Configuring Dial-up Internet Access
Most ISPs provide dial-up connections that support PPP because it is a fast
and efficient protocol for using TCP/IP over serial lines. PPP is designed for
two-way networking, and TCP/IP provides the transport protocol for data.
One hurdle faced by new Ubuntu users is how to set up PPP and connect to
the Internet. It is not necessary to understand the details of the PPP protocol to
use it, and setting up a PPP connection is easy. You can configure PPP
connections manually by using the command line or graphically during an X
session using Ubuntu’s Network Configuration tool. These approaches
produce the same results.
PPP uses several components on your system. The first is a daemon called
pppd, which controls the use of PPP. The second is a driver called the high-
level data link control (HDLC), which controls the flow of information
between two machines. A third component of PPP is a routine called chat that
dials the other end of the connection for you when you want it to. Although
PPP has many “tunable” parameters, the default settings work well for most
people.
Ubuntu includes some useful utilities to get your dial-up connection up and
running. In this section, we look at two options that will have you on the
Internet in no time.
The first way is to configure a connection using pppconfig, a command-
line utility to help you configure specific dial-up connection settings.
Enter the following command:
Click here to view code image
matthew@seymour:~$ sudo pppconfig
Before you connect for the first time, you need to add yourself to both the
dip and dialout groups by using these commands:
Click here to view code image
matthew@seymour:~$ sudo adduser YOURNAMEHERE dip
matthew@seymour:~$ sudo adduser YOURNAMEHERE dialout
After you have done this, it is just a simple matter of issuing the pon
command to connect and the poff command to disconnect. You can create
as many different profiles as you need and can launch specific ones by using
the command pon profilename, again using the poff command to
disconnect.
CAUTION