BSNL Broadband configuration Linux

I was seeing constant threads at orkut regarding configuration of internet on linux. This guide I hope will help you establish the BSNL broadband connection on your linux box. I assume that you have configured your network interface (if not then I am going to post a similar post regarding howto configure it).

This document is a copy of a document which I saw in late 2004 when I was searching for a howto to configure internet in linux.

This document describes howto setup bsnl broadband service on your gnu/linux server/desktop. It assumes that you are neither linux beginer nor an expert. It assumes that you are aware of basic gnu/linux commands.

I have installed it on redhat 9. I dont find any reason why it would not work on following distributions:

• FC1
• FC2
• FC3
• FC4
• FC5
  

An unofficial FAQ on Dataone can be found here

Pre-Requisites

• Please ensure that you have connected a working ethernet card which is supported on gnu/linux. Test the ethernet card & ensure that it is working.
• Root access to a gnu/linux box

Before we start, please ensure that you have the following details on hand:

• BSNL Broadband connection -:)
• Username & Password

Using the builtin dialer

A HOWTO with instructions on using the PPPoE builtin dialer of the Huawei SmartAX MT800 ADSL router is available.
The procedure to configure the dialer in UTStarCom UT300R modem is given here

Using RP-PPPOE as dialer

Installation

---

• As BSNL broadband is using rp-pppoe (Roaring Penguin - Point to Point Over Ethernet), we would be required to download & install this package. This package is normally available on most of the distributions. But, if you are using redhat7.3, please download the following packages:

rpm package command line
rpm package GUI
source code

If you are downloading the tar.gz version, you have to build the rpm first. So, please walk through the following procedure to build the rpm:

Procedure to build RPM from tar.gz.

 1. Login as root
2. Download tar.gz version & execute the following commands
# tar -zxvf rp-pppoe-3.5.tar.gz (untar this package)
 * This command would untar the package in the current directory.
# cp rp-pppoe-3.5.tar.gz /usr/src/redhat/SOURCES/
# cd rp-pppoe-3.5
 * The rpm spec file, rp-pppoe.spec is available in this directory.
# cp rp-pppoe.spec /usr/src/redhat/SPECS/
# cd /usr/src/redhat/SPECS
# rpm -ba rp-pppoe.spec
*  The  above  command would untar the tar.gz package in ../BUILD
directory, compile the package and finally it would create neces
sary rpms in

If everything goes fine, you would see the following or similar message:

 Wrote: /usr/src/redhat/SRPMS/rp-pppoe-3.5-1.src.rpm
Wrote: /usr/src/redhat/RPMS/i386/rp-pppoe-3.5-1.i386.rpm
Wrote: /usr/src/redhat/RPMS/i386/rp-pppoe-gui-3.5-1.i386.rpm
Executing(%clean): /bin/sh -e /var/tmp/rpm-tmp.97349
+ umask 022
+ cd /usr/src/redhat/BUILD
+ cd rp-pppoe-3.5
+ rm -rf /tmp/pppoe-build
+ exit 0

If this is the case, the necessary rpms are successfully created and they are available in appropriate directory.

 Source RPMS - /usr/src/redhat/SRPMS/rp-pppoe-3.5-1.src.rpm
Binary RPMS - /usr/src/redhat/RPMS/i386/rp-pppoe-3.5-1.i386.rpm
GUI RPMS    - /usr/src/redhat/RPMS/i386/rp-pppoe-gui-3.5-1.i386.rpm

Now, at this stage you are having necessary rpms with you. Either you have downloaded them from the above website. Or you would have built them on your own:

Command Line Version

 # rpm -vih rp-pppoe-3.5-1.i386.rpm

It would install the command line version of rp-pppoe package.

GUI Version

 # rpm -vih rp-pppoe-gui-3.5-1.i386.rpm

It would install the gui version of rp-pppoe package. If you have successfully installed, then you can proceed to next section.

Configuration

Once you have installed rp-pppoe package, all necessary commands would have been installed.

 adsl-setup  - to configure the connection parameters
adsl-start  - to start the connection
adsl-status - to check status of the connection
adsl-stop   - to stop the connection

Now, we are ready to configure the BSNL broadband internet connection.

Here you have to configure the following parameters:

 * userid
* network interface (eth0 or ..)
* Demand value (normally you can leave it blank)
* DNS Information (primary & secondary)

• With regard to primary & secondary dns, You can leave it blank, as it would be taken care automatically. If you wish to know the dns details, just complete this wizard and when you run adsl-start, do:

 # tail -f /var/log/messages


Mar 15 15:29:48 Gateway pppd[3564]: Remote message: Authentication success,Welcome!
Mar 15 15:29:48 Gateway pppd[3564]: local  IP address 59.92.9.154
Mar 15 15:29:48 Gateway pppd[3564]: remote IP address 59.92.8.1
Mar 15 15:29:48 Gateway pppd[3564]: primary   DNS address 61.1.96.69
Mar 15 15:29:48 Gateway pppd[3564]: secondary DNS address 61.1.96.71

There it goes! The primary & secondary dns details are found and it would be automatically updated in /etc/resolv.conf.

• Then you should enter the following details:

 * Password
* Firewall (set is to 2, MASQUERADE)
* Confirm

• The following is the screen shot of adsl-setup command.

 # adsl-setup
Welcome to the Roaring Penguin ADSL client setup.  First, I will run
some checks on your system to make sure the PPPoE client is installed
properly...

Looks good!  Now, please enter some information:

USER NAME

>>> Enter your PPPoE user name (default test@dataone):

INTERFACE

>>> Enter the Ethernet interface connected to the ADSL modem
For Solaris, this is likely to be something like /dev/hme0.
For Linux, it will be ethn, where 'n' is a number.
(default eth0):

Do you want the link to come up on demand, or stay up continuously?
If you want it to come up on demand, enter the idle time in seconds
after which the link should be dropped.  If you want the link to
stay up permanently, enter 'no' (two letters, lower-case.)
NOTE: Demand-activated links do not interact well with dynamic IP
addresses.  You may have some problems with demand-activated links.
>>> Enter the demand value (default no):

DNS

Please enter the IP address of your ISP's primary DNS server.
If your ISP claims that 'the server will provide DNS addresses',
enter 'server' (all lower-case) here.
If you just press enter, I will assume you know what you are
doing and not modify your DNS setup.
>>> Enter the DNS information here: 61.1.128.5
Please enter the IP address of your ISP's secondary DNS server.
If you just press enter, I will assume there is only one DNS server.
>>> Enter the secondary DNS server address here: 61.0.0.5

PASSWORD

>>> Please enter your PPPoE password: 
>>> Please re-enter your PPPoE password:

FIREWALLING

Please choose the firewall rules to use.  Note that these rules are
very basic.  You are strongly encouraged to use a more sophisticated
firewall setup; however, these will provide basic security.  If you
are running any servers on your machine, you must choose 'NONE' and
set up firewalling yourself.  Otherwise, the firewall rules will deny
access to all standard servers like Web, e-mail, ftp, etc.  If you
are using SSH, the rules will block outgoing SSH connections which
allocate a privileged source port.

The firewall choices are:
0 - NONE: This script will not set any firewall rules.  You are responsible
        for ensuring the security of your machine.  You are STRONGLY
        recommended to use some kind of firewall rules.
1 - STANDALONE: Appropriate for a basic stand-alone web-surfing workstation
2 - MASQUERADE: Appropriate for a machine acting as an Internet gateway
              for a LAN
>>> Choose a type of firewall (0-2): 2

** Summary of what you entered **

Ethernet Interface: eth0
User name:          test@dataone
Activate-on-demand: No
Primary DNS:        61.1.128.5
Secondary DNS:      61.0.0.5
Firewalling:        MASQUERADE

>>> Accept these settings and adjust configuration files (y/n)? y
Adjusting /etc/ppp/pppoe.conf
Adjusting /etc/resolv.conf
(But first backing it up to /etc/resolv.conf-bak)
Adjusting /etc/ppp/pap-secrets and /etc/ppp/chap-secrets
(But first backing it up to /etc/ppp/pap-secrets-bak)
(But first backing it up to /etc/ppp/chap-secrets-bak)



Congratulations, it should be all set up!

Type 'adsl-start' to bring up your ADSL link and 'adsl-stop' to bring
it down.  Type 'adsl-status' to see the link status.

Internet Connection

Now, if you see this Congrats! message, then you are all set & done. You can type,

# adsl-start ..Connected! #

Thats it. The bsnl broadband setup has been installed & configured.

At this point, you can go through the man pages of appropriate adsl-* commands for details.

Hope this article helps you out in configuring internet on linux specially for the redhat persons. I will soon post a article regarding configuring network interfaces on linux and other stuff related to it.

Stepper motor driver GNU/Linux 2.6 kernel

I started a work on some project related to Stepper Motor Driver in Linux. I found one tutorial at linux gazette online magazine. But to my surprise the driver written was for 2.4.x kernel's. I soon realised that I need to do pretty much stuff in order to make that driver work in 2.6.x kernel. Then again to my surprise I found a excellent tutorial at tldp explaining the 2.6.x and 2.4.x kernel module programming. I went through those tutorials and I ported the driver for 2.6.x kernel.
I used a debian 3.1 sarge with 2.6.8 kernel in it. I started off with some basic differences (between 2.4.x and 2.6.x). Code writing convention has change alot and these days module programmer prefer to use macro's more than anything. They even have macros for defining the init function and the exit function. I went on to learn those things and finally came up with a code which I suppose will work in most of the 2.6.x's series.
Here I present the code:

#include "linux/kernel.h"
#include "linux/fs.h"
#include "linux/module.h"
#include "linux/init.h"
#include "asm/io.h"
#include "asm/uaccess.h"

#define LPT_BASE 0x378
#define DEVICE_NAME "Stepper"
#define DRIVER_DESC "*Stepper Motor Driver*"

static int Major;
static int Device_Open=0;
static int i,j,k=0;
static int pattern[2][4][8] = {
{{0xA,0x9,0x5,0x6,0xA,0x9,0x5,0x6},{0xA,0x8,0x9,0x1,0x5,0x4,0x6,0x2}},
{{0x6,0x5,0x9,0xA,0x6,0x5,0x9,0xA},{0x2,0x6,0x4,0x5,0x1,0x9,0x8,0xA}}
};

void step(void)
{
if(k<8)
{
printk(KERN_INFO "%d\n",pattern[i][j][k]);
outb(pattern[i][j][k],LPT_BASE);
k++;
}
else
{
k=0;
printk(KERN_INFO "%d\n",pattern[i][j][k]);
outb(pattern[i][j][k],LPT_BASE);
k++;
}
}
static int stepper_open(struct inode *inode, struct file *file)
{
printk(KERN_INFO "Stepper Opened\n");
if(Device_Open)
return -EBUSY;
Device_Open++;
try_module_get(THIS_MODULE);
return 0;
}
static int stepper_release(struct inode *inode, struct file *file)
{
printk(KERN_INFO "Stepper Released\n");
Device_Open --;
module_put(THIS_MODULE);
return 0;
}
static ssize_t stepper_write(struct file *file, const char *buffer, size_t len, loff_t *off)
{
char data;
get_user(data,buffer);
switch (data)
{
case 'h': /* Half Step */
printk(KERN_INFO "Half-Step mode initialized\n");
j=0;
break;
case 'f': /* Full Step */
printk(KERN_INFO "Full-Step mode initialized\n");
j=1;
break;
case 'F': /* Forward */
i=0;
step();
break;
case 'R': /* Reverse */
i=1;
step();
break;
default: /* Invalid */
printk(KERN_INFO "Invalid argument\n");
break;
}
return -EINVAL;
}
struct file_operations fops = {
.write=stepper_write,
.open=stepper_open,
.release=stepper_release
};
static int __init entry(void)
{
Major=register_chrdev(0,DEVICE_NAME,&fops);
if(Major < 0)
{
printk(KERN_INFO "Cannot get major number for the device %s\n",DEVICE_NAME);
return Major;
}
printk(KERN_INFO "'mknod /dev/%s c %d 0'\n",DEVICE_NAME,Major);
return 0;
}
static void __exit bye(void)
{
int ret = unregister_chrdev(Major, DEVICE_NAME);
if (ret < 0)
printk(KERN_INFO "Error in un-registering stepper: %d\n", ret);
else
printk(KERN_INFO "Stepper un-registered.\n");
}
module_init(entry);
module_exit(bye);
MODULE_LICENSE("GPL");
MODULE_DESCRIPTION(DRIVER_DESC);
MODULE_SUPPORTED_DEVICE(DEVICE_NAME);

The messages logged by this driver can be found in /var/log/messages file. Anytime we need to see what the program does or what it outputs we need to open the file and go down the file to see the recent outputs. This can be made easy by issuing the following command:

tail -f /var/log/messages

As a super user now we need to execute the below command on the terminal. Here the major number is the number allocated by the kernel when the module get's inserted into it. It's a dynamic number. Minor number is mostly 0 (in this case).
In my case I had to execute the following command:

mknod /dev/Stepper c 254 0

This create's a device file in the /dev directory and now if we want to communicate to the motor all we need to do is write data onto this file. That can be done by simply using:

echo "h" > /dev/Stepper
echo "F" > /dev/Stepper
(NOTE: What's happening when these commands execute can be see by tail -f /var/log/messages)

Here data to the stepper device is any valid character in the set {h,f,F,R}. First two elements of the set intializes the motor in half-step or full-step mode and the last two data set actually runs the motor in Forward or Reverse directions.

In the next article I will explain the user interface program I created to handle this motor. I used the power of GTK+ in creating that interface.

Note:
There maybe many points I have left in this article regarding the internal working of the program. For that I assume you have gone through the page .