29.7 smpppd as Dial-up Assistant
Most home users do not have a dedicated line connecting them to the
Internet. Instead, they use dial-up connections. Depending on the dial-up
method (ISDN or DSL), the connection is controlled by
ipppd or pppd.
Basically, all that needs to be done to go online is to start these programs
correctly.
If you have a flat-rate connection that does not generate any
additional costs for the dial-up connection, simply start the respective
daemon. Control the dial-up connection with a KDE applet or a command-line
interface. If the Internet gateway is not the host you are using, you might
want to control the dial-up connection by way of a network host.
This is where smpppd is involved. It
provides a uniform interface for auxiliary programs and acts in two
directions. First, it programs the required pppd
or ipppd and controls its dial-up properties.
Second, it makes various providers available to the user programs and
transmits information about the current status of the connection. As
smpppd can also be controlled by way of the
network, it is suitable for controlling dial-up connections to the Internet
from a workstation in a private subnetwork.
29.7.1 Configuring smpppd
The connections provided by smpppd are
automatically configured by YaST. The actual dial-up programs
KInternet and
cinternet are also preconfigured. Manual settings
are only required to configure additional features of
smpppd, such as remote control.
The configuration file of smpppd is
/etc/smpppd.conf. By default, it does not enable remote
control. The most important options of this configuration file are:
- open-inet-socket = yes|no
-
To control smpppd via the network, this option
must be set to yes. The port on which
smpppd listens is 3185. If
this parameter is set to yes, the parameters
bind-address, host-range, and
password should also be set accordingly.
- bind-address = ip
-
If a host has several IP addresses, use this parameter to determine at
which IP address smpppd should accept
connections.
- host-range = min ip max ip
-
The parameter host-range defines a network range.
Hosts whose IP addresses are within this range are granted access to
smpppd. All hosts not within this range are
denied access.
- password = password
-
By assigning a password, limit the clients to authorized hosts. As this
is a plain-text password, you should not overrate the security it
provides. If no password is assigned, all clients are permitted to access
smpppd.
- slp-register = yes|no
-
With this parameter, the smpppd service can be
announced in the network via SLP.
More information about smpppd is available
in the smpppd(8) and
smpppd.conf(5) man pages.
29.7.2 Configuring KInternet, cinternet, and qinternet for Remote
Use
KInternet, cinternet, and qinternet can be used to control a local or remote
smpppd. cinternet is the command-line counterpart of the graphical
KInternet. qinternet is basicallly the same as KInternet, but does
not use the
KDE libraries, so it can be used without KDE and must be installed
separately. To prepare these utilities for use with a remote smpppd, edit
the configuration file /etc/smpppd-c.conf manually or
using KInternet. This file only uses three options:
- sites = list of sites
-
Here, tell the front-ends where to search for
smpppd. The front-ends test the options in the
order specified here. The local option orders the
establishment of a connection to the local
smpppd. gateway points to
an smpppd on the gateway. The connection
should be established as specified under
server in
config-file. slp orders the
front-ends to connect to an smpppd found via
SLP.
- server = server
-
Here, specify the host on which smpppd runs.
- password = password
-
Insert the password selected for smpppd.
If smpppd is active, you can now try to access it, for example, with
cinternet --verbose --interface-list. If
you experience difficulties at this point, refer to the
smpppd-c.conf(5) and
cinternet(8) man pages.
