Re: [gentoo-user] Setting up group for ppp and dial up

[Chris White]

On Sunday 18 September 2005 09:38, Mick wrote:
> Hi All,
>
> I eventually decided to set up my winmodem (hcfpci) to be able to
> send/receive faxes and as a backup for when adsl goes down.  I noticed that
> a group called dialout was created:
> ===============================
> dialout:x:20:root
> ===============================

yah, this looks like it sets permissions for the actual dialup scripts.  That 
said you'll need to be a member of the dialout group.

> The Dial up Gentoo Wiki says that for security purposes one should create a
> new ppp group and add those users who will be allowed to dial up.  It also
> suggests to alter the original access rights of /usr/sbin/pppd:
> ===============================
> -r-s--x--x  1 root root 238244 Sep 17 08:29 /usr/sbin/pppd
> ===============================
>
> to 4550:
> ===============================
> -r-sr-x---  1 root ppp 238244 Sep 17 08:29 /usr/sbin/pppd
> ===============================

Yup, helps for security.

> Any idea what the dialout group is there for?

See above.

> Also, when I want to dial up which is the 'right' sequence to bring up:
> 1) /etc/init.d/hcfpci start
> 2) /etc/init.d/net.ppp0 start

If hcfpci needs net.ppp0, it will start it for you, visa-versa too.

Chris White