9.15. Maintaining a permanent connection to the net with pppd.

If you are fortunate enough to have a semi permanent connection to the net and would like to have your machine automatically redial your PPP connection if it is lost then here is a simple trick to do so.

Configure PPP such that it can be started by the root user by issuing the command:

# pppd

Be sure that you have the `-detach' option configured in your /etc/ppp/options file. Then, insert the following line into your /etc/inittab file, down with the getty definitions:

pd:23:respawn:/usr/sbin/pppd

This will cause the init program to spawn and monitor the pppd program and automatically restart it if it dies.