Running PPP on FreeBSD

PPP is a program that will enable you to establish an internet connection over a modem line.

If you have any questions about this procedure, or if it doesn't work for you, please contact your GTA. There is also a ppp man page on FreeBSD which may be quite helpful.

  1. Log in as root
  2. Change directories to /etc/ppp
  3. Make a copy of each file without the .sample at the end of its name. Two copies of each file should be in the directory, one with a .sample extension, and one without. Make sure you do this, so you have backups in case something goes wrong.
  4. Edit /etc/ppp/ppp.conf
    1. Enter the following text between the "default:" entry and the "simplesite:" entry:

      ######################################################################
# - The number after "set phone" should be the phone number of your 
#   Internet Service Provider.  (The one given is the Tech modem pool)
# 
# - After "set login" you should replace "jrotter" with your PID and
#   replace "mypass" with your PID password.
# 
# - Everything else is configured for dynamic IPs.  If your ISP has
#   given you a static IP, replace the first IP looking thing in the
#   set ifaddr line with your IP.  For instance, if my ISP gave me
#   the IP 128.173.123.456, then I would change that line to:
#         set ifaddr 128.173.123.456 10.10.11.11/0 0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0
# 
# 
ISP:
  set phone 2327000
  set login "TIMEOUT 5 login:-\\r-login: jrotter word: mypass"
  set timeout 120
  set ifaddr 10.10.10.10/0 10.10.11.11/0 0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0
  add 0 0 HISADDR
    2. Save your changes to the file and quit.
  5. Now, as root, run the command: ppp ISP
  6. This should connect you to your Internet Service Provider and establish a ppp connection. You can tell if you successfully connected by looking at the ppp prompt. If the prompt is in lower case, then you haven't - if the prompt is in upper case, then you have.
  7. Once you establish a connection, you can use your machine (from any other xterm or application) as if it were directly connected to the internet.
  8. To close the connection, type close at the ppp prompt.
  9. You can then quit ppp by typing q.

Last modified: Fri Mar 19 13:52:42 EST 1999