setting up yahoo DSL for RedHat 9
 

Hi, I'm thinking of switching from a dial-up connection to yahoo DSL.
I'm assuming that the SBC people won't know anything about linux.
Could somebody please tell me what I would have
to do to configure my computer for DSL? My OS is RedHat 9.
The more details the better. Thanks.

By the way, the SBC man asked me 3 questions and I don't know where to find
the answers to any of them:
Do I have 64 megabytes of RAM?
Do I have 125 megabytes available on my hard drive?
Do I have a processing speed of 266 megahertz?
Any suggestions? Thanks in advance for your help.

Jody

What kind of modem is it, and how is it connected to the computer?


Here are ways to find the answers to your questions, although they are not relative to your Linux system as they are to a Windows system. Their software is not needed.

If your system is running you have enough system to connect to a DSL.

Do I have 64 megabytes of RAM?

use free

firedragon:~ # free
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 514896 509236 5660 0 176496 45104
-/+ buffers/cache: 287636 227260
Swap: 1052216 0 1052216


Do I have 125 megabytes available on my hard drive?

use df -h

firedragon:~ # df -h
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/hde1 56G 13G 44G 22% /
/dev/hda2 401M 41M 360M 11% /boot
tmpfs 252M 0 252M 0% /dev/shm


Do I have a processing speed of 266 megahertz?

use cat /proc/cpuinfo

firedragon:~ # cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor : 0
vendor_id : GenuineIntel
cpu family : 15
model : 2
model name : Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.00GHz
stepping : 4
cpu MHz : 1992.984
cache size : 512 KB
fdiv_bug : no
hlt_bug : no
f00f_bug : no
coma_bug : no
fpu : yes
fpu_exception : yes
cpuid level : 2
wp : yes
flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm
bogomips : 3932.16

[QUOTE]Originally posted by DavidPhillips
[B]What kind of modem is it, and how is it connected to the computer?

The modem I'm using for my dial-up connection is an external one.
The SBC man said they would provide me with a new one for $99.
He didn't say what kind it was.

> Here are ways to find the answers to your questions, although they > are not relative to your Linux system as they are to a Windows
> system. Their software is not needed.

Do you mean the questions are not *relevant*? I won't have to
install software from SBC? Do you think I could continue to
use my old modem?

> > Do I have 64 megabytes of RAM?

> use free

When I use free, here's what happens:
% free
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 255308 250180 5128 0 44872 86088
-/+ buffers/cache: 119220 136088
Swap: 1028152 11472 1016680

Is the 5128 what's relevant here? But this is in kilobytes, no? So
I don't have 64 megabytes available? Sorry for asking elementary
questions here, but I really don't know how memory works.

> use df -h
> use cat /proc/cpuinfo

Thanks, these commands did the trick.

Jody

You will not need any software installed from the ISP, only windows needs this software.

Your current install of RH 9 should already support DSL connections.


free is showing you have 256Meg of Ram installed.

It might not be an option but I would request a modem that uses an Ethernet connection and not USB. I'm sure many USB modems will work with your Linux system but not all of them will work, and some may require building a driver. Ethernet is my preferred method because it would be supported as long as you have a working network card. It's my opinion also that it should be more stable, where your system would never have connection problems related to the system. USB still seems a little flakey for networking to me. A network interface is faster. A network modem can be used by a hardware router if you decide later to add one. This will allow all of your network to connect without depending on any one system.

You cannot use your current modem for DSL it requires a special kind of modem.

Thanks. I think that SBC does supply ethernet modems, so that's OK.

Once I have the modem, what do I have to do to set it up?

My friend the sysadmin has been warning me that my computer will be
more vulnerable to hacking once I switch from dial-up to DSL. Could
you suggest some protective measures for me to take?

Thanks again,
Jody

FYI in the past I used Linux with SBC DSL and it works great. If you google on rp-pppoe you should find the home page of the Roaring Penguin PPPoE client, which is an easy to use PPPoE client (what you need to connect to the DSL service) for Linux. RH should also have a PPPoE client installed, but I've always used Roaring Penguin.

To keep your system safe, apply all relevant security patches from Red Hat (you can use apt4rpm to do this easily). Unfortunately, RH9 has been obsoleted by now, and the Fedora legacy project isn't releasing very many security updates. You might want to consider updating to Fedora (or some other distro) to keep up to date with the latest software and security fixes.

Oh -- one mopre note, you will need a Windows or Macintosh machine to set the DSL service up, using the software SBC provides, but then you can just plug it into your Linux box and everything will work fine.

I wish you were joking, but you probably aren't. Is there a workaround for us poor slobs who don't have any Windows or Macintosh machines lying around?

Thanks for the advice re security patches.

Jody

I have never had that service but if you need to supply a certain hostname to connect you can do it with Linux. Ask your ISP what's required to login.


You should check a few things to secure your box.


First check to see what servers are running on your box. If you want post the output of this command..


chkconfig --list | grep :on


That will show what's being started up on your machine. You should shutdown unneeded servers like this..

chkconfig <name> off
service <name> stop

<name> would be something running from the --list command like this for example..


chkconfig httpd off
service httpd stop



Notice that some things in the list may not show multiple runlevels, these are daemons started by xinetd are not setup as a service. For these running chkconfig <name> off will take care of it.

like this..

chkconfig imap off


This command should also be run to check for servers running on your machine.

netstat -l


Next you should setup a firewall. Your distro comes with lokkit which should work fine for this.

As root you can run lokkit and set securty level to high.

You should run lokkit again after connecting to update your dns settings.

That should do it.

Thanks for all your detailed replies.

Here is the output of the commands you suggested. Which servers can I
shut down? I don't do anything fancy here; I just have the one linux
box and I don't offer any services to the outside world.


rabbit% chkconfig --list | grep :on
keytable 0:off 1:on 2:on 3:on 4:on 5:on 6:off
crond 0:off 1:off 2:on 3:on 4:on 5:on 6:off
syslog 0:off 1:off 2:on 3:on 4:on 5:on 6:off
netfs 0:off 1:off 2:off 3:on 4:on 5:on 6:off
network 0:off 1:off 2:on 3:on 4:on 5:on 6:off
random 0:off 1:off 2:on 3:on 4:on 5:on 6:off
xfs 0:off 1:off 2:on 3:on 4:on 5:on 6:off
anacron 0:off 1:off 2:on 3:on 4:on 5:on 6:off
apmd 0:off 1:off 2:on 3:on 4:on 5:on 6:off
atd 0:off 1:off 2:off 3:on 4:on 5:on 6:off
gpm 0:off 1:off 2:on 3:on 4:on 5:on 6:off
pcmcia 0:off 1:off 2:on 3:on 4:on 5:on 6:off
kudzu 0:off 1:off 2:off 3:on 4:on 5:on 6:off
rawdevices 0:off 1:off 2:off 3:on 4:on 5:on 6:off
nfslock 0:off 1:off 2:off 3:on 4:on 5:on 6:off
identd 0:off 1:off 2:off 3:on 4:on 5:on 6:off
portmap 0:off 1:off 2:off 3:off 4:on 5:off 6:off
sendmail 0:off 1:off 2:on 3:on 4:on 5:on 6:off
autofs 0:off 1:off 2:off 3:on 4:on 5:on 6:off
ntpd 0:off 1:off 2:off 3:on 4:off 5:on 6:off
rhnsd 0:off 1:off 2:on 3:on 4:on 5:on 6:off
sshd 0:off 1:off 2:on 3:on 4:on 5:on 6:off
microcode_ctl 0:off 1:off 2:on 3:on 4:on 5:on 6:off
xinetd 0:off 1:off 2:off 3:on 4:on 5:on 6:off
irqbalance 0:off 1:off 2:off 3:on 4:on 5:on 6:off
cups 0:off 1:off 2:on 3:on 4:on 5:on 6:off

rabbit% netstat -l
Active Internet connections (only servers)
Proto Recv-Q Send-Q Local Address Foreign Address State
tcp 0 0 *:x11 *:* LISTEN
tcp 0 0 *:auth *:* LISTEN
unix 2 [ ACC ] STREAM LISTENING 2188 /tmp/mcop-rabbit/localhost_localdomain-0385-41349d61
unix 2 [ ACC ] STREAM LISTENING 1588 /tmp/ssh-XX174ogt/agent.777
unix 2 [ ACC ] STREAM LISTENING 2058 /tmp/ksocket-rabbit/kdeinit-:0
unix 2 [ ACC ] STREAM LISTENING 2062 /tmp/.ICE-unix/dcop878-1093967189
unix 2 [ ACC ] STREAM LISTENING 2225 /tmp/.ICE-unix/909
unix 2 [ ACC ] STREAM LISTENING 2085 /tmp/ksocket-rabbit/klauncherTP5w9b.slave-socket
unix 2 [ ACC ] STREAM LISTENING 2712 /tmp/ksocket-root/kdeinit-:0
unix 2 [ ACC ] STREAM LISTENING 2716 /tmp/.ICE-unix/dcop1153-1093967231
unix 2 [ ACC ] STREAM LISTENING 2746 /tmp/ksocket-root/klauncherxVAB2b.slave-socket
unix 2 [ ACC ] STREAM LISTENING 1499 /tmp/.gdm_socket

Thanks,
Jody

That looks safe to me.

Have you looked at the network setup yet?

redhat-config-network or the GUI should be in your menu under System Settings, listed as "Network".

You can also get to it from the "Network Device Control" under System Tools by clicking the Configure button.

Once your network card is setup you can select it in the xDSL setup as the device to use.


When you add a new configuration item one of the choices is xDSL which should cover all forms of DSL with the login information included. It is worth a shot before you look for a windows box to setup your connection.

I found redhat-config-network but I was afraid to mess with it. Does
it alter a specific file that I could back up first?

You say, "once your network card is set up"; is that what
redhat-config-network does? How about "when you add a new
configuration item"? And then how do I get to the xDSL setup? And
what do I do to switch back and forth between DSL and dial-up? (I'm
assuming I'll have to dial up and post some more questions while
trying to get the DSL working.)

I called SBC again just now and asked what I have to do to log in.
The agent said I just need to supply a username and password. He also
described what an ethernet port looks like and asked if my computer
has one, and I couldn't find anything that looks like a huge phone
jack. So I take it I need to pick up an ethernet card. Are there
different kinds, or can I just go to Best Buys and buy the cheapest
one? Do I have to worry about compatibility with RedHat?

Thanks,
Jody

You want a network card. Wal-Mart has a linksys 10/100 for around $15 which will work great.

You can setup Your Network card, DSL, and Dialup with redhat-config-network, You can activate and deactivate the connections through redhat-control-network or redhat-config-network

The config files for each device is in /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/

The files are named ifcfg-device, such as ifcfg-eth0 for your Network card, ifcfg-ppp0 for dialup.

If your using redhat-config-network you can add Modems or Network cards under the Hardware section.


You can also setup permission for a user to control these devices in the configuration so you will not need to go into the configuration or use root each time.


If you have dialup already setup with another program like kppp you can continue to use that and just shut down the DSL connection when you are not using it.

Hi again. I found a network card just like you described, though I suspect now that I did in fact have an ethernet connection already---the SBC man told me that it would look like a great big phone jack, so I looked for, like, a great big phone jack, and all I saw was what looked to me like a normal-sized phone jack. But the jack on the new card looks exactly like the one I already had, and now that I look at it they are slightly larger than normal. Anyway, I went ahead and installed the new card, because I
already had the *&^%^*) computer cover off.

I played around with redhat-config-network a bit more, but it didn't seem to want to help me do all the things you mentioned. On the first screen
it asks what I want to configure: ethernet, modem, or ISDN. I choose ethernet (not that it would let me select anything else; I can't highlight the other options) and it takes me to a screen headed "ethernet configuration" (name, device, etc.) Some text shows through from behind the list of fields it displays, but it's just fragments of words. I click "configure'" and it brings me back to the first screen. That's it, no "Do you want to add new hardware?" or anything. BTW I have to use redhat-config-network from the command line; when I click on it from System Settings nothing
happens. I had the same problem trying to set up my printer.

Thanks again.

Does you machine have a hostname?


If so add it to the line in /etc/hosts like this..

127.0.0.1 localhost.localdomain localhost RedHatLinux


This would be for a hostname RedHatLinux

That should make things work better in X.

No, I don't think my machine has a hostname. How would I find out (or give it one)? My /etc/hosts just looks
like
127.0.0.1 localhost.localdomain localhost

BTW, could I have messed things up by installing that second network card? When I logged on this morning and clicked on mozilla, I got an
error message which I can't find now---something about not finding a shared library. This *never* happens. I rebooted and this time mozilla worked but my kde panel looks different; it's not offering me a choice of four desktops as it always has in the past.

Thanks.