On 25 April 2014, Stuart Henderson <s...@spacehopper.org> wrote:
[...]
> Personally I use an external router configured as a bridge, and
> configure pppoe on the OpenBSD side (with baby jumbos and RFC4638
> where possible to avoid getting a restricted MTU). That way the
> router doesn't have external IP connectivity thus avoiding many
> of the problems you might run into, and meaning that any complex
> configuration is done on the OpenBSD box; it's then also pretty easy
> to swap out a spare router in case of hardware failure (which in my
> experience is more likely to occur for something that connects to a
> phone line).
[...]
Tangentially related: I used to have this exact setup a few years
ago. It worked well, with two notable quirks. First, it was actually
easier to make it work with userspace pppd first, then duplicate the
setup with the kernel pppd. That's because the diagnostics produced by
the userspace pppd were much better then the kernel's ones, and they
allowed me to figgure out the exact combination of switches required by
my ISP. The diagnostics from the kernel pppd were much less useful,
and every single change in config required a reboot (or at least that's
what I thought at the time). I believe the userspace pppd is gone these
days.
Second, the interface would simply disappear when the line went
down, and that was mildly annoying. Various applications didn't like
that; they would typically crash if I bound them to the interface, and
said interface went away under their feet. :) I haven't checked in a
long while if this is still the case, but it's something you might want
to keep in mind.
Regards,
Liviu Daia
