After starting the module, YaST displays a general network configuration dialog. The upper part shows a list with all the network cards yet to be configured. Any card properly autodetected during the boot procedure is listed with its name. Devices that could not be detected are listed as ‘Other (not detected)’. In the lower part, the dialog displays a list of the devices configured so far, with their network type and address. You can now configure a new network card or change an existing configuration.

22.4.1.1. Manual Configuration of a Network Card

Configuring a network card that was not autodetected (one listed as ‘Other’) includes the following items:

Network Configuration

Set the device type of the interface and the configuration name. Select the device type from the options provided. Specify a configuration name according to your needs. Usually, the default settings are useful and can be accepted. Information about the naming conventions for configuration names is available in the manual page of getcfg.

Kernel Module

‘Hardware Configuration Name’ specifies the name of the /etc/sysconfig/hardware/hwcfg-* file containing the hardware settings of your network card, for example, the name of the suitable kernel module. Usually, YaST proposes useful names for PCMCIA and USB hardware. For other hardware, 0 usually only makes sense if the card is configured with hwcfg-static-0.

If the network card is a PCMCIA or USB device, activate the respective check boxes and exit this dialog with ‘Next’. If not, select your network card model from ‘Select from List’. YaST automatically selects the suitable kernel module. Exit this dialog with ‘Next’.

Figure 22.3. Configuration of the Network Card

In the YaST Control Center, access the modem configuration under ‘Network Devices’. If your modem was not automatically detected, open the dialog for manual configuration. In the dialog that opens, enter the interface to which the modem is connected under ‘Modem Device’.

Figure 22.4. Modem Configuration

If you are behind a private branch exchange (PBX), you may need to enter a dial prefix. This is often a zero. Consult the instructions that came with the PBX to find out. Also select whether to use tone or pulse dialing, whether the speaker should be on, and whether the modem should wait until it detects a dial tone. The last option should not be enabled if the modem is connected to an exchange.

Under ‘Details’, set the baud rate and the modem initialization strings. Only change these settings if your modem was not autodetected or if it requires special settings for data transmission to work. This is mainly the case with ISDN terminal adapters. Leave this dialog by clicking ‘OK’. To delegate control over the modem to the normal user without root permissions, activate ‘User Controlled’. In this way, a user without administrator permissions can activate or deactivate an interface. Under ‘Dial prefix regex’, specify a regular expression. The ‘Dial Prefix’ in KInternet, which can be modified by the normal user, must match this regular expression. If this field is left empty, the user cannot set a different ‘Dial Prefix’ without administrator permissions.

In the next dialog, select the ISP (Internet service provider). To choose from a predefined list of ISPs operating in your country, select ‘Countries’. Alternatively, click ‘New’ to open a dialog in which to provide the data for your ISP. This includes a name for the dial-up connection and ISP as well as the login and password provided by your ISP. Enable ‘Always Ask for Password’ to be prompted for the password each time you connect.

In the last dialog, specify additional connection options:

Selecting ‘Next’ returns to the original dialog, which displays a summary of the modem configuration. Close this dialog with ‘Finish’.

Use this module to configure one or several ISDN cards for your system. If YaST did not detect your ISDN card, manually select it. Multiple interfaces are possible, but several ISPs can be configured for one interface. In the subsequent dialogs, set the ISDN options necessary for the proper functioning of the card.

Figure 22.5. ISDN Configuration

In the next dialog, shown in Figure 22.5, “ISDN Configuration”, select the protocol to use. The default is ‘Euro-ISDN (EDSS1)’, but for older or larger exchanges, select ‘1TR6’. If you are in the US, select ‘NI1’. Select your country in the relevant field. The corresponding country code then appears in the field next to it. Finally, provide your ‘Area Code’ and the dial prefix (if necessary).

‘Start Mode’ defines how the ISDN interface should be started: ‘OnBoot’ causes the ISDN driver to be initialized each time the system boots. ‘Manual’ requires you to load the ISDN driver as root with the command rcisdn start. ‘Hotplug’, used for PCMCIA or USB devices, loads the driver after the device is plugged in. When finished with all these settings, select ‘OK’.

In the next dialog, specify the interface type for your ISDN card and add ISPs to an existing interface. Interfaces may be either the SyncPPP or the RawIP type, but most ISPs operate in the SyncPPP mode, which is described below.

Figure 22.6. ISDN Interface Configuration

The number to enter for ‘My Phone Number’ depends on your particular setup:

For the connection to be terminated just before the next charge unit is due, enable ‘ChargeHUP’. However, remember that may not work with every ISP. You can also enable channel bundling (multilink PPP) by selecting the corresponding check box. Finally, you can enable SuSEfirewall2 for your link by selecting ‘Activate Firewall’. To enable the normal user without administrator permissions to activate or deactivate the interface, select the ‘User Controlled’.

‘Details’ opens a dialog in which to implement more complex connection schemes, which is not relevant for normal home users. Leave this dialog by selecting ‘Next’.

In the next dialog, make IP address settings. If you have not been given a static IP by your provider, select ‘Dynamic IP address’. Otherwise, use the fields provided to enter your host's local IP address and the remote IP address according to the specifications of your ISP. If the interface should be the default route to the Internet, select ‘Default Route’. Each host can only have one interface configured as the default route. Leave this dialog by selecting ‘Next’.

The following dialog allows you to set your country and to select an ISP. The ISPs included in the list are call-by-call providers only. If your ISP is not in the list, select ‘New’. This opens the ‘Provider Parameters’ dialog in which to enter all the details for your ISP. When entering the phone number, do not include any blanks or commas among the digits. Finally, enter your login and the password as provided by the ISP. When finished, select ‘Next’.

To use ‘Dial on Demand’ on a stand-alone workstation, also specify the name server (DNS server). Most ISPs support dynamic DNS, which means the IP address of a name server is sent by the ISP each time you connect. For a single workstation, however, you still need to provide a placeholder address like 192.168.22.99. If your ISP does not support dynamic DNS, specify the name server IP addresses of the ISP. If desired, specify a time-out for the connection—the period of network inactivity (in seconds) after which the connection should be automatically terminated. Confirm your settings with ‘Next’. YaST displays a summary of the configured interfaces. To make all these settings active, select ‘Finish’.

In some countries (Austria, US), it is quite common to access the Internet through the TV cable network. The TV cable subscriber usually gets a modem that is connected to the TV cable outlet on one side and to a computer network card on the other (using a 10Base-TG twisted pair cable). The cable modem then provides a dedicated Internet connection with a fixed IP address.

Depending on the instructions provided by your ISP, when configuring the network card either select ‘Automatic Address Setup (via DHCP)’ or ‘Static Address Setup’. Most providers today use DHCP. A static IP address often comes as part of a special business account.

To configure your DSL device, select the ‘DSL’ module from the YaST ‘Network Devices’ section. This YaST module consists of several dialogs in which to set the parameters of DSL links based on one of the following protocols:

The configuration of a DSL connection based on PPPoE or PPTP requires that the corresponding network card has already been set up in the correct way. If you have not done so yet, first configure the card by selecting ‘Configure Network Cards’ (see Section 22.4.1, “Configuring the Network Card with YaST”). In the case of a DSL link, addresses may be assigned automatically but not via DHCP, which is why you should not enable the option ‘Automatic address setup (via DHCP)’. Instead, enter a static dummy address for the interface, such as 192.168.22.1. In ‘Subnet Mask’, enter 255.255.255.0. If you are configuring a stand-alone workstation, leave ‘Default Gateway’ empty.

	Tip
Values in ‘IP Address’ and ‘Subnet Mask’ are only placeholders. They are only needed to initialize the network card and do not represent the DSL link as such.

Figure 22.7. DSL Configuration

To begin the DSL configuration (see Figure 22.7, “DSL Configuration”), first select the PPP mode and the ethernet card to which the DSL modem is connected (in most cases, this is eth0). Then use ‘Device Activation’ to specify whether the DSL link should be established during the boot process. Click ‘User Controlled’ to authorize the normal user without root permissions to activate or deactivate the interface with KInternet. The dialog also lets you select your country and choose from a number of ISPs operating in it. The details of any subsequent dialogs of the DSL configuration depend on the options set so far, which is why they are only briefly mentioned in the following paragraphs. For details on the available options, read the detailed help available from the dialogs.

To use ‘Dial on Demand’ on a stand-alone workstation, also specify the name server (DNS server). Most ISPs support dynamic DNS—the IP address of a name server is sent by the ISP each time you connect. For a single workstation, however, provide a placeholder address like 192.168.22.99. If your ISP does not support dynamic DNS, enter the name server IP address provided by your ISP.

‘Idle Time-Out (seconds)’ defines a period of network inactivity after which to terminate the connection automatically. A reasonable time-out value is between sixty and three hundred seconds. If ‘Dial on Demand’ is disabled, it may be useful to set the time-out to zero to prevent automatic hang-up.

The configuration of T-DSL is very similar to the DSL setup. Just select ‘T-Online’ as your provider and YaST opens the T-DSL configuration dialog. In this dialog, provide some additional information required for T-DSL—the line ID, the T-Online number, the user code, and your password. All of these should be included in the information you received after subscribing to T-DSL.