PPP Remote Control Future Plans

Version 0.7, September 1, 2000

Configuration Files

Having to change the configuration in the Perl code itself is not a clean way to implement this. It also means that whenever there is a new version of ppp-rc, the configuration has to be entered again, even if little or nothing has changed in the configuration format.

A separate configuration file would allow to keep the configuration from one version to the next. It will be a change from the current `single file does it all' approach, but I think it will be worth it.

Subscriber Control

Currently, anybody on the local network can start and stop any connection started by ppp-rc, and there is no way to see whether other people are using the connection too. With subscriber control, anybody can `subscribe' to a connection, meaning that they let ppp-rc know that they are using it too. Instead of taking down the connection when they are done, they simply unsubscribe. Only when there are no more subscribers to a particular connection will it be terminated by ppp-rc.

This approach will make it necessary to have a persistent database of who is subscribed to which connections, who started what, and so on. It may be necessary to declare an administrator who can terminate connections even if there are still people subscribed to it, because the subscription may have gotten `stuck'. It will also be necessary to detect a connection timeout and automatically unsubscribe everybody using that connection, and perhaps resubscribe them when it comes back up.