1. NAME▲

pon, poff, plog - starts up, shuts down or lists the log of PPP connections

2. SYNOPSIS ▲

pon [ isp-name [ options ] ]

poff [ -r ] [ -d ] [ -c ] [ -a ] [ -h ] [ isp-name ]

plog [ arguments ]

3. DESCRIPTION ▲

This manual page describes the pon, plog and poff scripts, which allow users to control PPP connections.

3.1. pon ▲

pon, invoked without arguments, runs the /etc/ppp/ppp_on_boot file, if it exists and is executable. Otherwise, a PPP connection will be started using configuration from /etc/ppp/peers/provider. This is the default behaviour unless an isp-name argument is given.

For instance, to use ISP configuration "myisp" run:

pon myisp

pon will then use the options file /etc/ppp/peers/myisp. You can pass additional pppd options after the ISP name, too. pon can be used to run multiple, simultaneous PPP connections.

pon takes the following command line options:

-q

    disconnect when ip-up finishes running. This function is only available to the root user.

3.2. poff ▲

poff closes a PPP connection. If more than one PPP connection exists, the one named in the argument to poff will be killed, e.g.

poff myprovider2

will terminate the connection to myprovider2, and leave the PPP connections to e.g. "myprovider1" or "myprovider3" up and running.

poff takes the following command line options:

-r

    causes the connection to be redialed after it is dropped.

-d

    toggles the state of pppd's debug option.

-c

    causes

R pppd (8) to renegotiate compression.

-a

    stops all running ppp connections. If the argument isp-name is given it will be ignored.

-h

    displays help information.

-v

    prints the version and exits.

If no argument is given, poff will stop or signal pppd if and only if there is exactly one running. If more than one connection is active, it will exit with an error code of 1.

3.3. plog ▲

plog shows you the last few lines of /var/log/ppp.log. If that file doesn't exist, it shows you the last few lines of your /var/log/syslog file, but excluding the lines not generated by pppd. This script makes use of the

R tail (1) command, so arguments that can be passed to

R tail (1) can also be passed to plog.

Note: the plog script can only be used by root or another system administrator in group "adm", due to security reasons. Also, to have all pppd-generated information in one logfile, that plog can show, you need the following line in your /etc/syslog.conf file:

local2.* -/var/log/ppp.log

4. FILES ▲

  • /etc/ppp/options
        PPPd system options file.
  • /etc/ppp/pap-secrets
        System PAP passwords file.
  • /etc/ppp/chap-secrets
        System CHAP passwords file.
  • /etc/ppp/peers/
        Directory holding the peer options files. The default file is called provider.
  • /etc/chatscripts/provider
        The chat script invoked from the default /etc/ppp/peers/provider.
  • /var/log/ppp.log
        The default PPP log file.

5. AUTHORS ▲

The p-commands were written by Christoph Lameter <>. Updated and revised by Philip Hands <>.
This manual was written by Othmar Pasteka <>. Modified by Rob Levin <>, with some extensions taken from the old p-commands manual written by John Hasler <>.

6. SEE ALSO ▲

R pppd (8),

R chat (8),

R tail (1).