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Red Hat ISDN config

3. ISP configuration

3.1 Name

The name of this configuration, normally simply the name of the ISP. If you want to create several configurations with the same ISP, the name must be adapted, since a name for a finished configuration can only be used once. Please don't use any other characters than a-z, A-Z, -, _, 0-9

3.2 City

Where your ISP is. Must only be filled out if this ISP wasn't yet available in the database. This field isn't used yet, but may be used by one of the following releases for extending the database.

3.3 Country

Where your ISP is. Must only be filled out if this ISP wasn't yet available in the database. This field isn't used yet, but may be used by one of the following releases for extending the database.

3.4 Prefix

The area code of the ISP should be specified. It must be filled out, if the ISP wasn't yet available in the database. (see also "Expert configuration") NOTE: If you're behind a telephone system, you might have to add a digit as prefix to to the area code in order to get the line.

3.5 Telefonnumber

The telephone number of the ISP (without area code).

3.6 Idle timeout

If an online connection isn't used for a while, ISDN4Linux can terminate the connection automatically. With the menu option "Inactivity timeout" you can change the default value of 240 seconds. For interactive connections such as telnet or ssh you should select a somewhat longer timeout, since with dynamic IPs after terminating the ISDN connection these programs can't continue to work, because your computer will possibly get another IP.

3.7 MSN

Here you must either indicate the telephone number assigned to you by the telephone company or the EAZ if you're using a telephone system or the old 1TR6 protocol.

3.8 Protocol

SyncPPP is used by most ISP. Only if your access documents require it, you should enter "RawIP".

3.9 Dialmode

Linux can is able to automatically establish a connection to the ISP, for example if you start a browser and enter an URL that isn't located in your local area network.
However it's possible that your computer will establish a connection unintentionally, if e.g. a system service like sendmail makes a name server inquiry. If the computer is used as ISDN Router for a small network, special caution is required because on some Windows machines Netbios or Samba are sending inquiries to all computers in the network. And everytime this happens a connection to your ISP will be established. Please observe the computer exactly the first time, when and why the ISP is called. A very useful tool for this is e.g. tcpdump.

3.10 Activate ISP

You may wish to disable an ISP dialup for some reason without deleting it entirely.

3.11 Authentification

The authentication protocol used by the ISP.

3.12 Loginname

You need a login name as well as the password (see below) to authenticate yourself when you establish a connection to your ISP.

3.13 Password

Is needed in conjunction with a login name to authenticate a user.

3.14 Nameserver

The nameserver of the ISP. A nameserver transforms computer names like ftp.redhat.de into an Internet address like 193.103.254.129 (and in reverse). Without a valid nameserver entry is not possible to surf the Internet!

3.15 Domain

Enter here the domain, in which you operate most frequently. E.g. you can specify "redhat.com" and then you only have to type "ncftp ftp" in place of "ncftp ftp.redhat.com", since the domain redhat.com will be looked up automatically.

3.16 Own IP

Only needed with static IP negotiation (see below). This is an address unique in the Internet and should be given to you by your ISP. An IP addresss has 4 bytes and is denoted as follow: 192.168.1.17

3.17 IP of the other side

Only needed with static IP negotiation (see below). This is the Internet address of the computer with which you'll establish a connection ("point-to-point peer"). Your ISP will give you this information.

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