Re: ioctl(PPPIOCGUNIT): Operation not permitted

[Al Hudson <nospam [at] york.ac.uk>]

On Thu, 10 Jun 1999, Richard wrote:

> > I know my hardware set up is working. So I don't think it is problem with
> > my modem, or pppd, or the device driver. Especially when the `chat' script
> > can dial in to demon romp and connect but as soon the `pppd' is spawned I
> > get the `ioctl(PPPIOCGUNIT) : Operation not permitted' message.

Firstly, take no notice of the red FAIL messages - you're not going to see
these in linux for long. They don't indicate errors _necessarily_. My
system has plenty of FAILs. Many systems setup correctly will issue FAILs.
I believe they're changing them to something less vehement in the next
release.

Secondly, the ioctl() message really does suggest to me that pppd is not
being run setuid root. An ls -l /usr/sbin/pppd should recover file
permissions -rwsr-xr-x : if you have -rwxr-xr-x it's not running setuid
root. Although, if that *was* the case I'd expect you to get more than one
error message.

> > Any pointers considered.

I would get the logs out and have peep in them.

Also, check out the Linux for Laptops home pages - I found them
indispensible when I put linux on my DEC HiNote VP. There's a homepage and
a volunteer support base - if you have no luck here, try there as well:

http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/kharker/linux-laptop/

http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/kharker/linux-laptop/volunteer.html
(support base)

Hope this helps,

Alex.

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