Dialing up the Department from a Linux box

These are directions for getting your Linux box to dial up the Mathematics Department and start up a PPP connection using the slirp program. I've only tested it with a couple of versions of RedHat Linux, but it should work with any other distribution too. If you have any problems with it (e.g., if it makes your machine blow up), please have your heirs let me know:  psh@math.mit.edu

There are two files that you need to dial up the Department and one more to hang up the connection to the department. There are three numbers you can dial to reach the Department's modems: Thus, there are a total of seven scripts here: Two for dialing each of the three numbers, plus one to hang up whichever connection you've made. If you're happy dialing the same number every time, then you only need two dialup files and one hangup file.

Apparently, either of the first two phone numbers above (7179 and 8140) is supposed to automatically transfer the incoming call to an unused line, whereas the third number (6824) is just for one particular line. Thus, in theory, either of those first two numbers should be sufficient. Alas, there have been occasional problems with the phone lines leading to the department, and there have been times when neither of the first two numbers would work but the third one would.

Note: Before you can use these scripts, you need to edit the chat scripts to include your MIT username and password. You will also need to change the command prompt if your command prompt doesn't include the tilde "~" character.

Summary of how to get this all working:

That's pretty much it. If you become root and give the command "mit1-up", it should dial MIT and start up your PPP connection. You can bring down the connection (as root) with the command "mit-down".

If you don't want to have to become root to do this, then either look into the sudo command (so that you can just give the commands "sudo mit1-up" and "sudo mit-down"), or else set the pppd suid to root, which should make this doable by any user of your machine.


The scripts


Email me:  psh@math.mit.edu
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