The
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User's Manualkcmkisdn (general information)
3. What's kcmkisdn for ?
The K Configuration Module (thus the prefix 'kcm') kcmkisdn is, as the name implies, kISDN's configuration part and can only be started by the superuser root. kcmkisdn covers hardware configuration and general settings as well as account configuration. The average user, in contrary, is not allowed to change settings (kcmkisdn will refuse execution) and thus cannot crash the ISDN setup; however, there's still some customization left to be done by the user, such as scripting, color settings etc. using the dialup client kisdn.
Concerning your internal ISDN adapter you should have the following information handy:And concerning your ISDN connection you should know about
- What kind of ISDN adapter is it (manufacturer and model) ?
- What interrupt and I/O base address is used by the adapter (see Appendix A on this topic) ?
Beginning with release 0.5.0 kISDN comes with a provider database, so with a little luck, your provider has already been submitted and configuration will speed up for you. If this is not the case, there's some more work to do (please remember this situation when you successfully configured your ISP, because you can help other users by submitting the data of your provider at kISDN' s homepage). To configure a provider not already contained in kISDN's database you will need the following pieces of information:
- Local prefix
- Type of ISDN D channel protocol; this is in most cases Euro-ISDN (E-DSS1), but 1TR6, an old german protocol, may still be used somewhere.
- MSN/EAZ - MSN (Euro-ISDN), a shortcut for Multiple Subscriber Number, is the set of phone numbers supplied by your phone provider (in Germany this is a set of 3 numbers); one of them is needed for kISDN (and, optionally, another one for the built-in telephone). However, in some (most unlikely) cases you may be assigned one or more EAZ (a single digit).
- ISDN phone number of your internet provider
- Transmission protocols (in most cases, say 95%, this is synchronous PPP and HDLC); see chapter 7 for a complete list of protocols supported by I4L (ISDN4Linux).
- How are you assigned local and remote IP addresses ? In most cases (again say 95%) assignment is dynamic, i.e. you get new IP addresses on every connect. If you don't know about any IP's for your account at all, it's very likely dynamic IP assignment ;-) In some cases such as raw IP accounts (very, very unlikely), however, you should have an IP for your machine as well as an IP for the remote machine (the server) and in that case, you should have a subnet mask (a special IP number), too.
- What are the IP addresses of the servers that manage hostname resolution, the so-called DNS servers (DNS = Domain Name Service) ? You should have at least one IP, but in most cases you've got 2 of them (the second server taking over DNS when the first one has crashed down or is turned of for maintenance).
- Type of authentication protocol; this protocol specifies how user authentification is handled by your provider. In most cases this is PAP (Password Authentication Protocol), in some more rare cases CHAP (Cryptographic Handshake Authentication Protocol) and even accounts with no authentication were seen...
- And last but not least: Your username and password.
4. What kcmkisdn can't do for you
Yes, your eyes don't lie to you: kcmkisdn can't do the whole job, since some aspects of ISDN configuration belong to kernel setup (see Appendix D for details). You don't have to bother if ISDN already worked for you in the past; it will also work with kISDN in that case.
Since most people use a Plug&Play ISDN adapter, there might be some more preparation to be done (see Appendix B for details); again: this does not apply if Linux already knows about your card (have a look at the output on bootup or at the system logs).
Watchout for some recent ISDN adapters, since you will need very recent snapshot releases of the HiSax ISDN driver as well to get those cards to work (you will most probably find those snapshots here).
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T. Westheider / October 16th 1998 - kISDN Release 0.7.0