# How does Debian do this?



## balanga (Feb 8, 2018)

When I boot up Debian, insert a 4G USB dongle (Huawei E3372) and click on Network Manager, a Mobile Broadband option pops up andwhen I select it, it connects. I did't need to configure anything.

When I run `ifconfig` (or rather `ip a`) it shows:

```
5: ppp0: <POINTOPOINT,MULTICAST,NOARP,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc pfifo_fast state UNKNOWN group default qlen 3
    link/ppp 
    inet 94.196.105.149/32 brd 94.196.105.149 scope global ppp0
       valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
```
I can't find a ppp.conf so how is ppp() configured?

There is a /etc/ppp directory which contains:

```
-rw-r--r--   1 root root     0 Feb  8 21:34 blob
-rw-------   1 root root    80 Jan  8 07:48 chap-secrets
-rwxr-xr-x   1 root root  1754 Dec  4  2015 ip-down
drwxr-xr-x   2 root root  4096 Jan  8 07:48 ip-down.d
-rwxr-xr-x   1 root root  1892 Dec  4  2015 ip-up
drwxr-xr-x   2 root root  4096 Jan  8 07:48 ip-up.d
-rwxr-xr-x   1 root root   784 Dec  4  2015 ipv6-down
drwxr-xr-x   2 root root  4096 Nov 11  2016 ipv6-down.d
-rwxr-xr-x   1 root root   922 Dec  4  2015 ipv6-up
drwxr-xr-x   2 root root  4096 Nov 11  2016 ipv6-up.d
-rw-r--r--   1 root root 13209 Dec  4  2015 options
-rw-------   1 root root  1628 Jan  8 07:48 pap-secrets
drwxr-s---   2 root dip   4096 Jan  8 07:48 peers
-rw-r--r--   1 root root    50 Feb  8 19:42 resolv.conf

./ip-down.d:
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root  581 Dec  4  2015 0000usepeerdns

./ip-up.d:
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root  902 Dec  4  2015 0000usepeerdns

./ipv6-down.d:

./ipv6-up.d:

./peers:
-rw-r----- 1 root dip 1093 Jan  8 07:48 provider
```

I notice that there is no `ppp` that I can find, so how does it work? Presumably there is something which is equivalent to ppp.conf...


----------



## shepper (Feb 8, 2018)

You should have better luck searching for FreeBSD and 4G dongle.

My quick search yielded:https://gist.github.com/pvalkone/9170523.


----------



## tingo (Feb 9, 2018)

As to how, check out the documentation for Network Manager. The necessary config file bits exists, just in a different place to where you expect them to be (I don't remember the specifics).


----------



## drhowarddrfine (Feb 9, 2018)

Wrong forum. This is FreeBSD. You probably meant to ask on a Debian forum where there are mostly Debian users. At least that's what I would have done.


----------

