O'Reilly & Associates Inc. has made chapter 6 ("Dial-out PPP Setup") of their Using & Managing PPP book available on their website, including Linux instructions:

http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/umppp/chapter/ch06.html

Requirements

First, if you need help properly configuring your modem, please see http://www.redhat.com/mirrors/LDP/HOWTO/Modem-HOWTO.html to get your modem properly configured. After that, it actually is pretty simple.

You must be sure you have a kernel with PPP support. Typically, kernels will have PPP configured in as a module. If this is the case, you will need to type modprobe ppp.o to load the module.

You will need copies of (both come with most recent distributions):

• pppd -- for kernel 2.0.x or higher, pppd 2.3.4 or higher.
• wvdial -- compiled/installed source or installed i386 RPM.

With these utilities, dialup connections can be setup either through the shells (as root) or with graphical front-ends (in which case the rest of this page can be bypassed) such as:

• GNOME-PPP
• KPPP

Another method of connecting with Linux uses 'pppd' directly. These instructions are available as Linux-pppd.html.

---

Configuration

To edit configuration files manually, or to connect without running X in the above manner, the files you will be concerned with are:

• /etc/resolv.conf
• /etc/wvdial.conf

Edit /etc/resolv.conf to look like this:

search auslin.com.au # nameserver 203.63.252.34 nameserver 203.63.252.35

To create the /etc/wvdial.conf file with the proper initial settings, you'll need to run the following command (as root):

/usr/bin/wvdialconf

(Your distribution or installation may have placed the command in other locations; if the above is "not found", try it under /usr/local/bin or others.)

Now edit /etc/wvdial.conf to change the following lines, removing the leading colons and replacing your access number, username, and password in the appropriate locations:

; Phone = <Target Phone Number> ; Username = <Your Login Name> ; Password = <Your Password>

An example completed edit is below; your information may be different. Also please add the line "Auto�Reconnect�=�off" in the Defaults section. We'll show you how to automatically redial later.

[Dialer Defaults] Baud = 115200 Modem = /dev/ttyS1 Init1 = ATZ Init2 = ATQ0 V1 E1 S0=0 &C1 &D2 S11=55 +FCLASS=0 Phone = 8543-7100 Username = myusername Password = mypassword Auto Reconnect = off

Since this file has passwords in it, be sure to set the permissions on this file so that only root can read it:

chown root /etc/wvdial.conf
chmod 600 /etc/wvdial.conf

---

Dialing

wvdial works differently than pppd itself; when run from a shell, it will continue to log information from the connection to the shell window and terminate the call when the user sends a break signal ("^C").

To run the connection manually, open a shell as root, and type:

/usr/bin/wvdial

If all is working, you will see the modem communication and connection information on the terminal. Leave this terminal running (perhaps minimized if running under X), and to disconnect the connection, come back to this terminal and type "^C" (Ctrl-C).

To connect an alternate connection setting, add the name of the alternate after the command (case-insensitive):

/usr/bin/wvdial alternate

---

Extra Tweaks

Automatic Redial

Since auto-redial can play havok with the lines when you're not actively using the connection (idle disconnect, redial, idle disconnect, redial, etc.), please place the mentioned line in the "Defaults" section above to disable it and use a separate section to specifically enable it when you're closely montitoring the connection:

[Dialer Redial] Auto Reconnect = on

In this way, the following will dial the same "Default" or "Alternate" numbers and username/password combinations, but will redial if disconnected:

/usr/bin/wvdial redial
/usr/bin/wvdial alternate redial

Remember to "kill" the session ("^C") if leaving the computer idle or unmonitored for long periods, as this would then tie up your own phone lines as well as ours.