5. Account configuration
The possibility of creating accounts is probably
one of the best arguments for using kISDN, since it allows using
more than one ISP in turn, each of which can be made available to users
individually. Naturally you can make more than one account available to
a single user. He/she will be able to choose from them later; this makes
the use of different ISPs as flexible as possible.
Using an example, we will now examine the configuration of an account.
Please open the 'Account' dialog; in this illustration, there are already
two configured accounts, in your case, the list should be empty:
Since version 0.5.0 kISDN
features an integrated provider database. If you are lucky, your provider
is already configured; This will save you most of the configuration process,
you will have to enter nothing but your username and password. Click 'Database...';
in the window that appears
you will only have to click your
way through to your provider. The preconfigured settings will be applied.
After clicking 'OK' the following dialog will pop up:
Enter your username and password and you
are all set.
Attention: You must give users access to this account ('Users''),
or else it won't show up in his(her) ISP list when kisdn is started!
If your provider is not yet available in the database, you will have
to create a new account; how you can do that is thouroughly described
in the following chapter.
Before you can create a new account, you will need the following pieces
of information:
- The name of your Internet Service Provider
(T-Online, AOL, Compuserve etc...)
- Its ISDN phone number (with local area
number)
- Used protocol(s)
- Is the IP address dynamically or statically
assigned? In case of a static IP: Remote IP address, Netmask and Networkaddress
(if needed)
- IP addresses of the DNS severs
- Used authentication protocol (PAP,
CHAP or none)
To be able to extend the provider database,
we need your help. When you have configured your account, please fill
out the form at http://kisdn.headlight.de/providerDB,
the next release of kISDN will then contain your provider, as
well. Please choose 'New...', a new dialog will pop up.
5.1 ISP Settings
Please enter your provider's name in the
field 'Provider Name' e.g. "T-Online" or "Compuserve".
In the 'Remote Phone' field, please enter your ISP's ISDN phone number
and press the button 'Add'; the field will be cleared and the number
you just entered will be visible in the list just below ('Phone List').
kISDN allows you to enter multiple phone numbers, since some
ISP's offer different access numbers (e.g. one as a backup, if the other
has technical difficulties or if it is overloaded). If you entered a
wrong phone number by mistake, you can simply remove it by highlighting
it in the list and pressing the 'Remove' button.
Let's go over to the technical part of the account configuration, you
must now choose the network protocol. Oftentimes this information is
not provided, since the provider assumes you are using Windows '95/'98
to connect to his service, using his software. kISDN must know
about the type of protocol used to be usable universally.
Under 'Encapsulation' the following protocols are supported:
- SyncPPP
- RawIP
- RawIP with UI Header
- Internet Protocol
- Cisco/HDLC Modus
- Ethernet
The most common protocols are SyncPPP
and RawIP. These are also the only ones that kISDN has been tested
with. If your provider happens to use another protocol, feedback is
very welcome.
The field 'Layer 2' sets the L2 protocol your provider uses, typically
HDLC.
The reason for the availability of no further options for 'Layer 3'
besides 'Trans' is i4l specific, but we have heard of no problems so
far.
Under 'Dial Attempts' you can specify how often kISDN should
retry to connect if a line is busy. Quite often a connection cannot
be established right away; then this option can be very gentle to your
nerves.
In addition to these options, you can modify the 'Timeout', which specifies
the amount of time that kISDN will wait before disconnecting
an idle line. The default value was realistically chosen (10min). In
case of very short timeouts, you will have to establish connections
over and over again, which can be quite costly, too.
The option 'Bundle Channels' allows the usage of both B channels for
data traffic. Since this is rather expensive, this option only makes
sense if data has to be transmitted very fast. Unfortunately, this feature
does not work correctly with I4L, the second channel is not added automatically.
Using kISDN you can add a second channel manually, the main window
provides a special button.
5.2 IP Settings
Let's have a look at the next dialog 'IP'.
Here you must tell kISDN
how your ISP handles the IP address assignment. In most cases, the default
'Dynamic IP address' is correct. It means that the IP address is assigned
at login time. In case of the less probable static IP address assignment,
choose 'Static IP address' to make the fields below accessible. In the
'Local IP address' field you are asked to enter the IP address that you
were assigned, under 'Remote IP Address' kISDN is interested in
the ISP's internet address. If you were also given a network address,
please enter it under 'Subnet Mask'.
5.3 Nameserver settings
(DNS)
The next dialog is used to supply information
about the so called DNS servers which are responsible for resolving hostnames:
First of all enter your ISP's domain
name under 'Domain'. If you don't know it, just enter anything - an area
domain for example (e.g. home.uk). kISDN will still work, only
hostname completion will be unavailable (with a working configuration,
computera would be expanded by kISDN to computera.home.uk).
You should have been provided with two DNS server addresses by your ISP;
please enter them in the field below 'IP Address' (press 'Add' after each
entry to add it to the list).
5.4 Authentication
The last part of the account configuration
is the authentication tab:
Choose the authentication protocol
your ISP uses to verify its users identities.
Please enter your username in the appropriate field and also your password;
the password is shown unreadable ('***').
Supplying this information is absolutely necessary, even if you have chosen
your ISP in the database!
5.5 Giving access
to users
This dialog is used to give users access
to the account.
Enter in 'User's Homedirectory'
the home directories of the users that may use kISDN and add them
to the list by pressing 'Add'. Existing entries can be edited using 'Edit'
or deleted with 'Remove'.
5.6 Callback
Use this tab to set up callback.
Unfortunately, nobody in the kISDN-Team
has access to a callback account, which makes creating a frontend relatively
hard for us. If you are not satisfied with the kISDN's configuration,
this is because we do not have enough information about it; if you have
to offer an idea and/or improvement please tell us.
To use callback you will have to enable it firs (`Enable Callback'), which
makes the remaining fields accessible.
First of all you must supply the incoming phone numbers (those of the
Callback servers). Since these are usually the same you use to access
the callback server, it should suffice to copy them, with the little difference
that it is stripped of the leading '0' (you will find that this is true
for incoming calls). Thus, if the incoming calls are identical with the
outgoing ones, all you have to do is to check the 'Strip leading 0's from
outgoing numbers' option. Obviously we don't neglect the possibility that
the numbers have absolutely nothing in common, hence the option 'Other'
which you can use to supply an alternative number (all other numbers will
be ignored).
Next you must specify if the local computer is the client ('Local machine
initiates callback') or the server ('Local machine answers callback').
Your machine is more likely the client. If that is true, 'Hangup after
... seconds' tells kISDN how long to wait before hanging up; this
is important, as the callback server is the one calling back and will
abort if the line is busy.
If your machine is the server, you can now specify if the call should
be explicitly hung up ('Hangup before calling back'). You must also set
the time waited before the callback should take place; if this option
is chosen too short, it may happen that the other party has not yet hung
up when you attempt the callback.
5.7 Other settings
The first button can be used to set the secure
mode for incoming calls.
If you don't check the box 'Allow signalization of incoming calls', none
of the users will be able to use this feature. If you do activate it,
you can specify for each user in 'Users' if the feature should be available.
'ipppd' allows setting additional
options for ipppd; they will only work if the current account
uses syncPPP. You will probably not need these options unless
you run into problems like continually being disconnected or something
similar. Before changing anything here, you should know exactly what you
are doing.
Back to the index
T. Westheider, Ch. Demmer,
Ch. Zander / January 8 1999 - kISDN Release 0.8.0
|