Setting Up Solaris as PPP Client

To set up a Solaris machine as a PPP client, you need to modify/create a number of configuration files and then reboot. These instructions apply to Solaris Sparc 2.5 and 2.4. Same instructions might work for Solaris x86 but I do not have a Solaris x86 machine and I have not tried it on one. Now let us get down to the business of configuring Solaris.

The notes here assume you already have set up your modem and you are able to communicate with the modem using cu or tip. If you need help with setting up the modem connection, Celeste Stokely's document might be helpful. I was able to set up my serial port to communicate with the modem quite easily using just admintool.

First of all you need to configure uucp so PPP will know how to dial in to your PPP server. The PPP server could be your ISP. You will need to modify the following files to set up uucp:

/etc/uucp/Dialers
You may need to add an entry for your modem in this file. This file gives a chat script on how to dial out using a particular modem. You may be able to use one of the existing entries. If not, you can just add a new entry. Here is the entry I made for my Zoom V.32bis modem:

zoom =,-, "" \dA\pTZ0\r\c OK\r \dATE1V1X4Q0S2=255S12=255\r\c OK\rATS7=20S9=20\r\c OK\r ATDT\T\r\c CONNECT-\d\c-CONNECT

This is all on one line
/etc/uucp/Devices
You add your dialing device to this file as one of the available dialers. Here is an example from my configuration. My Zoom modem is connected to the serial port A.

ACU cua/a - Any zoom
/etc/uucp/Dialcodes
This file serves as a dialing directory. You can add your PPP server phone number to this file and then you will be able to dial out using the alias from this file. Alternatively you can use the phone number directly without having to add it to this dialing directory. An example entry would be:

infonet 1234567
/etc/uucp/Systems
This file contains information on how to establish connection with various systems. This is where your chat script will go in that you want to be executed when your system dials the PPP server. Here is an example:

ppp_server_name Never ACU 38400 infonet ogin:--ogin: login_name ssword: password prompt ppp_command

where ppp_server_name is the hostname for the PPP server you are dialing into, login_name is of course your login name, password is your password. If your PPP server immediately starts PPP when you log in, you can omit prompt and ppp_command. If instead you get a command line prompt or some kind of menu and you need to type some command or choose a menu option to start PPP, you can substitute the prompt at which you choose the menu option or type the command for prompt and the command or option you would choose for ppp_command.

This will set up your dialer and login scripts. Now you will need to configure the PPP network interface which let us say is ipdptp0. You do this in /etc/asppp.cf file. Here is the entry from my file:

/etc/asppp.cf
Following lines will configure the network interface ipdptp0 to point to your PPP server. In the following configuration, your machine will expect to be assigned an IP address dynamically by your PPP server.

ifconfig ipdptp0 plumb void ppp_server_name down

path

interface ipdptp0

peer_system_name ppp_server_name

inactivity_timeout 300

debug_level 7

negotiate_address on

where ppp_server_name is same as before. The last line "negotiate_address on" is supported on Solaris 2.5 only. Your machine can still request an IP address dynamically under Solaris 2.4. To do this you just need to assign an IP address of 0.0.0.0 to the interface before you dial out which is what we will define void to be.

If you have a static IP address for your machine, you can replace void with your IP address and take out the last line "negotiate_address on".

You will also need to define void in the /etc/hosts file as follows:

/etc/hosts
For Solaris 2.5:

0.0.0.1 void

For Solaris 2.4:

0.0.0.0 void

The way I have configured ipdptp0, it will be marked down when your machine comes up. I do it so that every time I reboot my machine will not start dialing out to my PPP server. I bring up the PPP connection on demand by executing the script attach. I have written another script detach that I execute to tear the PPP connection down. Bringing PP up and down using scripts allows me to set up my routing table and name server correctly for each PPP server since I connect to more than one PPP server using the same modem. It is important to use debug_level 7 in /etc/asppp.cf for attach and detach scripts to work. Scripts attach and detach use two other utilities ppplock and pppunlock. These are compiled C programs that try to create a lock file in exclusive mode. This assures me that one of my cron jobs will not try to start another PPP session while I am already running one PPP session. Here is the source code for ppplock and pppunlock. They should compile using gcc easily and I would think other C compilers as well.

Hope this helps you with your PPP set up. Please report any discrepancies in the above procedure.

Acknowledgement

Some of the above setup and scripts were derived from Michael McKnight's PPP guide. I have expanded and modified the original attach and detach scripts from Michael McKnight.