Datasheet

“main” (Installation and Administration) — 2004/6/25 — 13:29 — page 596 — #622

25.1 smpppd as Dial-up Assistant

25.1.1 Program Components for the Internet Dial-Up

Most home users do not have a dedicated line connecting them to the In-

ternet. Rather, 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. Con-

trol 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 aux-

iliary programs and acts in two directions. First, it programs the required

pppd or ipppd and controls its dial-up properties. Second, it makes var-

ious providers available to the user programs and transmits information

about the current status of the connection. As smpppd can also be con-

trolled by way of the network, it is suitable for controlling dial-up connec-

tions to the Internet from a workstation in a private subnetwork.

25.1.2 Conﬁguring smpppd

The connections provided by smpppd are automatically conﬁgured by

YaST. The actual dial-up programs kinternet and cinternet are also pre-

conﬁgured. Manual settings are only required to conﬁgure additional fea-

tures 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 conﬁgu-

ration 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 parame-

ter to determine at which IP address smpppd should accept connec-

tions.

596 25.1. smpppd as Dial-up Assistant