Topic: e-smith and ISDN

[K. Mueller]

Hi,

being amazed by the distribution itself, I find the feature I miss the most
is ISDN-support. Searching the forum for this keyword only gave me one
result: Someone asking about a particular ISDN-card being supported,
getting the simple answer that ISDN was not supported at all.
Now, for a typical US environment this might make sense - in germany
ISDN is very very widely spread. So, my question is:

Is there a particular reason, why it would not make sense for me to sit
down and tweak e-smith to make it work with ISDN?
I think that the integration of ISDN-support shouldn't be too hard to do.
So I would only like to avoid investing work into this, if there is some
obvious reason not to.

Thanx in advance, K.

BTW: making a different distribution work with a second NIC took
me more time than setting up a complete e-smith

[Joseph Morrison]

Hello,

Thanks for the positive comments about the e-smith server and gateway!

> Is there a particular reason, why it would not make sense for
> me to sit down and tweak e-smith to make it work with ISDN? I
> think that the integration of ISDN-support shouldn't be too
> hard to do. So I would only like to avoid investing work into
> this, if there is some obvious reason not to.

We have had several requests for ISDN support, mostly from Germany. It is something that would make sense for the product, so there is no reason not to explore it.

So far, we have not done it ourselves for two reasons. First, we have very limited resources and are focusing on improving the server functionality (rather than increasing the Internet access options). Second, at least in North America the cost of an ISDN-ethernet router (such as the Ascend Pipeline 50) and an ethernet card is not much more than the cost of an ISDN card - so the need for ISDN support has not been that pressing.

But if you are willing to make ISDN support work, and can tell us how you did it, we will be happy to consider including ISDN support in future versions of e-smith. We are not currently aware of anyone who is taking the lead on this.

Thanks very much for your comments and we look forward to hearing from you.

Best regards,
- Joe Morrison

[Niels van Dijk]

Hi,

If you use an ISDN TA (so external) adding ISDN functionalitiy to your e-smith server is very easy:

- go to /etc/e-smith/templates/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts and change the AT commands in the chat-ppp0 file according to your TA's settings.

Example, using a ASUSCOM TA2000ST:

-----
'ABORT' 'BUSY'
'ABORT' 'ERROR'
'ABORT' 'NO CARRIER'
'ABORT' 'NO DIALTONE'
'ABORT' 'Invalid Login'
'ABORT' 'Login incorrect'
'' 'ATZ0'
'OK' 'ATD{ $DialupPhoneNumber }'
'CONNECT' ''
----
save the file

- choose the dailup server configuration in the control console and choose set your ISP settings and choose the correct serial port. Finally save the configuration and reboot your e-smith server. You should now have ISDN functionality for the gateway.

greetings,
Niels

-----------
Niels van Dijk

Virtual Release
Wageningen, The Netherlands

[David Evans]

I bought a D-Link ISDN router for less than Eur400, set it up using a laptop with the serial connection provided, and used the direct network connection option.

Has worked faultlessly till now

[K. Mueller]

Hi David,

I'm still trying to get an idea about the absolute cost of ISDN
in different countries. Here in Germany the price for an
ISDN-router should also be somewhere around Eur300-500.
But you can get a passive ISDN-PCI-Card for around Eur60.
For a single installation Niels' idea seams best to me (external
ISDN-TA, use like  a modem). But consider 10 installtions
or more...

Joseph said that in North Amarica the price for a  passive
ISDN-card is somewhere around the same level as the price
for an ISDN-route + NIC. So, I wonder: are the differences
in price so big?

Can someone tell me the absolute prices for ISDN in North
America and in other places?

In Germany you pay:

- Eur25/month for the ISDN-connectivity (2 B channels)
- Eur30 for a PCI-NIC (RTL8139-based)
- Eur60 for a passive PCI-ISDN-card
- Eur1.5/hour internet connection

The main difference I know is the fact that you would have flat rates
in most cases in North America, is that right?

Thanx, K.

David Evans wrote:

> I bought a D-Link ISDN router for less than Eur400, set it up
> using a laptop with the serial connection provided, and used
> the direct network connection option.
>
> Has worked faultlessly till now

[K. Mueller]

Hi,

(a late reply, I know)
some months ago I created a document called "How can I make e-smith accept a passive ISDN-Card as
DialOut-Device?". It can be found at http://internet-sicherheit.net/isdn4es-howto.html.

Getting feedback from several users gave me the chance to find potential problems (misunderstandable comments, etc.) Today, I uploaded v0.4 which helps to avoid some more potential problems. In the mean time I think, the documentation seems to be in a pretty useable condition.

Integrating it into the core distribution would not be hard, because the techniques used require only slight modifications to the distribution itself and actually uses all the code that is provided for comfortable modem-dialup (the wizard for selecting the interface and entering your provider's phone number, the dialup policies...). It would make life easier though for those people who wish to use ISDN with internal cards. Looking at the wish list bulletin board makes me think that e-smith would be much more useful if it supported ISDN.

Any comments greatly appreciated, K.