PPTP(8) System Manager's Manual PPTP(8)
NAME
pptp - PPTP driver
SYNOPSIS
pptp <pptp-server-IP> <pptp-options> [ppp-options] ...
DESCRIPTION
pptp establishes the client side of a Virtual Private Network (VPN) us-
ing the Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol (PPTP). Use this program to
connect to an employer's PPTP based VPN, or to certain cable and ADSL
service providers.
By default, pptp establishes the PPTP call to the PPTP server, and then
starts an instance of pppd to manage the data transfer. However, pptp
can also be run as a connection manager within pppd.
OPTIONS
The first non-option argument on the pptp command line must be the host
name or IP address of the PPTP server.
All long options (starting with "--") are interpreted as pptp options,
and a fatal error occurs if an unrecognised option is used.
All command-line arguments which do not start with "-" are interpreted
as ppp options, and passed as is to pppd unless --nolaunchpppd is
given.
--phone <number>
Pass <number> to remote host as phone number
--nolaunchpppd
Do not launch pppd but use stdin as the network connection. Use
this flag when including pptp as a pppd connection process using
the pty option. See EXAMPLES.
--quirks <quirk>
Work around a buggy PPTP implementation, adopts special case
handling for particular PPTP servers and ADSL modems. Currently
recognised values are BEZEQ_ISRAEL only
--debug
Run in foreground (for debugging with gdb)
--sync Enable Synchronous HDLC (pppd must use it too)
--timeout <secs>
Time to wait for reordered packets (0.01 to 10 secs)
--nobuffer
Completely disables buffering and reordering of packets. Any
--timeout specified will be ignored.
--idle-wait <secs>
Time to wait before sending a control connection echo request.
The RFC2637 default is 60 seconds.
--max-echo-wait <secs>
Time to wait for an echo reply before closing the control con-
nection. The RFC2637 default is 60 seconds.
--logstring <name>
Use <name> instead of 'anon' in syslog messages
--localbind <addr>
Bind to specified IP address instead of wildcard
--rtmark <n>
Use specified policy routing mark for all packets. This causes
both the TCP control connection's packets as well as the GRE
packets to bear the given policy routing / netfilter mark. This
can be used with ip rule (from iproute2) to use a separate rout-
ing table for the pptp client.
(requires root privileges or the CAP_NET_ADMIN capability.)
--nohostroute
Do not configure a host route pointing towards the PPTP server.
(cf. ROUTING below)
--loglevel <level>
Sets the debugging level (0=low, 1=default, 2=high)
--test-type <n>
Enable packet reordering tests that damage the integrity of the
packet stream to the server. Use this only when testing
servers. Zero is the default, and means that packets are sent
in the correct order. A value of one (1) causes a single swap
between two packets, such that the sequence numbers might be 1 2
3 4 6 5 7 8 9. A value of two (2) causes ten packets to be
buffered, then sent out of order but ascending, such that the
sequence numbers might be 1 2 3 4 16 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
17 18 19 20. A value of three (3) causes ten packets to be
buffered, then sent in the reverse order, like this; 1 2 3 4 16
15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 17 18 19 20.
--test-rate <n>
Sets the number of packets to pass before causing a reordering
test. Default is 100. Has no effect if test-type is zero. The
result of test types 2 and 3 are undefined if this value is less
than ten.
ROUTING
When PPTP is used in conjunction with a default route on top of the
tunnel (or just any route encompassing the PPTP server), the mechanics
of routing would cause the PPTP packets themselves to be routed over
the tunnel. This would result in an encapsulation loop, destroying con-
nectivity.
pptp by default works around this by looking up the route towards the
PPTP server at startup and configures a host route with that data.
This essentially "freezes" routing for PPTP packets at the startup con-
figuration. This behaviour can be disabled with --nohostroute if unde-
sired (like when using --rtmark to implement policy routing).
NB: the route added by pptp is currently not deleted at exit!
QUIRKS
BEZEQ_ISRAEL
modifies packets to interoperate with Orckit ADSL modems on the
BEZEQ network in Israel.
EXAMPLES
Connection to a Microsoft Windows VPN Server
pppd noauth nobsdcomp nodeflate require-mppe-128 name domain\\\\user-
name remotename PPTP pty "pptp 10.0.0.5 --nolaunchpppd"
Note that the chap-secrets file used by pppd must include an entry for
domain\\username
STATISTICS
The pptp process collects statistics when sending and receiving GRE
packets. They are intended to be useful for debugging poor PPTP perfor-
mance and for general monitoring of link quality. The statistics are
cumulative since the pptp process was started.
The statistics can be viewed by sending a SIGUSR1 signal to the "GRE-
to-PPP Gateway" process, which will cause it to dump them to the system
logs (at the LOG_NOTICE level). A better way to present the statistics
to applications is being sought (e.g. SNMP?).
The following statistics are collected at the time of writing (April
2003):
rx accepted
the number of GRE packets successfully passed to PPP
rx lost
the number of packets never received, and presumed lost in the
network
rx under win
the number of packets which were duplicates or had old sequence
numbers (this might be caused by a packet-reordering network if
your reordering timeout is set too low)
rx over win
the number of packets which were too far ahead in the sequence
to be reordered (might be caused by loss of more than 300 pack-
ets in a row)
rx buffered
the number of packets which were slightly ahead of sequence, and
were either buffered for reordering, or if buffering is dis-
abled, accepted immediately (resulting in the intermediate pack-
ets being discarded).
rx OS errors
the number of times where the operating system reported an error
when we tried to read a packet
rx truncated
the number of times we received a packet which was shorter than
the length implied by the GRE header
rx invalid
the number of times we received a packet which had invalid or
unsupported flags set in the header, wrong version, or wrong
protocol.
rx acks
the number of pure acknowledgements received (without data). Too
many of these will waste bandwidth, and might be solved by tun-
ing the remote host.
tx sent
the number of GRE packets sent with data
tx failed
the number of packets we tried to send, but the OS reported an
error
tx short
the number of times the OS would not let us write a complete
packet
tx acks
the number of times we sent a pure ack, without data
tx oversize
the number of times we couldn't send a packet because it was
over PACKET_MAX bytes long
round trip
the estimated round-trip time in milliseconds
SEE ALSO
pppd(8)
Documentation in /usr/share/doc/pptp-linux
AUTHOR
This manual page was written by James Cameron <james.cameron@hp.com>
from text contributed by Thomas Quinot <thomas@debian.org>, for the De-
bian GNU/Linux system. The description of the available statistics was
written by Chris Wilson <chris@netservers.co.uk>. Updates for the De-
bian distribution by Ola Lundqvist <opal@debian.org>.
PPTP(8)
Generated by dwww version 1.14 on Tue Apr 29 08:43:06 CEST 2025.