I have configured my modem correctly (or maybe I think so).
In the "Network Device Control" application (in "System Tools" menu, RH Linux 9 (Shrike)), If I activate the device (ppp0), the device immediately starts up and shows in ifconfig.
No dialing tone is heard (I use pulse dialing as my ISP does not support Tone as yet).
The dial-mode is set to auto instead of manual.
Although the device is displayed as Active, when I use a browser (say Firefox), I cannot browse Internet. In the browser, I have selected "Direct connection to Internet".

If the dial-mode (in "Network Configuration") is set to manual, the dialing tone is heard but the device fails to startup. I get this error message "Failed to activate ppp0 with error 8".

NOTE: The modem device starts up and is detected ok at boot time.

Modem specifications:
Generic hsfpcibasic2 device (HSF Conexant SoftModem 56Kbps).
Manufacturer: D-Link V.92

Red Hat Linux 9, Kernel: 2.4.20-8smp

P.S. To clear your other doubts: I have absolutely no problems with WinXP. I can browse Internet with the same modem in Windows without a fuss.

Please Help !!

AS fare as I know a soft modem is a software modem
And again as far as I know there is no driver in linux to work with a soft ware modem


all the best

You need a hardware external modem. They're available on eBay for $10. Any PCI internal modem will not work with Linux. Period.

That cannot be true as I have used a US Robotics 5610B pci modem with Red Hat Enterprise 3, Fedora, Knoppix,Mandrake to name a few. I have found that all Linux distros are not created equal and sometimes a "linux modem" may not work with a particular distro.

It sounds like your modem is recognized if you hear dial tone. I no longer use dial up but when I did kppp was used mostly to make the connection. Wish I could be of more help but you are close.

Hi,

I managed to connect to my ISP using wvdial (by manually editing /etc/wvdial.conf). The baud rate is displayed correctly and the status shows connected. ifconfig also shows the PPP status as up. But I am still not able to surf the internet. Could this be a problem of the iptables firewall? If so, how do I configure iptables to allow TCP/IP packets to pass through without compromising the system to external attacks?

Could you checkout the following link for firewall,
http://web.archive.org/web/200504210...urceforge.net/

Best Wishes

Hi,

The modem configurations were correct and wvdial connected to the ISP. The problem was the security settings. By default Linux sets up the firewall (iptables) which denies incoming HTTP connections (except for ICMP, correct me if I am wrong). All I did was modify the firewall to allow the following incoming connections:
WWW (HTTP)
FTP
SSH
DHCP
(These were the ones I required so enabled them)
Security settings can be accessed from the RH/Start Menu->System Settings->Security Level->Customize

Restart the network service (or restart the machine) and voila! - I'm on the World Wide Web (or is it called cyberspace?)