SETTING UPA DIAL UP MODEM ON REDHAT LINUX

USING KDE’S KPPP UTILITY TO CONFIGURE AN EXTERNAL MODEM

Once X-Windows is up and running on any Linux box, access to a host of GUI based tools is
available. KPPP, is KDE’s GUI based modem configuration utility. This utility is installed in the
/usr/sbin/kppp sub directory on the Linux box.

Note
Files stored within the sbin sub directory on a Linux computer are generally
accessible to the root user.

Hence login as root or alternatively su to root from any user login.

The system prompt will be a # indicating that the Linux has recognized the root login or will
change to a # indicating that Linux has recognized the conversion to root from another user
login.

# cd /usr/sbin ↵

# kppp ↵

To run KDE’s KPPP utility from within the sbin sub directory.

Note
Alternatively, add a shortcut on the desktop to run KPPP, or add a menu item in
the Start Menu to run KPPP, if access to this utility is not already available in the
Start Menu.

As soon as KPPP runs the screen as shown in diagram 1 is displayed.

Diagram 1

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The KPPP window that appears on the VDU screen has four buttons, they are:

Quit, Setup, Help and Connect as shown in diagram 2.

Diagram 2
Note
Assuming this is the first time that KPPP is run, there is no connection configured
and hence the Connect button is disabled.

Additionally, the KPPP window also displays three textboxes they are:

Connect To, Login Id, Password as shown in diagram 3.

Diagram 3

Note
Notice that the Connect to: is a drop down list box. This indicates that multiple
connections to ISP’s can be configured and the appropriate one selected from the list
displayed to connect to.

Since this is the first time that KPPP is being run click on button in the KPPP
window as shown in diagram 1.

This will open another window as shown in diagram 4 that will permit the capture of user data
via tabbed pages in the KPPP setup screen. This setup screen really has two individual sets
of tabbed pages accessed and used as described later in this material.

One set of pages permits the capture of user data bound to the device being used, which port
its connected to (i.e. Serial or USB), the speed of data transfer via the modem and so on.

The other set of pages permits the capture of user data bound to the ISP connection, such as a
Connection name, Telephone number to be dialed (multiple connection names and numbers
can be specified and so on.

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 SETTING UPA DIAL UP MODEM ON REDHAT LINUX

Diagram 4 Diagram 6

This is the KPPP Configuration screen that The New Account window opens as shown in
opens up when the Setup button is clicked. Diagram 6. Enter a Connection Name. Here
To setup an Account, Click New. VSNL is chosen as the account name.

Click Add to add a telephone number to dial.

Another window opens to capture the

telephone number to dial. See diagram 7.

Diagram 5

The Create New Account Screen appears as

shown in diagram 5. This screen offers to
assist in setting up the modem using a Diagram 7
Wizard or through various dialog screens via
the Dialog Setup command button. Enter the phone no. Click OK.

The telephone number is transferred to the

Ensure that the button is New Account window as in diagram 5.
clicked. Do not opt to use the Wizard.
Do Not Click OK in the New Account
Once Dialog Setup is chosen, the KPPP window until the configuration is complete.
Configuration window will open
Click the IP tabbed page, to setup the
immediately as shown in diagram 6. Via this
computers IP addressing as shown in
window manual configuration of the
diagram 8.
Modem can begin.

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Diagram 8
The ISP normally sets the IP for the
computer dynamically when the computer
successfully logs in. In Configuration click
the Dynamic IP address radio button.
This is the default setting anyway.
Diagram 9
Since the computer is dialing to a specific ISP it
must connect to the ISP’s default gateway
server. In Configuration, click the Default
gateway radio button. This is the default
setting anyway. Now Click OK.
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Diagram 10
Select the Device page. From the Modem
device: drop down list box select the Serial or
USB port that the modem is connected to. If
the port is Com 1 then select: /dev/ttyS0
(Capital S followed by Zero).
Flow Control: Hardware [CRTSCTS].
Line Termination: LF
Connection Speed: 57600
Modem timeout: 60 sec
Tweak these setting if required, to map
correctly to the modem being installed.
Click the Modem tab.
The screen as shown in diagram 10 appears.
This will permit setting up a few parameters
for the Modem and testing whether the local
link between the computer and the modem is
working successfully or not.
If the test is unsuccessful then check the
Serial port to which the modem is connected,
try changing the device file to another tty,
perhaps ttyS1
 SETTING UPA DIAL UP MODEM ON REDHAT LINUX

Diagram 11 Diagram 13

Select the Modem page. Switch off the If all the parameters have been passed
Wait of dial tone before dialing check box. correctly, the output of the computer
Set the Modem Volume to midway. Click querying the modem will be displayed as
Query Modem. shown in diagram 13.

This means a successful link was established

between the computer on its serial port and
the Modem.

Assuming that the Modem query check went

through OK then its time to finally click OK
on the KPPP configure screen.

This exits to the dial up screen.

Here pass the Login Id and Password

Diagram 12 provided by the ISP before actually dialing in
to the ISP of choice. This is shown in
Immediately the computer begins to query diagram 14.
the Modem as shown in diagram 12.

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Diagram 14
Enter the Login ID and Password and then
click Connect.
If each command sent to the Modem from
the computer needs to be seen, Click the
Show log window, check box On.
The Modem will dial in to the ISP using the
telephone line that it is connected to as
shown in diagram 15.
Diagram 15
Once a connection is established between
the Modem and the ISP it will attempt to
connect to the ISP’s network as shown in
diagram 16.
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Diagram 16
Once the Modem connects to the ISP’s
network the gateway to browse the Internet
is open and ready.
The current window (i.e. Connecting to
VSNL) will immediately minimize to the
Status bar of the Linux desktop.
Invoke an Internet browser, such as Mozilla
or Konqueror, or any other Linux browser
of choice, type in a URL to navigate to and
everything should work just fine.
Right click the minimized Connect window in
the status bar to view the KPPP statistics if
required. Please see diagram 17.
 SETTING UPA DIAL UP MODEM ON REDHAT LINUX

Diagram 17.

The Modem is setup and running just fine as can be seen from diagram 16. Close the KPPP
statistics window and continue browsing. To disconnect, Click on the VSNL window visible in
the status bar and select disconnect.

Error Handling

If errors are displayed at the time when the Modem was queried then carefully navigate
through each screen once again and check the parameters passed in earlier. If an error is
noticed, correct this and try again.

Common errors, Modem port configured wrong. A Serial port chosen for a USB modem and
vice versa. The wrong Serial or USB device driver identity used.

Serial Port Identities USB Port Identities

Com1 /dev/ttyS0 USB1
Com2 /dev/ttyS1 USB2
Com3 /dev/ttyS2 USB3
Com4 /dev/ttyS3 USB4

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THE RELIANCE FIXED LINE PHONE WORKING UNDER REDHAT 9.0

To get the Reliance Fixed line phone to work under RedHat Linux first down load the
appropriate driver software from the following URL:

http://www.relianceinfo.com/Infocomm/html/rservices/rservices_linux_rconnect.html

The name of the tarball used for installing this software is: rconnect-cmdln-0.5.tar

The web site indicates that it’s tested on RedHat 8 and SuSE, but seems to work fairly well on
RedHat 9 as well. This really means that we’ve did encounter any problems when trying to
install this driver on RedHat 9. We hope you have the very same experience.

Note
Remember to activate the Reliance Internet account in the normal way. Only after a
confirmatory SMS is received indicating that the Internet account has been activated
attempt to use the Reliance Internet gateway.

Once the tarball is downloaded, copy it to a subdirectory to begin the Install process.

Login as root. Create a sub directory under /. eg. /relphone

# mkdir /relphone ↵

Copy the downloaded tarball to this sub directory. Change to that sub directory to begin the
installation process.

# cd /relphone ↵

Extract the contents of the tarball by issuing the following command.

# tar –xvzf rconnect-cmdln-0.5.tar ↵

The contents of the tar ball are extracted into the sub directory rconnect-0.5 under the
/relphone directory. (See diagram 1)

Diagram 1

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 SETTING UPA DIAL UP MODEM ON REDHAT LINUX

Change to this sub directory.

# cd rconnect-0.5 (Notice there is no slash before the directory name)

To start the installation process, do the following:

# ./rconnect ↵

The screen as shown in diagram 2 will be seen. The model of the fixed line phone used was
LG LSP – 340E, hence the number 3 was entered at the prompt. Press Enter. See diagram 3.

Diagram 2

Diagram 3

On pressing Enter, the Serial port device driver name is asked for by the install process. On
our computer the Serial port used was Com1 hence the device driver was passed as /dev/ttyS0.
See diagram 4.

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Diagram 4

Press Enter.

The installation process will indicate that its searching on the Serial port indicated for the
telephone. Within a few seconds installation process indicates that the phone was found and
that the installation was completed successfully. See diagram 5.

Diagram 5

The system prompt is displayed once again.

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 SETTING UPA DIAL UP MODEM ON REDHAT LINUX

To login into the Internet using the Reliance gateway at the system prompt issue the following
command:

# rconnect <LoginID> <Password> ↵

Note
The Login ID and Password for the Reliance Internet gateway is the user’s area
code followed by the telephone number. Assuming a Mumbai user then an example
will be: 2230907863.

Hence an example of the command to log into the Internet using the Reliance
Internet gateway will be as follows:

# rconnect 2230907805 2230907805 ↵ (See diagram 6)

Diagram 6

Immediately look at the display on the telephone, it will change to the Modem display.
Indicating that the fixed line phone in now operating as a modem.

On successful login to the Internet the system prompt will be returned.

You are now successfully logged into the Internet using the Reliance Internet Gateway. Open
up a web browser such as Mozilla or Konqueror, or any other Linux browser of choice, type
in a URL to navigate to and everything should work just fine.

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To disconnect from the Internet at the system prompt issue the command:

# rdisconnect ↵

The system prompt will be returned almost immediately. Look at the display on the telephone
it will have changed to the normal telephone display indicating that the fixed line phone in now
operating as a normal phone. See diagram 7.

Diagram 7

CONFIGURING A MODEM USING ONLY A TEXT EDITOR

Having had a look at how the RedHat 9.0 GUI based tool can be used to setup and configure a
Modem its time to understand how to setup and configure a Modem using only a text editor.

This is because when RedHat is installed as a dedicated Server or Enterprise Server, its GUI
tools are not loaded nor is X-Windows software loaded and run on the server.

This is because X-Windows itself runs as a Server process and has its own unique listening
port, which is always open. This port cannot ever be closed, as soon as the listening port is
closed X-Windows simply stops working. As long as there is a public port open and active on a
Server, (i.e. cannot be protected) the Server is vulnerable and via the Server all the clients
connected to it are vulnerable as well.

Clever system hackers know which port X-Windows opens and listens on. Actually the port
number is in the open domain. It is possible to make use of this knowledge to cleverly insert
malicious code onto the Linux box. Once this kind of malicious code is installed and can be
called remotely all the Server resources are at serious risk.

A simple way around this issue is to install all the GUI based Server configuration tools on a
client computer connected to the Linux Server. The GUI based Server tools an this client can
then be used to telnet to the Master Server and maintain it.

After all the necessary maintenance and configuring is complete, the telnet link between the
client and the Server can be safely broken. The X-Windows server software now running on
the client can be exited as soon as all the Master Server work is complete.

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 SETTING UPA DIAL UP MODEM ON REDHAT LINUX

Inspite of this, its always a good idea to be able to handle as much of the necessary Server
side configuration and maintenance from the command prompt rather than using X-Windows
and the Linux GUI.

When RedHat Linux was installed an executable called wvdialconf was installed in /etc. This
file can be run from the system prompt by typing in wvdialconf and pressing Enter.

Log in as root, or su to root.

# wvdialconf ↵

This executable scans all the Serial ports and makes appropriate entries into the wvdial.conf
file. The wvdial.conf file is located in **********

Once wvdialconf has been run on the computer as shown above, some of entries in the file
have to be edited and if really necessary some entries need to be freshly made.

For each Serial port identified on the computer there will be an appropriate entry made in the
wvdial.conf file.

In each of these blocks of entries a minimum of three parameters must be edited if the
Modem is to work correctly. They are:

Parameter What’s to be entered

phone <Enter the ISP’s telephone number here>
username <Enter the username provided to (or by) the ISP here>
password <Enter the password provided to (or by) the ISP here>

It is obvious that the executable wvdialconf cannot make these entries automatically.

After a successful log in to an ISP’s Internet Gateway Server via the dial-up modem, a web
browser (i.e. Mozilla or Konqueror or any other Linux compatible browser) must be invoked to
actually surf the Internet and navigate to the specific URL’s keyed into its Address or Location
bar.

The web browser needs to know the IP address of the Internet Gateway Server to whom it
must address all the client calls to navigate a specific domain name especially for domain
name to IP resolution.

The IP address of the ISP’s Internet Gateway Server must be made in the resolv.conf file.
This file is in the /etc folder.

The following entries are made in the resolv.conf file:

Parameter What’s to be entered

search dns.vsnl.net.in
nameserver 202.54.1.30
nameserver 202.54.1.18

Once these entries are made everything is ready to log in to the Internet using the Linux box.

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Logging In To The Internet

# wvdial

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