1.1.1 Connect
First select the tab 'Dial'. The appearing list contains the configured and activated ISPs. Select one and press 'Connect'. If something goes wrong, please have a look at the end of the file /var/log/messages, where error messages are logged.1.1.2 Hangup
You can hangup a connection to your ISP by clicking on 'Hangup' or by clicking on 'Stop'. In the latter case the whole ISDN subsystem will shut down and no further connections will be possible until you restart the subsystem.1.1.3 Start ISDN service
Click on 'Start' if you want to load the whole ISDN subsystem. You have to start the ISDN service before trying to dial in to your ISP.1.1.4 Stop ISDN service
Click on 'Stop' if you want to shut down ISDN subsystem.
1.2.1 Create a new provider
1.2.1.1 Provider name
The name of this configuration, normally simply the name of the ISP. If you want to create several configurations with the same ISP, the name must be adapted, since a name for a finished configuration can only be used once. Please don't use any other characters than a-z, A-Z, -, _, 0-91.2.1.2 Prefix
Enter the digits as prefix, which you should dial prior to the actual phone number in order to get an outside line. This is usually either blank or a "0".1.2.1.3 Areacode
The area code of the ISP should be always specified. It must be filled out, if the ISP wasn't yet available in the database.1.2.1.4 Phone number
The telephone number of the ISP (without prefix and area code).1.2.1.5 MSN/EAZ
Here you must either indicate the telephone number assigned to you by the telephone company or your EAZ (usually the last digit of your phone number) if you're using a telephone system using the old 1TR6 protocol.1.2.1.6 Encapsulation mode
SyncPPP is used by most ISPs. Only if your ISP's documentation requires it, you should enter "RawIP".1.2.1.7 Diale mode
Linux is able to automatically establish a connection to the ISP, for example if you start a browser and enter an URL that isn't located on your local area network. However it's possible that your computer will establish a connection unintentionally, if e.g. a system service like sendmail makes a name server inquiry.If the computer is used as an ISDN Router for a small network including machines running Windows, special caution is required because on some Windows machines, Netbios, IPX or SMB are sending inquiries to all computers in the network. Everytime this happens, a connection to your ISP will be established. Please observe the computer closely when you start using it, paying attention to when and why the ISP is called. A very useful tool for this is e.g. tcpdump.
1.2.1.8 Authentication
The authentication protocol used by the ISP. This is usually PAP.1.2.1.9 Login name
You need a login name as well as the password (see below) to authenticate yourself when you establish a connection to your ISP.1.2.1.10 Password
A password is needed in conjunction with a login name to authenticate a user.1.2.1.11 Start this connection at boot time
You may wish to disable an ISP dialup for some reason without deleting it entirely.1.2.1.12 Local IP
Only needed with static IP negotiation. This is an address unique in the Internet and should be given to you by your ISP. An IP addresss has 4 bytes and is denoted as follow: 192.168.1.17. Your ISP will give you this information if you need it.1.2.1.13 Remote IP
Only needed with static IP negotiation. This is the Internet address of the computer with which you'll establish a connection ("point-to-point peer"). Your ISP will give you this information if you need it.1.2.1.14 Netmask
Only needed with static IP negotiation. Your ISP will give you this information if you need it.1.2.1.15 Domain name
Enter the domain(s) in which you operate most frequently here. E.g. you can specify "redhat.com" and then you only have to type "ncftp ftp" in place of "ncftp ftp.redhat.com", since the domain redhat.com will be looked up automatically. You can also list several domains - if you specify "redhat.com redhat.de", "ncftp ftp" will connect to ftp.redhat.com if that host exists, and try ftp.redhat.de if it doesn't.1.2.1.16 Use static DNS
The nameserver of the ISP. A nameserver transforms computer names like ftp.redhat.de into an Internet address like 193.103.254.129 (and in reverse). Without a valid nameserver entry is not possible to surf the Internet. Most ISPs assign a DNS dynamically when you build up a connection. If your ISP didn't give you the DNS address, you don't need it.1.2.1.17 Callback
Callback means that you don't actually build up a connection to the ISP when you dial in: Instead, a request for a connection is sent over the D channel (free of charge in most countries), causing the ISP to build up a connection to you.1.2.1.18 Hangup timeout
If an online connection isn't used for a while, ISDN4Linux can terminate the connection automatically. With the menu option "Inactivity timeout" you can change the default value of 240 seconds. Unless you've got a static IP, you should select a longer timeout for interactive connections such as telnet or ssh - with dynamic IPs these programs can't continue to work after terminating your ISDN connection, because your computer will probably get a different IP address while the server will try to communicate with the old one.1.2.1.19 Channel bundling
Channel bundling merges both of your B channels into one connection to your ISP, meaning you get double transfer rates. If you pay for your connection per minute, it also means you pay double. Not all ISPs support channel bundling.1.2.1.20 Compression
Compresses all packets sent over the ISDN link. If your ISP supports this, it speeds up transfer rates of uncompressed data.1.2.1.21 ippp options
You can add custom ippp options here (see the ipppd man page for details on what parameters you can use). Use this only if you need to use ipppd options not supported by internet-config.1.2.2 Select a provider from the ISDN provider database
Select the tab 'Provider'. To check if your ISP is preconfigured, click at 'Choose' and look for an entry in the appropriate country and city. If there is a preconfiguration available, select this entry and enter your login name, password and the MSN/EAZ (telephone number) of your own ISDN card. If your ISP is not in the database, cancel this step and click the 'Create new' button. You'll get an empty form which you'll have to fill out with the data from your ISP. An explanation of the input fields is available here. When you've filled out all required fields, press 'apply' to accept the new configuration.1.2.3 Edit a current provider
Select the provider you want to edit in the list, then click on 'Edit'1.2.4 Delete an existing provider
Select the provider you want to delete in the list, then click on 'Delete'.
1.3.1 Configuration of the ISDN adapter
Select the tab 'Hardware' and choose your ISDN card from the list of supported cards. Compare the values of the configuration parameters with the documentation of your ISDN card and change them to the correct values if necessary. Click on 'Apply' to save this configuration.
1.3.2 Type of your ISDN adapter
Choose your ISDN card from the list. If your card isn't shown there, you can find additional information in the kernel documentation under /usr/src/linux/Dokumentation/isdn/README.HiSax about configuring the card by hand.The ISDN cards AVM B1, IBM Active 2000 and PCBIT-D as well as all cards of the manufacturers ICN, Eicon and SpellCaster can't be configured with this tool. In this case, please read the appropriate files under /usr/src/linux/Documentation/isdn.
Please keep in mind that isdn4linux was tested only with the listed ISDN adapters.
Others may work, but neither we do guarantee that nor do we support them.
With most ISDN cards, additional information about the hardware settings is needed. If you are running kernels prior to 2.4.0, ISA PnP and PCMCIA cards must be configured with the appropriate tools before setting up ISDN. In this case the defaults for the interrupt and the I/O address are PNP or PCMCIA. These must be adjusted to the same values as in the PnP or PCMCIA configuration.
1.3.3 Interrupt
The IRQ that should be assigned to the card. The IRQ shouldn't yet be used yet by other devices (cat /proc/interrupts) and the ISDN card should also be able to use this IRQ.1.3.4 I/O-Port
The port on which the card receives commands from the computer and exchanges data with it. The value must be noted in hexadecimal, e.g. 0x280.1.3.5 Memory adress
Some cards don't exchange the data over the input/output port, but over a certain memory area. The memory address must be noted in hexadecimal, e.g. 0xd0000.1.3.6 Plug & Play Cards / PCMCIA
ISA PnP and PCMCIA cards must be configured with the appropriate tools before the ISDN configuration. In this case the defaults for the interrupt and the I/O address are PNP or PCMCIA. These must be adjusted to the same values as in the PnP or PCMCIA configuration.1.3.7 ISDN protocol
Nowadays new lines are only assigned with the protocol EDSS1. However sometimes with older telephone systems it can be necessary to change the protocol over to 1TR6. The documentation of the telephone system contains more exact information about the used protocol.
If you're behind a telephone system, you might have to add a number (often, that's 0) to prefix in order to get the line. In this case you'll have to edit each ISP configuration and add the digits to the prefix.
If you have problems connecting to your ISP, please have a look at the end of the file /var/log/messages if error messages have been logged.