. I would
recommend that it be patched with
http://www.polbox.com/h/hs001/ppp-2.4.2-stdopt-mppe-mppc-1.1.patch.gz, which
preserves the naming developed by the PPP project and is also consistent with
the naming options that are documented throughout the <a
href="http://pptpclient.sourceforge.net/">pptpclient site</a>. This also
corresponds with the <a
href="http://pptpclient.sourceforge.net/howto-gentoo.phtml">Gentoo HowTo</a>
from the same site.

Either way, the current pptp.options shipped with pptpclient doesn't work with
any version of ppp-2.4.2.

[Comment 1 Alin Năstac (RETIRED) 2004-09-27 12:51:20 UTC]

My opinion is to keep the actual patch but replace mppe options from /usr/portage/pptpclient/files/options.pptp with "require-mppe".

The only stable ppp (2.4.1-r14) does not have mppe support. Since mppe is a quasi-requirement for pptp, I think it's safe to assume that pptp users will install unstable ppp version, which is 2.4.2-r5.

[Comment 2 Edwin Shin 2004-09-27 13:21:27 UTC]

Jan Dubiec, the writer of the patch, recommends his naming over the standard, but it's not really clear to me why his nomenclature should be preferred over the standard.

Plus, it's confusing for users trying to follow some of the various guides for pptpclient (including the Gentoo HowTo) which expect the standard naming. If there is a clear technical or usability advantage to the non-standard naming, that's one thing. Otherwise it seems more likely to break things--easy to imagine a front-end pptp client that expects pppd to support the standard options.

[Comment 3 Alin Năstac (RETIRED) 2004-11-07 22:42:27 UTC]

released pptpclient-1.5.0-r1