Stock rh60. == Problem: Pppd logs to syslog AND to the console instead of just to syslog. == Situation: I connect a rh6 server and a diskless pc (boot linux from a floppy) via serial line/ppp. == PPP setup on the rh60 server: 1) iinittab: S0:234:respawn:/usr/sbin/pppd ttyS0 2) /etc/ppp/options: lock 3) /etc/ppp/options.ttyS0: :10.0.0.101 -detach silent persist netmask 255.0.0.0 asyncmap 0 proxyarp crtscts ipcp-accept-remote ipcp-accept-local 115200 == /etc/sysconfig/init I have loglevel=7 (but this shouldn't have anything to do with the problem) == What pppd logs to the console: pppd logs to the /dev/tty1 the following stuff (WHEN the serial cable is connected to ttyS0): 1) At boot it logs -- Using interface ppp0 Connect: ppp0 <--> /dev/ttyS0 -- cluttering the login prompt 2) when the diskless pc connects to it -- found interface eth0 for proxy arp local IP address x.x.x.x remote IP address x.x.x.x -- 3) when the diskless pc does ppp-off -- LCP terminated by peer Connection terminated. Connect time 4.4 minutes. Sent 320 bytes, received 363 bytes. Hangup (SIGHUP) Using interface ppp0 Connect: ppp0 <--> /dev/ttyS0 -- The PPP connection works perfectly, but the console is too much cluttered with merely informational pppd messages. == Why I think this is a bug: I looked at the pppd source and it logs those messages under daemon.notice and daemon.info, so that they should go to /var/log/messages only (if I understand the stock syslog.conf), not to the console too. I used pppd in the same manner (with the same serial cable) on a caldera13 (2.0.33/ppp2.2.x) box and it didn't log anything to the console. Just to try, I set up a syslog.conf with *.* /var/log/messages (tab not spaces) killall -1 syslogd but the problem persists. Is this a normal behavior or a bug? Thanks.
I think this is considered a feature when pppd is run with a controlling terminal, though I may be mistaken. Have you tried running pppd with standard in, out, and err redirected from/to /dev/null? pppd [arguments] </dev/null >/dev/null 2>/dev/null
You're right, with S0:234:respawn:/usr/sbin/pppd ttyS0 1>/dev/null the console is not cluttered anymore. However, I think this behavior is not so intuitive; usually stuff run from inittab doesn't log to console, but for critical problems. And the old pppd did this way. Thanks.
If you would like, you may discuss your preferences for pppd's behaviour to pppd's author; we can't be very effective middlemen on this.