What Is PPP And How To Enable It For VPS

What is PPP ?

The Point-to-Point Protocol, or PPP, is a protocol that enables serial interface communication between two computers. a device that is phone-line connected to a server. It is a full duplex protocol that works with several physical media types.By enabling the pppd daemon in a VPS (Virtual Private Server), you can connect your DSL provider from the VPS. PPP is compatible with OpenVZ kernel 2.6.27 OR later. If you do not have kernel 2.6.27 OR later installed, kindly upgrade it.

Let’s load the PPP modules on your host node. With the commands below, PPP modules will be loaded.

[root@host-node ~]# modprobe ppp_async
[root@host-node ~]# modprobe ppp_deflate
[root@host-node ~]# modprobe ppp_mppe

To verify them, use the command below. If it shows the correct output, PPP modules have been loaded.

[root@host-node ~]# lsmod | grep ppp
ppp_mppe 6190 0
ppp_deflate 4184 0
zlib_deflate 21629 1 ppp_deflate
ppp_async 7874 0
ppp_generic 25400 3 ppp_mppe,ppp_deflate,ppp_async
slhc 5821 1 ppp_generic
crc_ccitt 1733 1 ppp_async

The time you reboot the host node, these changes will be lost. If you want these modules to load on reboot, create a file and set 755 permissions to it.

[root@host-node ~]# vi /etc/sysconfig/modules/ppp.modules

!/bin/sh

/sbin/modprobe ppp_async
/sbin/modprobe ppp_deflate
/sbin/modprobe ppp_mppe

[root@host-node ~]# chmod 755 /etc/sysconfig/modules/ppp.modules

Stop your VPS and set PPP feature on it. Start it VPS on setting this feature.

[root@host-node ~]# vzctl stop CTID
[root@host-node ~]# vzctl set CTID –features ppp:on –save
[root@host-node ~]# vzctl start CTID

Enable /dev/ppp for the VPS

[root@host-node ~]# vzctl set CTID –devices c:108:0:rw –save
[root@host-node ~]# vzctl exec CTID mknod /dev/ppp c 108 0
[root@host-node ~]# vzctl exec CTID chmod 600 /dev/ppp

You have enabled PPP for the VPS now. You can cross check if it has been enabled properly by logging into the VPS & executing the command below.

[root@VPS ~]# /usr/sbin/pppd

It should show an gibberish output below.

~�}#�!}!}!} }4}”}&} } } } }%}&)Q�}4}’}”}(}”p})

The output will keep on printing for 30 seconds. If you do not get this output OR an error message, you have missed few steps.

NOTE – Make sure you replace CTID with your actual VPS ID.