The

User's Manual

Release 0.8.0, (C) 1999

3. What does kcmkisdn do?

First of all kcmkisdn makes the ISDN adapter available to the system. Then the possibly different ISPs are configured. At last access to kisdn may be given to selected users.
You will need the following pieces of information about your ISDN adapter:

  • What type of ISDN card do I use (manufacturer and model)?
  • Which interrupt (IRQ) and which I/O base address does my card use (see Appendix A)?

You should know the following about your ISDN connection:

  • Prefix (local area number)
  • Which ISDN protocol is being used? Normally this is Euro-ISDN (E-DSS1), but there still is 1TR6.
  • MSN/EAZ - MSN (Euro-ISDN) is a synonym for 'multiple subscriber number'; meant are (at least in Germany) the three (or possibly more) phone numbers, that were given to you by the telecommunication company that provides your ISDN connection (e.g. Deutsche Telekom). kISDN needs one of them. In the rare cases that the protocol is 1TR6 this number is called EAZ and consists of only one digit.

Starting with version 0.5.0 kISDN supports a provider database - if you are lucky, your ISP is already configured. If that is not the case, please send us a short mail to extend the database. Should your provider not be preconfigured, the following points are of interest:

  • The ISP's ISDN phone number
  • Transmission protocols (synchronous PPP and HDLC for the most part; see Section 7 to get a list of all protocols supported by isdn4linux)
  • Are you being assigned an IP address each time you connect to your ISP (=dynamic assignment) or did you get your own from the provider (static IP address)? In the latter case, what is your ISP's IP number and what is yours? You will possibly need the provider's network address as well.
  • What are the IP addresses of the computers, that translate hostnames into IP addresses (the so called DNS servers or nameservers)? These are typically two, the second one serving as a backup.
  • How does your ISP handle authentication, what method is used, to verify the user's identity? The most commonly used method is PAP (Password Authentication Protocol).
  • Don't forget: the username and password that you use to login.

If you have all these bits of information, you should enter them on the kISDN Homepage (we provide a form) - to make live easier for those who have your provider as well.



4. What does kcmkisdn not do?

Unfortunately, kcmkisdn can not relief you of every aspect of the Linux ISDN configuration process, since there are some details that need to be configured on the operating system level itself (see Appendix D).
Also, most people are using Plug&Play ISDN adapters - they, too need some preparation (more in Appendix B).
Of special interest are relatively new ISDN cards, who will only operate with the latest HiSax drivers; you can get one of these snapshots via FTP at ftp.suse.com.
kcmkisdn does not handle the actual dialing; this is done by kisdn to which users must be given access before they can use it.
Back to the overview

T. Westheider, Ch. Demmer, Ch. Zander / January 8 1999 - kISDN Release 0.8.0