HowTo: isdn4es

How can I make e-smith accept a passive ISDN-Card as DialOut-Device?

Klaus Mueller (kjm (at) internet-sicherheit.net)

v0.4, 2000-10-19

Disclaimer

Use this documentation at your own risk. I will not accept any responsibility for any incorrect information within this document, nor for any damage it might cause when applied. It worked for me and it should work for you.

Current version

The most current version of this document can be obtained from http://internet-sicherheit.net/isdn4es-howto.html

Introduction

One of the few things I missed in e-smith was its non-present support for passive ISDN cards. Now, I've been told that in most parts of the world ISDN does not have such a wide spread as it does in Germany and that external ISDN-TA could be used instead of passive cards. Still I think there are many users who would like to use a passive ISDN card because of the simple fact that they are cheaper than the external ones (ISDN-TA: around 150 Euro, passive PCI-ISDN card: around 70 Euro).

So - here's how it works: I found that the easiest way for doing this would be to use all features that are implemented in e-smith already to support normal modems and to use the modem emulation feature of isdn4linux. This gives you all the comfort for modem operation (dialing policies etc.) without setting that all up by yourself.

All you need is:

a passive ISDN-card that is supported by isdn4linux
It worked for me with an AVM Fritz! PCI and a Teles.S0 PCI Rev. 1.2 (cheers to Michael G.); it also worked with a AVM A1 ISA (V 3.0) and a ITK ix1 Datafire Micro ISA (V2.1)
(Hint: If you're about to buy one: pick a PCI-card - saves you the hassle of juggling with interrupts and IO-adresses)
a running installation of e-smith 4.0
some modifications to your system

(you didn't really hope to get by without, did ya? (-;)
- install tcl-8.0.5-30.i386.rpm (or newer):
  you can find it on the RedHat-CD 6.1; it is required for isdn4kutils
```
> rpm -ivh <path>tcl-8.0.5-30.i386.rpm
```
- install isdn4k-utils-3.0-5.i386.rpm (or newer):
  you also find this on the RedHat-CD 6.1; can't do without :-)
```
> rpm -ivh <path>isdn4k-utils-3.0-5.i386.rpm
```
  Remark: if you want to use the rpm that is on the es4-cd you will also have to install a newer version of the init-scripts rpm; -> doesn't help much...
- now we need some information:
  - what type of card do you use? You can look up the "type number" in this list. Search for "Card types".
    Hint: In case you still want to use an ISA-card (you've been warned!) you also need to look up the required parameters for that specific card: irq, io, mem...
  - what is your own phone number (MSN) that you want to use for the dial-out?
- and some modifications to your config files:
  
  (Rem.: be careful when editing these files, especially when not using a unix editor that might append some nice "^M"s to every line!)
  - /etc/conf.modules
    This is where we put the card information. Create a new entry like this:
```
options hisax type=<type number> protocol=2
```
    Remark: "protocol=2" is for EURO-ISDN; if you don't have it: get it :-) or put a "1" there instead (is there anyone out there still using 1TR6?)
  - /etc/e-smith/templates/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/chat-ppp0/20reset
    Here we have to set our MSN the card is supposed to start the call as.
    Extend this string:
```
ATZ
```
    to make it look like this:
```
ATZ&E123456
```
    Remark: The 1TR6-guys have to put the "EAZ" (single digit) here instead of the MSN
  - /etc/e-smith/templates/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/chat-ppp0/30dialup
    This is where our dial-out string comes from. We'll have to tweak this a bit, as passive ISDN-cards don't have internal speakers for debug output.
    You will find an entry here that looks something like this:
```
ATL0M{...}DT{...
```
    The important thing is: get rid of the "L0" and the "M{...}" part as our card doesn't like that. So the line should look like this:
```
ATDT{...
```
  - /sbin/e-smith/console
    This is the wizard script. Here we'll modify the modem section. We'll put the virtual ISDN modem device (ttyI0) in the place of COM4. (If you need COM4 for a different purpose, you can also use COM1, 2 or 3 of course)
    So the line that looks like this:
```
"COM4", "Set modem port to COM4 (/dev/ttyS3)");
```
    should look like this then:
```
"ISDN", "Set modem port to ISDN (/dev/ttyI0)");
```
    and:
```
if ($choice eq "COM4") 
{ 
	$conf {'DialupModemDevice'} = '/dev/ttyS3'; 
}
```
    is changed to:
```
if ($choice eq "ISDN") 
{ 
	$conf {'DialupModemDevice'} = '/dev/ttyI0'; 
}
```
- test your configuration at this point:
  You might want to test your configuration (is my card there? did I select the right driver?...) using this command:
```
> modprobe hisax
```
  If all is correct, you will get a single message telling you that the HiSax driver has been loaded. If not - well... you might want to check the faq of isdn4linux or Deja.com or send me a mail.
- finally: make your changes permanent:
  For that purpose we need a new init script to load the isdn driver at system startup:
  - /etc/rc.d/init.d/isdn4es
    This is a new file that is basically stolen from the startup script for apache from RedHat and modified to suit our needs. It loads the ISDN driver during startup.
```
---------schnipp-----------------------------------
#!/bin/sh
#
# Startup script for isdn4es
#
# description: isdn4es is needed to allow the usage of passive ISDN-cards	\
#        with e-smith (http://www.e-smith.org/).
 
# Source function library.
. /etc/rc.d/init.d/functions
# See how we were called.
case "$1" in
 start)
  echo -n "Starting isdn4es: "
    modprobe hisax
    echo
    ;;
  stop)
    echo -n "Shutting down isdn4es: "
    modprobe -r hisax
    echo
    ;;
  restart)
    $0 stop
    $0 start
    ;;
  *)
echo "Usage: $0 {start|stop|restart}"
exit 1
esac
 	
exit 0
---------schnapp-----------------------------------
```
  - create links that point to the isdn4es script so the driver gets loaded every time e-smith is started:
```
> ln -s /etc/rc.d/init.d/isdn4es /etc/rc.d/rc0.d/K90isdn4es
> ln -s /etc/rc.d/init.d/isdn4es /etc/rc.d/rc1.d/K90isdn4es
> ln -s /etc/rc.d/init.d/isdn4es /etc/rc.d/rc2.d/S10isdn4es
> ln -s /etc/rc.d/init.d/isdn4es /etc/rc.d/rc3.d/S10isdn4es
> ln -s /etc/rc.d/init.d/isdn4es /etc/rc.d/rc4.d/S10isdn4es
> ln -s /etc/rc.d/init.d/isdn4es /etc/rc.d/rc5.d/S10isdn4es
> ln -s /etc/rc.d/init.d/isdn4es /etc/rc.d/rc6.d/K90isdn4es
> ln -s /etc/rc.d/init.d/isdn4es /etc/rc.d/rc7.d/S10isdn4es
						
```
- Restart the console and run the configuration wizard
  To make sure the wizard script gets reloaded after our modification choose cancel when on the top level of the Control console and choose Configure this server and gateway then.
- ...and finally reboot!
  Why leave all the fun to the w**-guys, hä?

Credits

Cheers to the folks at isdn4linux and also to the e-smith people!

Remark

This document describes how support for passive ISDN cards can be intergated into e-smith making only minor modifications to the original e-smith distribution. The effort for integrating these changes into the distribution itself would not be very high. The people at e-smith think that there are not enough potiential users missing support for passive ISDN cards. They may be right. Letting them or me know that you do have use for this feature and that it means added value for the purpose you use e-smith for might make them change their minds someday. Thank you for reading.

Survey

The guys at e-smith have started a survey on types of internet connections. Please participate in their survey and tell them what kind of internet connection you are using.

Version history

v0.1 2000-07-06 initial release
v0.2 2000-07-20 modification to make isdn4es work with the final version of es4
v0.3 2000-08-30 some minor changes to clarify some misunderstandable passages
v0.4 2000-10-19 minor improvements based on user-feedback, added settings for AVM Fritz! PCI

Here my settings for the cards that I tested:

AVM Fritz!PCI:

AVM A1 ISA (V 3.0):

Teles S0.PCI:

ITK ix1-micro ISA (V2.1)