# The &kdsl; Handbook

Judd Baileys

    jbaileys@bigpond.net.au

2004
Judd Baileys
&FDLNotice;
2004-08-30
0.5

Kdsl is a utility to assist in setting up and using multiple internet accounts. Kdsl currently supports PPPoE ADSL, and Dial-up. Future versions of Kdsl are aimed at implementing ISDN, PPPoA DSL, and Cable connectivity. Rudimentary support is offered for USB modems.

Kdsl was designed on a LinuxFromScratch distro using the Linux Kernel 2.4.22. It has also been tested to work on 2.6 Linux Kernels. It has been thoroughly tested on different ADSL (PPPoE) accounts, and PAP/CHAP Dialup connections.

KDE
kdsl
DSL
pppoe

## Introduction

&kdsl; is a frontend to pppd. It is designed primarily for xDSL accounts, but dial-up is supported and ISDN, Cable and PPPoA support is planned for up coming releases.

Kdsl features Multiple account support, multiple protocol support, basic accountancy data, and themeable dock icons.

## Using &kdsl;

When &kdsl; is first run you will be presented with the main window. With your mouse button, press 'SETUP' to enter into the Setup Dialog. The main screen displayed (see below) will ask you what type of account you wish to configure. Select the type of account you wish to install, and &kdsl; will take you to the appropriate screen to configure your Internet account.

Here's a screenshot of &kdsl; Screenshot

## Setting up a DSL Broadband account

Once you have selected the DSL button on the main setup page, you will be presented with the following screen. The important thing to know when setting up your account is which ethernet device (network card) your DSL modem is connected to. &kdsl; will set up a basic account for you.

DSL Configuration

To begin, enter the name of the Internet Connection you wish to setup. This can be any name you desire. Then enter in the user / login name that was provided to you from your Internet provider. Usually this will be in the format of 'myname@myisp'. complete all the other fields as required, remembering to select the correct Ethernet device. Below is a list of some of the features of the DSL setup which you might need to get your internet account operational:

### The PPP Plugins

The 'enable ppp plugin' option should be selected if you have a kernel plugin for your protocol. If you have a PPPoE account, then the plugin you would require is pppoe.so. PPPoA users can download a similar plugin for their protocols and use it here. When the 'enable ppp plugins' is selected, more options will be available to you. To check if you have the required plugin, Go to the 'Path to Plugin' section, and press on the little yellow folder. This will open a directory in /usr/lib/pppd/2.4.1/ where you can see if the plugin for your protocol is available. Select your protocol and press 'OK'.

If your protocol is not supported by a plugin, Kdsl will make use of other programs to attempt to make the connection to the internet. You will require /usr/sbin/pppoe to be installed on your system to make the connection. This file is part of the Roaring Peguins rp-pppoe packages, and can be freely downloaded from their website. for PPPoA users, the file /usr/sbin/pppoa3 is required to attempt to make the connection.

If neither the plugin or the files are installed on your computer, then it is necessary to download the appropriate packages. A list of possible packages you may require are located on the REQUIREMENTS page of this document.

### The Usage Browser

The 'Enable Online Usage Meter' is for users who like to monitor their account usage. Instead of opening up a browser and going to the website for your usage, Kdsl can do this for you. All you need to do is type in the URL to your online usage meter. The option is also there to use an external broswer, such as Konqueror or Mozilla if you wish to use it or require it. To Access your usage once it has been set up, go to the dock icon on the system tray and press it with your right mouse button. A popup menu will be displayed. Go to 'Your Usage Meter' and a window will open up for you to access your usage.

Dock Icon Menu

### Choosing an Icon for your account

Kdsl will allow you to use any icon you desire to distinguish or personalise your account from others. To select an icon, press the red file button, and then go to the directory which contains the icon you want. If you wish to make your own icons, for example, if you wish to use the logo from your Internet provider, the important thing to remember is that you will need to crop your icon to be 32x32 pixels in dimension. It is also recommended that you save your newly formed icon in the .png format.

The icons on the main kdsl display will be resized automatically to 16x16 pixels to fit neatly in the account selection menu box. Icons on Display

## Dial Up Accounts

### Setting up a Dial-Up account

Once you have selected the 'Dial up Modem' button on the main setup page, you will be presented with the following screen.

DSL Configuration

Setting up a dial-up account is very simple. The only thing you will need to know before hand is which port your modem is connected to. If you have a non USB modem, then your modem is probably connected to a Serial Port. The first serial port is called ttyS0 (com1 in windows), the second is called ttyS1 (com2) and so on. The default settings are generally acceptable for most dial-up users.

If you experience problems with the modem dialling, and negotiating a connection with your Internet Provider, but then suddenly your modem hangs up, go into the Setup, and enter into edit mode. Try setting the defaultroute checkbox.

Kdsl offers very basic support for dialup, and is not intended to be a dialer as powerful as KPPP, which is part of the KDE project. If you have special requirements for dialup, try kppp. If you really would like to use Kdsl, then feel free to contact the developers to add the support you require.

### A note on Winmodems

A 'Winmodem' is a modem that uses the computers CPU to handle data transfers. All other modems handle all throughput on their own. As a result, Winmodems are generally a lot cheaper to purchase. Because WinModems need specific drivers to work, most of them tend to be incompatible with Linux. If you have such a modem, a good resource to look at is http://www.linmodems.org

## Non Root Users

Users who are not running as root user will have accounts automatically setup for them by the root user, if the Root user decides to make the account available. The checkbox 'Allow Non-Root Use' in the Accounts Setup section will determine this.

Non Root users can not edit the accounts, however, they can still manipulate if they wish to change the icon for the account, or if they wish to use the Usage Meter Browser. The window presented to a non root user when they go into Account Edit mode is shown below

Non Root Account Editing

## Questions and Answers

I am unable to connect to the Internet with Kdsl. What can I do?

Firstly, check to ensure you have selected the correct protocol, and that Kdsl supports protocol you have. If Kdsl does not support your particular requirements, please contact the developers so assistance can be given to you, and your protocol can be added into Kdsl.

I am using KDE 3.1. Can I still use Kdsl?

Kdsl has successfully been installed and used on KDE 3.1 distro's such as RedHat Linux. If Kdsl refuses to run on your system, either upgrade to KDE 3.2, or contact the developers to see if they can add support fo backward compatibility.

I have a PPPoA connection. Will it work with Kdsl?

Again, PPPoA has not been tested by the developers, although efforts has been made to support the protocol. Kdsl makes use of the pppoa plugin, or the pppoa3 binary which is installed on some distributions. If you have the pppoa binary, you could try and make a simlink to it by issuing ln -sf pppoa pppoa3 from the command line. This, however is untested, and may not work at all.

If you do manage to get PPPoA successfully working with Kdsl, contact the developers with instructions on how to connect with this protocol so information can be made to the wider community. Any assistance is more than appreciated.

My Protocol is not supported. How long before Kdsl will support my particular needs?

This all depends on people's feedback. The more information we recieve, the quicker we can add support. Please remember that if Kdsl does not support your protocol, it is simply because the developers do not use this protocol. However, the long term aim of the Kdsl project is to have all account types working flawlessly with Kdsl, and that can only be achieved with your help. So, please contribute.

Why can't people on my network browse the internet with Kdsl when they could with rp-pppoe?

This is not a specific Kdsl issue, but a firewall issue. Rp-pppoe has built in clamping to limit the amount of packets received to stabilize an internet connections. Kdsl does not have this feature yet, however the easiest way to get things to work is to add a line to your firewall / iptables script. Just add TCPMSS --clamp-mss-to-pmtu to your script. An example of a possible firewall script is shown below

    $IPTABLES -I FORWARD -p tcp --tcp-flags SYN,RST SYN -j TCPMSS --clamp-mss-to-pmt
    u
    $IPTABLES -A FORWARD -i $EXTIF -o $INTIF -m state --state ESTABLISHED,RELATED -j ACCEPT
    $IPTABLES -A FORWARD -i $INTIF -o $EXTIF -j ACCEPT
    $IPTABLES -A FORWARD -j LOG

## Credits and License

&kdsl;

Program copyright 2004 Judd Baileys jbaileys@bigpond.net.au

Contributors:

- Diego Levrero levrero@tiscali.it

Documentation copyright 2004 Judd Baileys jbaileys@bigpond.net.au

&underFDL;

&underGPL;

## Installation

### How to obtain &kdsl;

Kdsl can be obtained from the Kdsl website hosted on SourceForge!

### Requirements

In order to successfully use &kdsl;, you need &kde; 3.2. As a minumum, a patched version of ppp-2.4.1 is required for DSL accounts if the ppp plugin is required. Otherwise, Kdsl will use the pppoe binary from Roaring Penguin's rp-pppoe tools to make a connection to the internet.

Kdsl does not setup and install modem drives for USB modems, and therefore it is a requirement of the user to have modems properly configured and setup. A lot of effort has been undertaken to add support for USB modems. If you find your device is not supported in Kdsl, and it definately works in Linux, please contact the developers.

Kdsl has been tested only on GNU/Linux systems running 2.4 and 2.6 kernels. It has also been tested thoroughly with ADSL accounts using the PPPoE protocol, and with Dial Up accounts. If the protocol you use is different (such as PPPoA) then Kdsl may or may not work for you. If you find that your Internet account does not work with Kdsl, please contact the developers so they can either assist you in setting up your account, and, more importantly, program support into Kdsl for the wider Linux community.

All required libraries as well as &kdsl; itself can be found on The &kdsl; home page.

### Compilation and Installation

&install.compile.documentation;

### Configuration

&documentation.index;