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You must give the account a name. You can use anything here, but if you have multiple accounts it must be unique.
Specify the phone number to dial. You may use characters such as ``-'' to make the number more legible. If you concatenate a series of numbers (separated by a colon) kppp will try these numbers in a cyclic order whenever it receives a busy signal. Example: "1111111:2222222:3333333"
Choose the appropriate method of authentication that kppp should use to log into the server. Check with your provider whether he offers PAP or CHAP support or if you have to use a script or terminal-based login method.
Check this option if you want kppp to remember your password at the next session.
kppp will attempt to execute the command specified here once a ppp link has been set up.
kppp will run the command before closing the connection. This will be useful if you have to change any route or address before you leave the net.
analogue with previous item.
This will bring up the pppd arguments dialog. You may use this dialog to add any desired options that you want kppp to hand to pppd. See the pppd man page for a list of available options. Unless you know exactly what you are doing you should restrain from tinkering with the pppd options.
Check this if your ISP uses dynamic IP address assignment. That is your IP address will most likely change every time you establish a connection.
Check this is your ISP has given you a static IP address. In that case you will also need to fill in that address and any Subnet Mask if applicable. Ask your ISP if unsure.
Select this option if you want kppp to set the hostname and domain for your machine after successful setup of a ppp link on connect. This is done by querying the defined Domain Name Server with the ip assigned for the ppp link. This option is useful for those stand-alone machines which want to use protocols like talk which require the hostname to be the same as your machine is known in the Internet. It overrides the Domain Name Option in the DNS Section. The machine defaults are restored to the original values when you close the ppp link Be careful when choosing this option: It may prove useful to you, but it may also cause lots of undesired side effect. Just play with it ...
Specify the domain name for your machine.
As with DNS Addresses it is restored to the original specified in /etc/resolv.conf
when the connection goes down.
If it is left blank no changes are made to the domain name specified
in /etc/resolv.conf
Add the Domain Name servers assigned to you by your ISP.
You must specify at least a Domain Name server for your OS to be able
to resolve human readable IP addresses such as ftp.kde.org. The DNS server
addresses supplied must be in numeric form, e.g 128.231.231.233. The
addresses will be added at runtime to /etc/resolv.config
.
Select this option if
you want kppp to disable already existing nameserver entries
in /etc/resolv.conf
during connection.
Check this if you want pppd to use the default Gateway for your machine.
Check this if you want to specify the Gateway to be used.
You almost certainly will need this. Leave it on unless you really know what you are doing.
Use this dialog to compose a dial in script for your ISP dialup connection. Use the mini-terminal and the information supplied by your ISP to understand which sequence of actions needs to be executed.
Here is a simple script I could use to connect to my ISP:
Expect ID: # wait for ID:
Send myid # you have to substitute myid with your id
Expect word: # wait for 'password'
Send 4u3fjkl # send my password '4u3fjkl'
Expect granted # My ISP send 'Permission granted' on login success.
Send ppp # This starts a ppp connection for
# me on the ISP side.
Here a script for the same account with ID and password prompt: This script will prompt for ID and password each time, no matter what is typed into the ID and password field on kppp's main dialog. This script also illustrated the use of the LoopStart/LoopEnd structure. If something goes wrong during the login procedure, for example if I mistype the password, my ISP will print an error message and restart the id/password loop by issuing the string "ID:" again. If the string "ID" is caught before the LoopEnd keyword was parsed, kppp will start the script again after the LoopStart keyword.
LoopStart ID: # wait for ID:
Prompt Enter ID: # Prompt me for my ID and send it off.
Expect word: # wait for 'password'
PWPrompt Enter Password: # Prompt me for my password and send it off.
LoopEnd granted # My ISP send 'Permission granted' on login success.
Send ppp # This starts a ppp connection for me
Here is the script that I actually use to connect to my ISP: This script will prompt for ID and password only if I haven't filled in the respective fields on kppp's main dialog.
LoopStart ID: # wait for ID:
ID Enter ID: # Prompt me for my ID and send it off.
Expect word: # wait for 'password'
Password Enter Password # Prompt me for my password and send it off.
LoopEnd granted # My ISP send 'Permission granted' on login success.
Send ppp # This starts a ppp connection for me
# on the ISP side
Here is a script that I use to connect to an ISP which is using some sort of challenge/response authentication. Usually you got a hardware token (a smart card with a display and calculator like keypad) from the ISP. You have to know a password to use the token. After dialling in your ISP displays your challenge. You have to type in the challenge to your token and get a dynamic password as a response. Then you have to enter that password.
LoopStart ID: # wait for ID:
ID Enter ID: # Prompt me for my ID and send it off.
Scan Challenge: # Scan for 'Challenge' and store everything behind up to the next newline.
Expect Password: # wait for 'password'
Prompt Your token is ## - Enter Password # Prompt me for my password and send it off.
LoopEnd granted # My ISP sends 'Permission granted' on login success.
Send ppp # This starts a ppp connection for me
# on the ISP side
The following log shows the login procedure of a fictitious ISP that provides a new password on each login. The new password has to be verified and recorded for the next session.
University of Lummerland
Login:mylogin
Password:
The password for your next session is: YLeLfkZb
Please record and enter it for verification.
Verification:YLeLfkZb
1 = telnet
2 = SLIP
3 = PPP
Your choice:
kppp can be used to do that cumbersome task for you (eliminating the risk of losing that little sheet of paper that holds your current password at the same time). The key part of the following script is a combination of the Scan/Save keywords:
Expect Login: # wait for login prompt
ID # send ID
Expect Password: # wait for password prompt
Password # send password
Scan is: # wait for '... next session is:' and
# scan the preceding password
Save password # save the new password for next login
Expect Verification: # wait for 'Verification:'
Password # send new password
Expect choice: # wait for a prompt that let's you choose
# between different options (telnet, SLIP, PPP)
Send 3 # choose option 3, i.e. PPP
Use the ``Enable accounting'' button to enable/disable
phone cost accounting. Select a rule appropriate for your region. If
you can't find a rule for your region you will have to write one by following
the supplied TEMPLATE
in ${KDEDIR}/share/apps/kppp/Rules/
. Don't
be afraid though it is really easy. Don't forget to submit your newly created
rules file to me. The newly created rules file can be checked for valid
syntax with the -r rule_file command line option to kppp and
must be installed in ${KDEDIR}/share/apps/kppp/Rules
or in
${HOME}/.kde/share/apps/kppp/Rules
before you will be able to
select it in this
dialog.
It basically means to count the number of bytes transmitted from or to the Internet. kppp can count incoming bytes, outgoing bytes or both. Itīs up to you what you want (or must) use.
Because nowadays, many Internet Service Providers begin to bill their customers depending on the number of bytes transferred. Or very often those ISP give you an arbitrary transfer limit, and charge you for every megabyte above this limit. kppp shows you your current volume and can help you keeping your bills to the minimum. Of course, if you do not have volume limits and you are curious, you can use it too...
That depends on your provider. Many of them only count how many megabytes you get from Internet and ignore how much you send. In that case you should choose "Bytes in". If you have to pay for both you should select "Bytes in and out". "Bytes out" is not of much use and is only here for completeness.
Unfortunately thereīs a drawback on volume accounting. kppp will just count the number of bytes regardless their origin. Many providers set their limit only for internet access, not for their own network. So, if you do a little web surfing and you use a proxy-cache, the proxy will reside inside the network of your provider and he will not charge you for bytes transferred from his proxy cache. However, kppp will not know that these IP packets are coming from the proxy and thus count them. So, if you use a proxy, or your provider uses a caching news server (like nntpcached), the volume reported by kppp may be higher.
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