
                     PCP - A PPP Control Panel
	  
	                   Version 0.9.5

Copyright see "COPYING" and source.

Attention: Major change against 0.9.4: PPP_COMMAND is
accompanied by PPP_PARAMS now! Change your resources if necessary!
	  
PCP is a utility for managing the ppp demon "pppd" to connect your prefered 
internet provider/university/friend/starship*/alien**.
It is intended for people who don't have or dislike dial on demand.

With PCP you can start and terminate the pppd process with a single 
button press. Additionally the messages pppd sends to syslogd can be 
followed, and a list of currently logged in users can be seen.
Attention: This feature is not appropriate for security, just for
information, as time lag occurs, and eyes and fingers are generally not the
fastest thing to react to attacks.

COMPILE:
Just edit the Makefile and make some changes to config.h (you HAVE TO!).
You MUST have a proper configured pppd.
Edit your /etc/syslogd.conf to log pppd's messages to the logfile you
told pcp to use (default is /var/log/messages).
Make sure the files mentioned in config.h are writable and readable
for the user who will run pcp, i.e. the directories they will be created in.
(for example /var/run/chat.pid, /var/run/wholog, /var/run/pcp.pid,
/var/log/messages)
Of course, the commands issued by pcp must be executable for
this user, too, e.g. chat, pppd, who.
These can be changed in config.h to satisfy your security needs.
Run make and everything should be fine.
This version requires Motif2.0 to compile.
A statically linked version is available separately.
If you need a statically linked version for a specific platform, mail me
(AR.Richter@tu-bs.de), and I will see what I can do for you.
But no guarantee on that I will manage your problem, because I don't use
Motif long by now and sometimes I am quite short on time, too.
Please note that the backbone of pcp has been initially written by
Bjoern Fischer (bakerman@hrz.uni-bielefeld.de), as well as
the base of all the documentation, the nice animation, etc..
Thanks Bjoern!

INSTALL:
Test the whole thing. If pppd won't connect, check the config.h file and
override it's definitions with the command line options. When everything
is fine, you can correct the config.h file or add some application defaults
to your Xt database.
Put the binary and the man page where you want to. 
You may edit the Pcp.ad file and add it to your X11 application defaults.

SECURITY:
Please read the "SECURITY" file that should have come with this distribution.
Additional considerations:
I am not too sure on the security of this program, but I use it myself 
all the time. So please send me any suggestions to prevent it being a 
security hole.
PCP needs NOT to be run as root.

PERFORMANCE:
Bad overall. Uses dump file-mechanisms to communicate with chat, pppd
etc. and even to obtain PIDs. So considerable high load is normal.
It would be much better to use fork(), execv() instead of system(),
but hey, it works. You shouldn't be fine with this if Bjoern or me
took money for it ;).

Enjoy.

That's all.

*This program does not contain any subspace features.
**Note that most aliens seem to use AppleTalk(TM).


