dwun

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Latest releases: dwun 0.96e, dial 1.2, gcdial 0.7b

Description

Dwun is a *nix network daemon. It is usually used by clients behind an IP Masquerading (NAT) gateway to bring a network link (e.g. modem) up when at least one person says they want the link to be available, and down when no such clients remain.

Dwun is easy to setup because it can use your existing dial scripts.

Since it can run commands when clients run the CONNECT or DISCONNECT commands, dwun can also be used a generic daemon to run administrator-defined commands on behalf of users. One example of this is to require users to authenticate with dwun before the firewall allows them access.

dwun 0.96e changes

• /etc/dwunrc can have leading spaces.
• recommend that "exec 4>&-" be added to /etc/ppp/ip-up so that dwun won't wait for daemons launched there to exit.
• document that pppd only creates /var/run/ppp-N.pid when the connection is up.
• compile error with Linux libc5 fixed.
• src/snprintf/LICENSE.txt included.

Features

• Can redial automatically.
• User/password authentication. (Although exchanged as clear-text).
• Can run user-specified commands upon clients authenticating and running CONNECT and DISCONNECT commands (for example, using dwun to control network access through firewall configuration or implementing time quotas for users).
• Administrator can lock accounts, kill client connections, force redial etc. remotely.
• Shows clients connecting progress. (By sending them the output of a logfile, or by using chatscripts which interpret errors and report custom messages to users).
• ...plus standard features such as hostmasks.

Alternative software

• Masqdialer Server by Charles P. Wright. GNU GPL.
• Connect by Nicolas Chauvat and others. GNU GPL.
• Alt-connect by Peter Miller. GNU GPL.
• LineControl by S. Fuchs and Zpider. GNU GPL.