Why does ppp(8) lock up during file transfers with IO errors?
Under FreeBSD 2.2.2 and before, there was a bug in the tun driver that prevents incoming packets of a size larger than the tun interface's MTU size. Receipt of a packet greater than the MTU size results in an IO error being logged via syslogd.
The PPP specification says that an MTU of 1500 should always be accepted as a minimum, despite any LCP negotiations, therefore it is possible that should you decrease the MTU to less than 1500, your ISP will transmit packets of 1500 regardless, and you will tickle this non-feature - locking up your link.
The problem can be circumvented by never setting an MTU of less than 1500 under FreeBSD 2.2.2 or before.
XML Feeds