Help File Library: Getting Connected to the Internet with KPPP

Written by: Paul Penrod

This document is designed to give a detailed simplified view on how to generally setup an Earthlink connection using KPPP, however, it can be applied to any ISP. The method on display here was tested on Open Linux 2.3 using KPPP V1.6.11 (supplied with the Open Linux 2.3 distribution release), with several varieties of external modems. If you have another distribution of Linux with KPPP, there is a good chance the method here will work, but you may have to change an item or two. Please refer to you distribution documentation concerning any changes or variations in configuring KPPP.

This method has not been tested with all modem types, so I can not guarantee yours will work if you are using an unusual brand name modem – external or internal. If you have problems with your specific modem, please refer to the KPPP HTML documentation that comes with the KPPP distribution before calling Earthlink.

If you don’t have KPPP and would like to get it, you can find the source at www.kde.org, where KPPP is part of the KDE network package.

The Configuration dialog appears on the screen with the first tabbed entry for Accounts displayed. If there were account established, they will appear in the Account Setup text field, which if currently blank.

To setup the Earthlink account, press the NEW button.

The New Account dialog box appears on the desktop, as illustrated above. The Dial dialog will be presented first. In this section you will enter in 2 pieces of data:

Connection Name:      choose a name that identifies the account connection. for this example, we will use Earthlink.

Phone Number:           Enter the dial-up number you want KPPP to use when establishing a connection. Be sure to enter the number exactly the way you would dial it by hand, with 1 plus the area code for local/long distance connections, toll free connections, or any * commands (Vertical Service Codes) like *70 to block call waiting if required.

Make sure that AUTHENTICATION is set to PAP, and that STORE PASSWORD is checked.

When you are completed with this dialog, the information entered should look something like this.

Next select the IP tab at the top of the dialog box.

In this dialog tab, make sure that DYNAMIC IP ADDRESS is selected. This allows Earthlink to set the IP address when the computer logs into the network.

Next select the DNS tab.

In the DNS tab, we will enter the information that will tell KPPP how to resolve its TCP/IP domain name connection to Earthlink.

First, enter in the following information, so it appears like the example above:

Domain Name:           earthlink.net

*NOTE: must be all lower case.

DNS IP Address:       207.217.77.82

When you are done, press the ADD button.

When you press the ADD button, the IP address you entered will be moved to the DNS Address List text box. This text box holds the IP addresses of all the domain name servers this KPPP connection will use to resolve names not kept locally. Were almost done here, but we need to add another IP address.

Enter the next address 207.217.120.83, as shown above and press the ADD button.

When you are done, the DNS dialog should look like this:

Next, select the Gateway tab.

In this dialog, make sure that Default Gateway is the selected option. It does not matter for this connection if Assign the Default Route to this Gateway is checked. If it does not interfere with another connection to your LAN, then leave this option alone.

Next, select the Device tab.

In this tab dialog we will only check one item now, but will come back to this later. For now, make sure the Modem Device: drop menu is set to /dev/modem UNLESS you know for certain that your modem is connected via another process such as /dev/ttyS1, etc. If you are not sure, leave the menu at /dev/modem, and when KPPP checks the modem it will let us know if it can find the modem.

Next, select the Modem tab.

In this tab dialog we are going to do two things, A) check for our modem and B) set the Volume control. For those of you that have modems which asserts a Carrier Detect (check your modem documentation), youll need to check the Modem Asserts CD Line check box. If you dont know, then leave the box alone for now.

First we will check for the modem. Press the Query Modem button. KPPP will bring up the ATI Query dialog to track the status of querying the modem. If KPPP cant find the modem, you will see a dialog box that looks like this:

Press the CANCEL button. If you get this dialog box, then go back to the KPPP Configuration dialog box and select the Device tab.

In this dialog, we need to go find our modem, as we were informed previously that /dev/modem did not provide KPPP contact with the modem. In that case we need to identify the port where the modem exists. For first time Linux users, serial ports are identified differently than Windows.

For example, in Windows, COM1: identifies the first serial port. In Linux/UNIX /dev/ttyS0 identifies the outbound side of the first serial port, while /dev/cua0 defines the inbound side of the first serial port. COM2: would equate to /dev/ttyS1 and /dev/cua1, while COM3: would be defined as /dev/ttyS2 and /dev/cua2 Confused? stay with me.

Since we are only interested for outbound calls for this connection, we wont worry about any /dev/cua device connections. So, we can limit our choices down to the following:

COM1:           /dev/ttyS0
COM2:           /dev/ttyS1
COM3:           /dev/ttyS2
COM4:           /dev/ttyS3

If you need to setup any special modem dialing commands for your specific brand of modem, press the MODEM COMMANDS button and the following dialog appears:

Next select the PPP tab, and adjust the pppd Timeout: from 30 seconds (default) to 60 seconds. If your dialup to earthlink takes longer to authenticate the connection then 60 seconds, then insert a larger number such as 70, 80, or 90 seconds, to ensure that the connection will authenticate even on a slow day. Typically, 60 seconds works almost all the time.

If you want KPPP to automatically reconnect if the dialup connection is dropped, then make sure Automatic Redial on Disconnect is checked.

Select the Modem Device designation that matches the port your modem is on and go back to the Modem tab and press the Query Modem button to see if KPPP can talk to the modem. When the query is successful, KPPP will display a dialog box like the following:

Press the CLOSE button. Go back to the KPPP Configuration dialog and select the Device tab.

We need to check one item, the Connection Speed. There is an interesting feature of KPPP which can cause a problem connecting to a PPP dial-up if the connection speed is set too fast. I have only seen this with one 28.8 modem, and setting the speed to 38400 fixed the problem.

Next, select the Modem tab and adjust the Modem Volume slider to your preference as to how loud you want the modem to sound when its dialing out and making the network connection.

If you want KPPP to go away after the connection is dropped, then make sure Quit on Disconnect is checked.

When you are done, press the OK button. The Configuration dialog will disappear, having saved all the changes.

The opening dialog now has our connection (Earthlink) listed in the Connect to: selection menu as our first choice. We need to add the login and password, to make the configuration complete.

 

Select the Login ID: text field and enter in your Earthlink user name preceded by ELN/ (this is Earthlink specific only--for your ISP your username would be entered as normal). If you are curious to see what happens during the login phase, you can check the Show Log Window and a separate window will track the text dialog that happens between the modem and the network.

If you quit KPPP at this point everything will be saved, including the Login ID and the password.

To start the connection, press the Connect button, and sit back as KPPP launches your Linux box onto the Earthlink network. --LNO