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The TCP/IP Guide  9  TCP/IP Lower-Layer (Interface, Internet and Transport) Protocols (OSI Layers 2, 3 and 4)       9  TCP/IP Network Interface Layer (OSI Data Link Layer) Protocols            9  TCP/IP Serial Line Internet Protocol (SLIP) and Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP)                 9  Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP)                      9  PPP Fundamentals and Operation

PPP Link Setup and Phases 1 2 3 PPP Core Protocols: Link Control, Network Control and Authentication

PPP is not a single protocol but rather a suite of many. The basic architecture of PPP was also designed to allow it to be easily extended through the addition of protocols to the suite. For both of these reasons, it makes sense that PPP's operation is defined not in a single standard but in many different standards. Like all TCP/IP standards, the PPP protocols are described in a series of RFCs. These are regularly updated as changes are needed to the different components of PPP, and as new technologies are added to it.

While it makes sense to have different parts of PPP covered in different standards, this does make it much harder to learn about how PPP works than if everything were in one specification. Worse, there aren't just a few PPP standards; there are literally dozens of RFCs that cover PPP's main operation, its various protocols and other issues related to it. You can find most of them by consulting a master list of RFCs and searching for the string “PPP”, but this way you will find them in numerical (RFC number) order, which isn't very meaningful in terms of how the protocols are used. You also have to differentiate between ones that are current and those that have been obsoleted.

Below I have described the most important and/or interesting of the RFCs that are related to PPP. To make it easier to see what the RFCs are about, I have organized them into groups. These groups roughly correspond to the component groups I discussed in the general operation topic. Within each group the RFCs are listed in numerical order, which is also date order. Only the most recent RFC is listed, not earlier ones that were obsoleted (with the exception of RFC 1334; see the note below in that entry).

Despite the collective size of these tables, I haven't even come close to listing all the standards defined that relate to PPP. Incidentally, to keep it from being even larger (and more confusing) I didn't list the individual compression and encryption algorithms here; you can find them in the topics on compression and encryption.

You can find more information on most of the protocols in the preceding table in the next two sections.

PPP Link Setup and Phases 1 2 3 PPP Core Protocols: Link Control, Network Control and Authentication