/usr/bin/pppd has group owner dip, not dialout

[Evgeniy]

Binary package hint: ppp

And the default user has by default the 'dialout' group.

[Alexander Sack (asac)]

i dont think this is a problem. my user is in dip group too. If I you think i misunderstood please open and be a bit more verbose, what is wrong and why it should be different

[Evgeniy (goujat)]

I didn't use dip, why should it have dip GID?

I just installed Ubuntu and tried to use gnome-ppp, it failed. I investigated and found, that I "have no rights to use pppd". Why? Default user has no dip GID, pppd has dip GID.

Generally, I mean that the default configuration simply does not work and needs investigation by end-user.

[Vladimir Korenev (vkorenev)]

I think that this is an issue that should be fixed. Neither kppp nor wvdial are usable by default.

I use default Ubuntu 9.04 beta installation. I tried to set up GSM/EDGE connection with NetworkManager, but it didn't connect displaying no error messages.

Then I installed kppp and launched it from console. It didn't connect too. The output to console was the following
kppp(13887) Modem::opentty: Opening Device: "/dev/ttyACM0"
Opener: received OpenDevice
Opener: received ExecPPPDaemon
Kernel supports ppp alright.
received unexpected SIGCHLD.
In parent: pppd pid 13911
Opener: received OpenResolv
error opening resolv.conf!
Couldn't find interface ppp0: No such device
Couldn't find interface ppp0: No such device

Then I installed wvdial. It didn't connect too, but fortunately it wrote about the cause
--> PPP negotiation detected.
--> Unable to run /usr/sbin/pppd.
--> Check permissions, or specify a "PPPD Path" option in wvdial.conf.

Then finally I found out that a user should be in dip group to be able to launch pppd. After adding the user to that group both kppp and wvdial started connecting.

[Evgeniy (goujat)]

This is something crazy. Guys! It took 6 months to JUST ACCEPT OBVIOUS BUG! WHAT IS WITH YOU ALL? WHAT KIND OF OS ARE YOU DOING?

[Alexander Sack (asac)]

On Fri, Apr 17, 2009 at 04:44:20AM -0000, Evgeniy wrote:
> This is something crazy. Guys! It took 6 months to JUST ACCEPT OBVIOUS
> BUG! WHAT IS WITH YOU ALL? WHAT KIND OF OS ARE YOU DOING?
>

Please remember that shouting usually helps for a minute, but besides
from that it usually only has negative effects.

Anyway, the defaults are below and "dip" is clearly in there (except for
"unprivileged", but that makes sense obviously):

$ cat /etc/gnome-system-tools/users/profiles
[Unprivileged]
name=Unprivileged
name[es]=Usuario sin privilegios
shell=/bin/bash
home-prefix=/home
uid-min=1000
uid-max=6000

[Desktop]
name=Desktop user
name[es]=Usuario del escritorio
default=1
shell=/bin/bash
home-prefix=/home
uid-min=1000
uid-max=6000
groups=cdrom,floppy,dialout,tape,dip,adm,plugdev,fax,audio,scanner,fuse,video

[Administrator]
name=Administrator
name[es]=Administrador
shell=/bin/bash
home-prefix=/home
uid-min=1000
uid-max=6000
groups=cdrom,floppy,dialout,tape,dip,adm,plugdev,fax,audio,scanner,fuse,admin,sambashare,lpadmin,video

 - Alexander

[Evgeniy (goujat)]

Anyway, first user after installation does not have it.

[Vladimir Korenev (vkorenev)]

/etc/gnome-system-tools/users/profiles seems to be used when creating a new user from GNOME only. The default user created during installation is not assigned to the dip group. Moreover, many people use KDE, or XFCE, or whatever, and do not have GNOME installed.

All groups that I have after installing Kubuntu 9.04 are:
adm dialout cdrom plugdev users lpadmin admin sambashare vboxusers

BTW, what is dip group for? Why not assign pppd to dialout instead?

[Alejandro Zaro (grapequade)]

Workaround for this bug:
system settings - user management - administrator mode - select user and modify it - add secondary group "dip" to selected user.
After modifying it you need reboot the computer.
Seems that bug is coming from Debian kppp packages?

[Alejandro Zaro (grapequade)]

On Fri, Apr 17, 2009 at 04:44:20AM -0000, Evgeniy wrote:
> This is something crazy. Guys! It took 6 months to JUST ACCEPT OBVIOUS
> BUG! WHAT IS WITH YOU ALL? WHAT KIND OF OS ARE YOU DOING?
>
First someone need to confirm the bug (I confirmed it today just by clicking on "status" on this page ) and somebody need to make a fix for this bug - it may be you :-) .

 Best regards

[Evgeniy (goujat)]

May be package mantainer?

[Marco d'Itri (md)]

Unless Ubuntu does things radically differently from Debian, this bug is bogus. pppd must be owned by group dip, which is the group that gives users the ability to call out on serial ports, so users who need to be able to initiate outgoing PPP sessions must be in group dip.

[Evgeniy (goujat)]

What is DIP, tell me please?

Dial-in port? dip - crappy software? It just has no meaning.

I need to dial out - so I use group dialout.

[Vladimir Korenev (vkorenev)]

Then I think that a user must be in dip group by default.
The main problem is not that pppd is owned by dip, but that pppd is not usable out of the box.

[NetComrade (netcomrade)]

exists in 9.04 too
only if you know what you're doing:
sudo vi /etc/group
/dip (this searches for dip
A (vi command to append at the end of the line, make sure it's capital A)
<type your username>
will look like:
dip:x:30:andrey (where andrey is my username)

escape :wq! (to save in vi)
sudo pwconv
relogin to gui

[Evgeniy (goujat)]

Ubuntu developers are unable to fix this bug, it's too hard to fix, and it also takes too much time.
PPPD is not usable in ubuntu - because users don't need it.

PPPD is in Ubuntu just for decoration.

[Alex_xxx (alex-x1980)]

Any progress?

[Evgeniy (goujat)]

It's rather hard to fix, so they don't.

[Eugene Gorodinsky (e-gorodinsky)]

Are you paying the developers in any way? No? Then what right do you have to whine? The bug is low priority - not many people use pppd nowadays. If you can offer a fix for it, I'm sure the devs will accept it, if not, well you can always use a different distro or even a different OS altogether.

[Alex_xxx (alex-x1980)]

it seems that the fix is very simple, don't it? :) Why not to apply it?

[Evgeniy (goujat)]

Eugene Gorodinsky, you are telling words with no sense. The bug can be fixed or not fixed, all other words are crap.

First the importance must be "decided" (now Undecided). Then the package maintainer should fix the package he maintains after all.

But it seems for this package there is no dedicated maintainer. So it seems the bug is unfixable.

[RMcGuire (rjmcguire)]

also in 9.10.

surely the problem is in the ubuntu installer?

[RMcGuire (rjmcguire)]

More reasonable way to add user to group compared to using vi:

adduser username groupname

e.g:
adduser myuser dip

[dinar qurbanov (qdinar)]

duplicate: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/278828

[dinar qurbanov (qdinar)]

i have also just now added my user to dip group and wanted to know out what is "dip" and searching in google have come here.
just now electricity switched off for near one hour and after computer switched on again ppp has started automatically. but i need to make poff dsl-provider and pon dsl-provider to get programs working, i have said this in https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ifupdown/+bug/500735 , now i have tried to poff dsl-provider without sudo , but i could not, it said:
kill: Operation not permitted
/usr/bin/poff: /bin/kill failed. None stopped.
, only could with sudo, then i started it without sudo and it works. and i tried to poff and pon without sudo, it works. so only first poff is not permitted if ppp is autoconnected.
so look at this when fix this bug.

Eugene Gorodinsky , on some computers only pppoeconf works, on some only network manager works, as it seems to me. also is it possible to make autoconnect with network manager?

[antistress (antistress)]

still that bug with a clean install of lucid

also, Bug #289239 may be related ?

[Bartlomiej (bartoleo)]

still problem in Ubuntu 11.04

[Marco d'Itri (md)]

Users still not understanding that this is not a bug and ppp is working as designed. This should probably be reassigned to the installer to add the user to the dip group by default.

[Evgeniy (goujat)]

Users don't need to "understand" what's the developers missed and "understand" developers' faults. PPP is not working by default and this needs to be solved in any way that it can be solved at all.

[zalluth (zalluth)]

I think, it is pppd bug, pppd group should be dialout by default, not dip. Maybe pppd group in ppp package is dip too, then it should be changed to dialout. When I need to customize Ubuntu live cd, I should change pppd group to be dialout, so maybe it group will revert to dip if I update ppp package in my computer. So the bug is in ppp package.