ISPAuthentication

DialUpCrippled

Status

Introduction

The aim of this spec is to create better support for, xDSL, cable internet connections, etc., that requiring extra programming. Also fixing dial-up support within Ubuntu is a priority.

Rationale

Right now, while Ubuntu works perfectly out of the box for DSL/cable providers where the modems handle the authentication, and all the Ubuntu machine needs to do is DHCP, its support for anything else is limited. Ideally users should always be able to connect to the Internet out of the box; right now, users with dialup or broadband that require PPPoE or any other special authentication are left somewhat out in the cold.

Scope and Use Cases

  • PPPoE -- integrate pppoeconfig or somesuch into d-i, or have a post-install setup tool?

  • bpalogin and other special clients -- Telstra cable, i.e. requires a special client called bpalogin.

  • pppd -- as above

Use case as above: users should always be able to connect to the Internet after install. Possibly in the installer (maybe with a list of broadband providers that selects the appropriate authentication scheme), or in a post-install setup wizard?

Implementation Plan

There are three types of connection, PPPoE, PPPoA and others such as Telstra in Australia. The possible interfaces for the devices are PCI, Ethernet and USB.

The existing tool for Ethernet modems is the curses based pppoeconf, but it does not support USB modems.

For ATM we need a PPPoATM aware PPPd binary. We have one. Decent modems are supported by a kernel driver (speedtch and cxacru are in modern kernels), others by the eciadsl package (which is a huge pain to setup).

There is a list which shows supported and unsupported modems at http://eciadsl.flashtux.org/modems.php

Hardware database should keep a list of modems which are supported and unsupported. It could also collect correct modem settings to be used per country.

KDE has a user friendly DSL/ISDN client called KNet (http://www.kde-apps.org/content/show.php?content=10202). KNet should be packaged and made part of the Kubuntu desktop seed. No comparable user friendly tool is currently available for Gnome. See GnomeDSLFrontend BoF

We need to create a user friendly program with which the user can setup his pppoe, pppoa or other DSL connection. Marco d'Itri has a patch for the pppoeconf package which does most of this. This will require another BoF.

It may be possible to do this within the debian-installer, so that the user can setup the Internet connection during installation. This would mean needing just a user friendly modification interface rather than a full wizard. Part of the support is already in the ppp-udeb package.

Australian DSL supplier Telstra requires a protocol called BPA to keep the modem alive. bpalogin should be moved into main or an updated replacement made.

Data Preservation and Migration

Packages Affected

  • ppp

  • pppoeconf

  • knet

  • bpalogin replacement
  • New GNOME configuration wizard.

User Interface Requirements

Outstanding Issues

All DSL modems require a firmware binary which is probably not distributable.

No free drivers exist for PCI modems.

CategoryUdu CategorySpec

UbuntuDownUnder/BOFs/ISPAuthentication (last edited 2008-08-06 16:35:52 by localhost)