Internet connectivity is a real issue for Linux users, especially newbies. A few years
a go it used to be Hebrew support - but that is behind us. Now, almost every second
question from newbies is "how do I connect to the Internet?"
And life is tough. ISPs tend to shift towards dialers more and more. There are too
many guides/scripts/tools and newbies feel lost, and this is even before we mention
issues with the modem hardware itself.
The Israeli Internet Connection Wizard (iwiz) is a project that aims to address these
issues. It created a generic command line tool that allows generating a script based
on ISP profile, hardware profile and user account profile. It aims to provide a
generic approach that will work on any distro and with any ISP.
The tool was developed as part of the GNU/Linux Kinneret project with assistance
during design from the Linbrew team. While the tool is ready for production, we need
testing and debugging of the various connection scripts, and this is where we ask for
the help of the community.
We need people to try the tool on various configurations and assist in fixing the
scripts. We need people to help with ideas and guidance if something goes wrong.
Without the help of the community - iwiz will remain a great idea that might or might
not work. With your help - it can become a reality that will push Linux use in Israel
to the next level.
It doesn't require a lot of your time. If you already connected from Linux to the
Internet (ADSL or Cables, with a dialer) you already know the basics and probably have
a reference script that works. All we ask you is to spend a few hours to help test and
troubleshoot the iwiz system. I trust you will not stand on the lines and let others
bump into the wall - the more experience you have - the more you can help in less of
your time.
Thank you for your time and your assistance.
p.s. You may communicate success/failures/flame in this mailing list or to me directly
rather than the forum mentioned below.
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Step 1: Pre-requisites
This short guide will take you through the steps that need to be taken in order to
participate in the debugging marathon of iwiz. We hope that once this marathon is
over, new users will find it easier to connect to the Internet from Linux.
Before we start, some pre-requisites you need to have:
- Motivation, patience and persistency. As part of the process we are not looking for
"It doesn't work!!!", "Help:((((", "Urgent!!!!" messages. We know it doesn't work.
That's why it's called a debugging marathon. We need you to help us making it work so
that it can benefit the community. Duh?
- A Linux installation or a Live Linux CD. One word here: the process might change
existing configuration files. If you don't want that to happen or you don't know how
to get it fixed, use a live CD. You can (and preferably) use the latest development
version of GNU/Linux Kinneret that you can download from here:
http://developer.berlios.de/project/showfiles.php?group_id=734
- Working ADSL/Cable connection requiring a dialer. That's trivial, but note we don't
have any way to debug your modem. If you never connected to ADSL/Cable from Linux or
need any special drivers for the Ethernet or modem we cannot help. If you don't have a
dialer (but direct connection) you probably don't need iwiz - you can connect simply
by starting the DHCP client.
- Basic to advanced knowledge of working in the shell and bash scripting. As a
minimum, you should feel comfortable running commands from the shell. We won't have
much time to spend on teaching you do that - in that case thank you but you should
avoid this marathon. If you know some bash scripting and know how to fix the scripts,
be blessed. We can use any help we can get.
- Be prepared to provide a lot of information about your configuration (a good
preliminary read is http://www.penguin.org.il/essays/smart-questions-he.html) and do
some RTFM if something goes wrong. If you say "it doesn't work" - it doesn't help. We
need you to be able to play a part in solving the problems, not just reporting them
since there's no other way we can get this going.
Step 2: preparations
If you got here without reading the above, please take the time to read it. No
exceptions will be made - your cooperation on this matter is important.
So you know what's expected of you, so let's begin.
To start you'll need the basic tools to participate in the process. This is the itool
(internet tool) and the idb (internet database). There are two ways to get that:
- To download the sources of the latest version of itool and the latest database from
http://iwiz.linux-kinneret.org/ and follow the explanations to build it. Note that we
do not support the iwiz and idial in this test - they are simply enveloped for itool.
- To download a ready made tarball with idb and a pre-compiled itool. You can grab it
from ftp://ftp.berlios.de/pub/kinneret/iwiz/itest.tar.gz and unpack it in the home
directory with 'tar -zxvf itest'. Once you do that, edit the internet.conf to point to
the internet_db directory and move it to /etc. You have to do that as root, but we
assume you know how to do that trick (if not, read again the pre-requisites above).
You also need to have a dhcp client (either dhcpcd, dhclient or pump). You don't have
to start it manually - the script will do that.
Step 3: trying to connect.
For the next steps, we will assume you are logged in as root, in the iwiz directory,
have a local 'internet' binary and /etc/internet.conf points to the internet_db
directory.
First, check that everything is configured correctly:
/internet -l
You should get a list of supported ISPs. If you don't, check if internet.conf is
configured properly and the internet_db is in place. If the command won't run, make
sure it has the execution flag set.
Next, create a connection:
/internet -w
This will run the itool in wizard mode to prompt you for some parameters that are
needed to set up the connection. You should have no problem understanding and
answering the questions (now you know why this guide is in English...).
Once your connection is created (let's assume you assigned the name 'test' to this
connection), try to connect:
/internet --extract=connect test connect.sh
chmod +x connect.sh
/connect.sh
The first line extracts the connection script from the connection "test" and saves it
as a local file. Then we change it to be executable and run it. A good connection
might look something like this (for cable pptp):
Killing DHCP client for eth0
DHCP client pump started successfully.
No PPtP client running (good)
Fetching gateway using pump...
Gateway is 109.56.117.1
Adding route via 109.56.117.1
remotename option=
Starting PPtP
Waiting 20 seconds for IP.Connected ...
New Gateway:178.121.118.10
Deleting old default route
Setting default route to 178.121.118.10
Fixing resolv.conf
If all goes well and you don't get any weird messages, try to check if the connection
works:
ping www.ynet.co.il
If that responds then we're all set. To let us know it works for you, please post a
message in our forums
(http://www.linux-kinneret.org/main/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewforum&f=15) with
the following information:
- The name and version of your distro
- The DHCP client you use
- The name of the ISP
- Connection method (adsl, cable)
- Modem's name
- Modem's interface (usb, eth)
Now you can test the disconnect script:
/internet --extract=connect test disconnect.sh
chmod +x disconnect.sh
/disconnect.sh
Tip: if the connection works, you can connect with:
/internet --connect=test
Without extracting the script itself.
The reason the "long way" was mentioned earlier is since you'll need to extract the
script for debugging if something goes wrong.
Step 4: If things don't work
First of all, please read the guide explaining the way the tool works (you can grab it
from http://iwiz.linux-kinneret.org/ either in PDF or Kword format) and read about the
various configuration files and script templates.
In general, the tool works by creating several scripts for your specific configured
connection. These scripts are based on 3 inputs: isp and hardware data files, script
templates and the inputs you provide for the connection. The "connection" you create
is simply a tarball with 4 scripts inside.
So if something doesn't work, you should try to fix the (generated) scripts. If you
can later also fix the script templates - be blessed. If you can't do that, we'll
handle this based on your inputs so it is important that you report to us any problem
you encounter and any fix you make to the generated scripts.
Even if you're not a master hacker, there are some basic things you can do to see if
you can fix the problem:
- Check our forum to see if somebody already reported issues with a similar
configuration and whether a fix was posted or discussed
(http://www.linux-kinneret.org/main/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewforum&f=15)
- Try to compare the connection script with your current connection script to see if
there are any differences, and try to make those changes in the iwiz script.
- Place printouts throughout the script to find out where the problem starts. Some
useful commands are echo (e.g. echo "the value of param is $param"), getting network
information (e.g. ifconfig or netstat -n -r) and making remarks in the script (with #)
If nothing works, and you still can't connect, please report to us the problem via our
forum (http://www.linux-kinneret.org/main/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewforum&f=15)
with the following info:
- The details as listed at the end of step 3
- The error messages you got when trying to connect
- What you tried to do, what works, what doesn't work
- Any other info you can provide.
Once you post the message, hopefully somebody will come back to you with further
instructions and ideas.
Step 5: Some tips for debugging
Here are some ideas if something gets wrong:
- Try to place a few printouts throughout the script to identify where the error
message comes from. The scripts do print some messages but you may want to "zoom in"
to identify the place of failure.
For example:
echo "step 1:"
- Once you know which command fails, force the script to finish at that point by
placing the following command after the offending line:
exit
- Before the offending line, print all the variables used by the command. For example,
if pptp fails and it uses $CABLEGW, print the value:
echo "$CABLEGW"
- once you know the value, you may find out it has a bad value, and you can compare
the way the command is called with the respective command in the script you use to
regularly connect. If there are differences in parameters, try to understand what they
do and slowly change the command to fit the way it should be until you find out what
is missing to make it work.
If you find out the problem, please report it to us with all the details as noted
before. If you don't give us as much info as you can (e.g. the offending line, values
of parameters, error messages etc.) and we'll try to brainstorm together what to do.
---------------------------------------------------------
Thanks for your help!
---------------------------------
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