Re: gnokii dialout problems, 6110

[Nick Andrew]

On Sat, Apr 13, 2002 at 04:00:37PM +0200, Pawel Kot wrote:
> I messed something: why a symlink is bad? It works. At least in Linux 2.2
> and 2.4.

I put the full pathname in /etc/ppp/peers/peername, like:

< noauth
< connect "/usr/sbin/chat -v -f /etc/chatscripts/peername"
< debug
< /dev/gnokii
< 9600
< nodetach
< defaultroute
< noipdefault

And pppd says "/dev/gnokii: unrecognised option" (or words to that
effect).

When I change "/dev/gnokii" to "/dev/pts/0", pppd correctly recognises
that line as a device name.

The problem with writing "/dev/pts/0" directly into the ppp peers file
is that the device name will change every time gnokii is run because
it depends how many other pts users (e.g. any xterm) started before it.

> But it works with pppd. I used to connect to internet this way some time
> ago.

I'm using ppp 2.4.1uus-4 (debian package). Perhaps the PPP package was
changed recently to be more strict on specifying devices. It's possible
that following a symlink may be a security vulnerability.

Nick.
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