Linux PPTP Client Error: “pty option precludes specifying device name”

I was receiving this error when I was trying to start a PPTP client connection in a Linux cron. The error was reported by pptp when issuing the start command:

pon VPNname

The error was:

/usr/sbin/pppd: pty option precludes specifying device name

I changed my PPTP client start up command to the below which fixed the issue:

pptp pty file /etc/ppp/options.pptp user [USER] password [PASSWORD]

Substitute the below attributes for your own values:

• [USER] – PPTP VPN account user name.
• [PASSWORD] – PPTP VPN account password.