Linux PPP HOWTO
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# 10.5. Note on PPP-2.x and `/proc/net/dev`

If you are using PPP-2.x, you will find that a side effect of the 'on the fly' creation of the PPP devices is that no devices show up if you look in the `/proc/net` file system until a device is created by starting up pppd:-

    [hartr@archenland hartr]$ cat /proc/net/dev
    Inter-|   Receive                  |  Transmit
     face |packets errs drop fifo frame|packets errs drop fifo colls carrier
        lo:  92792    0    0    0    0    92792    0    0    0     0    0
      eth0: 621737   13   13    0   23   501621    0    0    0  1309    0

Once you have one (or more) ppp services started, you will see entries such as this (from a ppp server):-

    [root@kepler /root]# cat /proc/net/dev
    Inter-|   Receive                  |  Transmit
     face |packets errs drop fifo frame|packets errs drop fifo colls carrier
        lo: 428021    0    0    0    0   428021    0    0    0     0    0
      eth0:4788257  648  648  319  650  1423836    0    0    0  4623    5
      ppp0:   2103    3    3    0    0     2017    0    0    0     0    0
      ppp1:  10008    0    0    0    0     8782    0    0    0     0    0
      ppp2:    305    0    0    0    0      297    0    0    0     0    0
      ppp3:   6720    7    7    0    0     7498    0    0    0     0    0
      ppp4: 118231  725  725    0    0   117791    0    0    0     0    0
      ppp5:  38915    5    5    0    0    28309    0    0    0     0    0

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