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Date:      Mon, 11 Nov 1996 11:41:33 -0600 (CST)
From:      john@starfire.mn.org
To:        hackers@FreeBSD.org (FreeBSD hackers)
Cc:        freebsd-isp@FreeBSD.org
Subject:   PPP/LCP sensing getty
Message-ID:  <199611111741.LAA15056@starfire.mn.org>

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I have created a version of getty that watches for the first four
bytes of the LCP leader and exec's pppd (-detach auth) if it sees
it.  This allows dialup PPP access to FreeBSD boxes from other
FreeBSD boxes, Windows 3.1, Windows NT, Windows 95, and MAC's
without having to go through the pain of login scripting.  I'd like
to make this generally available, but am not sure how best to do
so.

The change is very small, only about 8 lines of code, and doesn't
change the size of the stripped executable.  Should it be submitted
as a permanent inclusion in getty?  If so, it should probably be
specifically enabled by a parameter or an extension to gettytab.
Of course, either of those will increase the size of the change to
the program, so maybe it is best to leave it as a separate program
that sites can use in place of the regular getty.  On the other
hand, "getty" is pretty essential to BSD and has been around forever,
and is likely to stay around for a good long time, as well.  That
isn't as true of pppd.  To have the path to pppd compiled into
getty is a real lack of symmetry in that respect.  I dunno.  Too
many options without enough information for me to make informed
choices.

Right now, on my system, I simply created a "gettyppp" and put it
in /etc/ttys in place of getty for the log in ports.  It is sort
of a silly waste of RAM and/or swap space to have both "getty" and
"gettyppp" so perhaps I should just plain replace getty with
gettyppp.  I'm not too concerned about someone accidentally typing
the LCP header from a virtual terminal or something.  It would be
pretty hard to do, and wouldn't accomplish anything that wouldn't
resolve itself.

Suggestions and comments are most welcome.  Please help me figure
out how best to finish off this project and make it generally useful.

		 John Lind, Starfire Consulting Services
E-mail: john@starfire.MN.ORG	    USnail: PO Box 17247, Mpls MN  55417



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