Hi all,

I really enjoy this forum. It has helped alot. I am sorry for a new post as there may already be an answer on here, but one thing I lack is a lot of time to research things out ( like I should ), Pepps here have always helped cut to the chase, that's cool
I am not really a newbie, but I don't really know as much as I would like. I started with Suse 8.0 and am up to 9.1 though I feel like there is something a little unstable there as I have had a couple lock-ups that I cannot explain, forced to do a reinstall, which is not at all like 'nix to me. ( more like windows )
With Suse, I set up the NAT with DMZ and webserver / DNS boxes at the school where I teach. I used the GUI tools for most of it. ( had to create a couple config files for eth0:0 and such, then Suse let me set them up. )
I would really like to be able to do all of this from command line. I would like to do the 'raw' commands and also be able to write scripts needed for restart and know where to put them. I want to set up a mail server, Samba and such. I need to set filtering in place for the kiddies to not be able to go to porn and etc from school, but some of the blocking that exsists does stop adult classes from going to sites on, say breast cancer because breast appears in the search, so I need to allow for different permissions / services for different groups and have auth. log-in. I need to set up virtual hosting, make a 'hole' into the DMZ and from the inside net to the DMZ for a game server, etc ( is that all? haha )
I am working at home to set-up a NAT for my zooming 26400 modem connection to help protect against virus / intrusions ( has amazed me how protected I have been at school against blaster and all, until someone brings in a laptop from home and plugs in and, well, gives me a lot of work to do )

I figure the kernals are all the same, each distro just has it's own implementation? it's own GUI and such?
What I do, at least in TUI, I can do on any distro?

Where do I start, without dozens of books that tell me I should read another book to give me and idea of what to do.

It does not all need to be by TUI, just would be good to be able too and then make Suse be aware of the changes I make so the GUI sees it too. ( I noticed some things, I think ifconfig will make changes that Suse does not 'get informed of? ) At home, I was thinking of using putty to allow any of the 4 other windows boxes my family uses to connect to my ( future ) NAT thru PPP and dial-up that way. How do I find the modem and set it up in TUI since I don't know how Windows will let me talk to Linux, except maybe with Samba running ( and my family can point and click since they have far less an idea how to do any of this than me. )

Long and complex I know, but I hope enuff info to give an idea where I am heading.

Thanks in advance for any and all help.

Kumado

Most distros provide their own kernel and configuration tools. They also package up other software, which may or may not be modified or (more usually) configured to “fit in” with the aims of that distro.

Most console commands will work in all distros. Here's a couple that you need to know: returns the manpage documentation on something (try man man).
will search for manpages on keyword. You should also look at sites like www.tldp.org for documentation; you get far more docs with Linux than you do with most other OSes.

The modem is usually found at /dev/modem (although this is usually a symbolic link, for instance to /dev/ttyS0). You'll find HOWTOs on setting up a dial-up link on tldp.org.

Hope that helps,

—Robert J. Lee

apropos will be quite a nice thing to use! Thanks! One of the ( many? ) commands I did not know exsisted.
I have been to tldp before, but forgot, and also freshmeat. I am envolved in too many things I think.
Thanks again

Mike

For my system at home, I want to get the modem up 1st.

I am not sure why, but my machine does not want to go into KDE or connect to X server. I get a selection screen for Linux, failsafe but it does not go to the GUI log in.
It is making me look at Bash more, so I was trting to set up my modem thru Bash. I will have to look into or reinstall Suse to get back to the GUI, but for now ....

How do I find my modem? I have been looking into pppd, but I think the man files are written as a reminder to someone, not really as a setup guild.
I did ifconfig ppp0 up, and it is now in my ifconfig list, but is that the modem?
Where do I go next?

Thanks

Mike

See the dialup HOWTO from www.tldp.org; this will probably also be on your system if you have the HOWTO package installed.

The problem with your display manager sounds like you haven't installed either the KDE or Gnome packages; you can fix this from the console by typing and selecting KDE or Gnome. You'll need to insert the appropriate install disks when prompted. ( But you don't usually need a GUI

Thanks Rjlee,

gonna try it here in a few. I eventually want to make that box a NAT for my house. Like to be able to get online with it. With a family of 5 and the 26400 connection, get tough.

I would really like to stay in the shell, but the GUI stuff is fun too. I teach technology, if I could get CAD and MAX, or maybe I could switch to Mya.....

TTFN

Mike

I still don't get it.

I really want to stay command line in most of my set up. I do plan on using browsers and such, but I want to be command line level on configuring and set-up. I want to be able to remotely monitor and setup other servers I have to maintain. I use Putty now from windows, SSh seems pretty safe.

What I don't get is, ifup ppp0 brings my modem up. I can't see it in my ifconfig list. Perhaps it is not configured right ( but why did it come up ) I have read a multitude of man / howtos. Most are Great notes, for whoever wrote them, but not for someone tring to learn. They will go on about setting something up ONCE you have it configured, but not tell you how to detect it to even see if it exsists.

IF ppp0 is up ( which ifstatus says it is ) Where is it?

Please post the result of the following commands:

To check if the interface really is up:
To check the interface configuration:
To check the network routing allows traffic on ppp0:

I am not that good at grep / cat to a file and sometimes I can get a file to a floppy that windows will read, so.....

ifstatus ppp0 says: interface ppp0 is down

( ifup ppp0 says ppp0 is up, but a status right after says down )

ifconfig eth0 says most of what I think is the standard stuff aboth the interface, the mac, the ip, the mask the broadcast ip, the ipv6 address, that it is up - broadcast - multicast, the merteric, mtu, RX, TX, I/O line

route : lists eth0, eth1, link-local, loopback, no gateways set, flags are all U

Is this what you were looking for?


thanks


Mike

I use smoothwall to share the dialup to the 7 desktops here. I used it due to the security and ease of use - ie easy for the kids to dial up using a browser in their room...

But before that I had a linux box with a firewall/NAT script and everything was done at the command line level. I set that box up so it dialed whenever the external modem was switched on - so the kids could use it by just switching on the modem and the box would dial and then share the connection...

The idea of going to the smoothwall box was just security and ease of updates and use etc...

You can always capture the output of a console command to a file using ifup just goes through the motions and tells you if anything reported an error; it doesn't actually test to see if the connection is up like ifstatus does. This looks like you have a problem with your ifup script.

This means that your eth0 route is, at least working.

Yes. Your routing table doesn't list ppp0, which is why you can't connect to the internet. This should be listed as the default route.

The bottom line is that ppp0 is not being set up. If this is a modem link, does the modem dial out? Contact your ISP and check that you have the right gateway address, authentication protocol and so on. Any decent ISP will tell you all the connection information you need to know to get your connection working.

Also, look at the log files and see what's actually failing; this might be reported in /var/log/messages or in some other file under /var/log depending on the software that you're using.

What a week and week end,

kk,

I see in the dmsg / on start-up that the ppp0 device is loaded but is set for manual enable.
If I run Yast, the modem is there and is configured. I have never got to try to dial out yet as for some reason, KDE or X server will not run. I am thinking I may just reinstall the system. I have had some hick-ups with 9.1 on a few systems. I do not know if it is the 2.6 kernal or what. I have 5 9.0 servers that run just fine and 3 have for 3 years now. The only down time has been due to power being out. I set these machines up with Suse's GUI set-up. When this machine was 'stuck' in text based, I saw it as my time to try to do this from command line. ( where I would really like to be )
I set up a dhcp server on the machine that works well with my home systems.
I wanted to set up ppp0 for a NAT to dial from any ( windows ) system in my house where my wife and kids could just connect with ease of use, since none of them know anything about Linux or remote commands.
I guess I have a long way to go.
I really am thankful for the help. I am learning commands I did not know were there that make a big difference.
I do wish I could get Kwirte to work instead of VI though

mike

Being a libkde program, Kwrite won't work in text mode. If you're uncomfortable with vi, you might want to try some other editors. To name just a few: pico is a fairly intuitive one, (x)emacs is very flexible and offers features like syntax-highlighting (even in text mode), jed is designed to be a lightweight tool for programming with.

A quick search on freshmeat.net should yield some of the remaining few hundred text-mode text editors

ok, thx, I will look into those. I just have not been this CLI active for a while and even then it was not in networking and such. So much to learn )