What's SLIP and PPP?

Although you may be new to networking, you may hear few strange, alien names:

1. SLIP
2. PPP

Perhaps, some people become scared when they hear new terms and abbreviations. The only process to reduce this fear is to 'READ' the knowledge-giving books (related to the problem). In this manner, we can define: SLIP as 'Serial Line Internet Protocol'. PPP as 'Point-to-Point Protocol'.

Hey at least now you know what's behind the ugly abbreviations of these aliens. What's purpose, to know this simple ugly question, you may need to go through this whole article: SLIP and PPP were designed to support dial-up access to networks based on the Internet protocols. SLIP is a simple protocol that functions at the Physical layer, whereas, PPP is a considerably enhanced protocol that provides Physical layer and Data Link layer functionality. Developed to provide dial-up TCP/IP connections, SLIP is an extremely rudimentary protocol that suffers from lack of rigid standardization, which sometimes hinders different implementations from interoperating. SLIP and PPP, both can function under Windows 98 communications as a Client. On the server end, Windows NT RAS (Remote Access Service [we will discuss in next articles]) supports PPP but doesn't support SLIP. In other words, Windows NT can act as RAS Server for the clients which are supporting PPP only. Windows 98, if used with SLIP protocol, will have to use the RAS server other than Windows NT. (That was important point, anyway feel free to forget, this time). SLIP is most commonly used on older systems or for dial-up connections to the Internet via SLIP-server Internet Hosts. PPP was defines by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) to improve on SLIP by providing the following features:

1. Security using password logon.
2. Simultaneous support for multiple protocols on the same link.
3. Dynamic IP addressing.
4. Error Control.

Different PPP implementations might offer more different levels of service and negotiate service levels when connections are made. Because of its versatility, interoperability, and additional features, PPP is presently surpassing SLIP as the most popular serial-line protocol. Certain dial-up configurations cannot use SLIP for the following reasons:

SLIP supports the TCP/IP transport protocol only. PPP, however, supports TCP/IP, as well as a number of other protocols, such as NetBEUI, IPX, AppleTalk, and DECnet. In addition, PPP can support multiple protocols over the same link.

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