This tutorial is for ISDN beginners and for those with some experience who are now also interested in further configuration of the entire system (e.g. mail, firewalls, etc.).
The tutorial is designed to be practical. All details and features are not described; rather the goal is to be able to configure such a system.
This tutorial is based on the S.u.S.E. Linux 5.2 distribution (see http://www.suse.de/). Of course other distributions (Debian, RedHat, ...) can be used as well. The necessary scripts will be installed as needed. See Installation.
The S.u.S.E distribution contains both configuration scripts and the tools for manual configuration. In this tutorial, the simple method using the scripts are explained first, then the manual configuration is explained for reference.
Basic knowledge of Linux is required. A base system should already have been successfuly installed.
In addition, a supported ISDN card should be installed. Recommended are, for example, the AVM Fritz Classic or the ELSA QS1000. See http://www.suse.de/Support/sdb_e/isdn.html for a list of supported cards.
A Linux computer should become a Internet Access Computer. The computer dials out automatically to the Internet Service Provider (ISP) and establishes a transparent network connect. Users of this computer have full access to the Internet and can uses services such as WWW and FTP. The mail system is set up so that mail is exchanged automatically upon connection.
A separate section describes the connection of a local network with full Internet access (mawquarading, mail, WWW, FTP) and the special problems involved.
Since this scenario involves a dial-up line, special attention is paid to keeping the telephone costs as low as possible while maintaining full Internet access.
To keep things simple, we'll make the following assumptions that apply to most private users (or small companies that have only one private Internet access):
These assumptions appply to most private access providers, such as T-Online in Germany or Personal Eunet as well as smaller providers.
In addition, we'll discuss security questions, problems with dynamic IP numbers, and the connection of a LAN to the Internet Access Computer.
This text is quite long because special problems and troubleshooting tips are discussed in several places. If these problems don't apply to you, you can skip them (although reading them won't hurt).
Similarly, there are several basic topics (for example, routing or mail exchange) that aren't directly related to isdn4linux and won't be new to the experienced reader. However, understanding these topics is necessary and experience has shown that in practice, these topics cause the most problems.
FixMe
This text has been written and translated to the best of our knowledge. The authors make no guarantee that the methods described here are correct, work, are secure, or that they do not make any unnecessary connections.
However, our goal for the reader is to be able to handle exactly these problems for a simple system :-)
Is wanted!
Via E-Mail to: i4l@klaus.franken.de
This document is copyrighted by Klaus Franken and Scott Hanson.
This docoment may be distributed in accordance with the GNU General Public License. In particular, this means that the text may be distributed either electronically or physically without the payment of license fees, as long as this copyright is not removed. Commercial distribution is allowed and encouraged. The Linux HOWTO Project should be should be informed of any paper publication.