ADSL with Linux and PPP over Ethernet(PPPoE)

Support knowledgebase (hoe_adsl_pppoe)

What you want to do:

You've got ADSL access and you want to use it with Linux. The ADSL modem is connected to an ethernet card which is already installed and configured in your computer.

How to do it:

SuSE offers support for PPPoE with the package pppoed, which is available for SuSE version 6.3 and later.

Please note that the PPP over ethernet code for Linux as of production date of SuSE Linux 6.3 is still considered to be in an experimental stage.
We'll provide updates for SuSE Linux 6.3 at: http://www.suse.de/en/support/download/updates/63_update.html

In order to further improve the code, please send your feedback and bug reports to feedback@suse.de.

Installation

Follow the steps below to install aPPPoE on your SuSE Linux computer:

  1. You don't have to compile a new kernel. The necessary patches are already in your standard SuSE kernel and the pppox.o module is part of the package kernmod.
  2. Get an update of the pppoe package. You can download it from the Internet here: ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/projects/T-DSL or http://www.suse.de/en/support/download/updates/63_update.html
    It's only 26Kb, so put it on diskette if you need to.
  3. Now install the package with YaST. Select the menu option "Choose/Install packages", then "Install Packages" and select the source medium (for example, "floppy").
    Select the package "pppoed.rpm" and mark it. Then press F10 to start the installation.
  4. Now configure your ethernet card as described in section 6.1 of the manual.
    If the network device is not eth0, you must indicate this to the PPPoE daemon. You can specify any IP address for the device and the netmask is not relevant.

    It is important that the default gateway field is empty.

  5. Add your login name and password to /etc/ppp/pap-secrets and /etc/ppp/chap-secrets.
    In addition, to both files you'll need to add a line consisting of your login name, an asterisk and your password. Separate the entries with TABs, as shown below:
            login_name      *       password
  6. Now configure yoru computer for DNS.
    You can assign static Domain Name Server addresses by starting YaST and select menu item "System Administration -> Configure Network -> Configure Nameserver.
    Here you'll enter the absolute IP address(es) of your nameserver. This procedure is described in Manual Ch. 3.6.3.

    7. You can also add the option usepeerdns to your /etc/ppp/options file, if your provider supports dynamic DNS, and probably didn't give you an Domain Name Server addess this should just work for you.

  7. To load the new module automatically, add the following lines to the file /etc/modules.conf:
    alias char-major-144 pppox
  8. Modify the file /etc/ppp/options.
    See the Options section for changes you'll need to make to this file.
  9. Open a connection by entering /usr/sbin/pppoed.

    If you use a network device other than eth0, you'll need to start /usr/sbin/pppoed with the option -I ethX, where X is the number of the device..

    Only the root user can open a connection.

  10. pppoed now brings up the connection to your provider, or more accurately put, to your provider's access concentrator.
    pppd will then start automatically.
    pppd will then try authentication and negotiates IP addresses for the Internet connection.
  11. After pppd has negotiated IP addesses(you can see that in /var/log/messages, your PPPoE connection is up and you're ready to use the Internet. Start Netscape, and so on.
  12. You close the connection with a 'kill' signal to ppoed: 
    killall -TERM pppoed
    or, if enough time passes without data transmission, pppd will time out. See also the idle option in the file /etc/ppp/options If you want no idle hangup from pppd, give the idle parameter in /etc/ppp/options the argument 0.

Diagnostics

  1. Before starting, the output of route -n in the Gateway shouldn't contain any valid IP addresses (just 0.0.0.0).
  2. Start pppoed with the debug option
    pppoed -D -d 9
  3. When building a connection, pppoed outputs messages to the terminal window and writes them to the syslog file.
  4. pppd writes its messages to the syslog file.
    Start 
    tail -f /var/log/messages
    before bringing up the connection to see the messages written to syslog. You should be able to reach the following 'milestones':
    1. Dec 24 00:00:00 Erde pppd[11205]: pppd 2.3.10 started by hoe, uid 0
      => our pppd is started
    2. Dec 24 00:00:00 Erde pppd[11205]: sent [LCP ConfReq id=0x1 ]
      => our ppd is sending packets
    3. Dec 24 00:00:00 Erde pppd[11205]: rcvd [LCP ConfReq id=0x1 ]
      =>the target is sending packets
    4. Dec 24 00:00:00 Erde pppd[11205]: rcvd [IPCP ConfAck id=0x1 ]
      => authorization successful
    5. Dec 24 00:00:00 Erde pppd[11205]: local IP address 192.168.1.1
      => IP address dynamically allocated
    6. Dec 24 00:00:00 Erde pppd[999]: Script /etc/ppp/ip-up started (pid1010)
  5. pppd should have appended a gateway entry to the routing table. You can verify this with
    route -n.
  6. If your ISP (i.e., T-Online) supports dynamic IP addresses, the file /etc/resolv.conf valid nameserver entries
    Typical for T-Online, for example, is the line
    nameserver 194.25.2.129
  7. Test your access with
    ping -c10 194.112.123.200
    and finally with
    ping -c10 www.suse.de

If you have problems with configuration there are still methods of analysis and problem solving:

Options in the file /etc/ppp/options

Keywords: T-DSL, TDSL, XDSL, ADSL, PPP_OVER_ETHERNET, PPPOE, T-ISDN-DSL, ISDN
SDB-hoe_adsl_pppoe, Copyright SuSE Linux AG, Nürnberg, Germany - Version: 12. Apr 2000
SuSE Linux AG - Last generated: 12. Apr 2000 by bk (sdb_gen 1.40.0)