Setting up Dial-up connection in Ubuntu

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Dial-up access is a form of Internet access through which the client uses a modem connected to a computer and a telephone line to dial into an Internet service provider's (ISP) node to establish a modem-to-modem link, which is then routed to the Internet.

Most ISPs provide dial-up connections supporting PPP because it is a fast and efficient protocol for using TCP/IP over serial lines. PPP is designed for two-way networking; TCP/IP provides the transport protocol for data.

PPP (Point to Point Protocol) uses several components on your system. The first is a daemon called pppd, which controls the use of PPP. The second is a driver called the high-level data link control (HDLC), which controls the flow of information between two machines. A third component of PPP is a routine called chat that dials the other end of the connection for you when you want it to.

Configuring a Dial-Up Connection in Ubuntu

Ubuntu includes some useful utilities to get your dial-up connection up and running.Here is the following ways you can connect to your dialup connection

1)Using your networking option in Ubuntu

2)using gnome-ppp

3)using kppp (For Kubuntu)

4)using wvdialconf & wvdial

5)using pppconfig & pon/poff

first thing you need to make sure your modem drivers are installed or not.If you want more details about modem drivers in ubuntu and installation check here

Now we will see 3 ways how to configure dialup connection in ubuntu

Before Starting

Before configuring Dial-up connection you need to have the following information from your ISP

1)Username

2)Password

3)Dail-in number

Configuring a Dial-Up Connection using Networking option

you can go to System—>Administration —>Networking


Once it open the application you should see the following screen

In the above screen select modem connection option and click on properties you should see the following screen

The first thing you will need to do is to enable the connection by ticking the Enable this connection box,now you need enter your ISP's phone number as well as your username and password

Next, click on the modem tab to specify details about your modem and also configure the speaker volume. Most telephone systems use tone dialling nowadays, so make sure this is selected . I have selected the speaker volume on medium.

Now you need to click on options tab If you are using a laptop, then you will probably want to uncheck Set modem as default route to the Internet whilst you are on a LAN, otherwise you may struggle to see anything! Tick it when you are expecting to use your dial-up connection though, and Ubuntu will use this connection to get out onto the Internet.You need to select other two options checked.

Now You can use the Gnome Modem Monitor and Network Monitor panel if you want to stop, start and monitor modem connections.

Configuring a Dial-Up Connection using pppconfig

configure a connection using pppconfig, a command line utility to help you to configure specific dial-up connection settings.This is a command line based option to manage dialup connections.

Open a terminal from Applications > System Tools > Terminal and type

sudo pppconfig

Now you should see the following screen here you need to select "Create Create a connection" select ok and press enter

Here you need to enter provider name and you can leave default one and in this example i am giving "comcast" select ok and press enter

Next screen you need to select "Dynamic Use dynamic DNS" select ok and press enter

You need to select Authentication method here i am selecting "chat :Use chat for login/password :Authentication" select ok and press enter

Select login prompt option leave default select ok and press enter

Select password prompt option leave default select ok and press enter

Enter the username given to you by your ISP in this example i am using "ruchiw" select ok and press enter

Enter the password given to you by your ISP in this example i am using "myfirstpassword" select ok and press enter

Enter the modem speed as "115200" select ok and press enter

Select method of dialing as "Tone" select ok and press enter

Enter the number to dial select ok and press enter

Choose your modem configuration method if you want to detect your modem automatically select yes otherwise select no in this example i am selecting no select ok and press enter

Select the modem port and i leave the default option select ok and press enter

Here is the complete details you have choosen for your provider connection in this example comcast

Finished the connection settings select ok and press enter

Select "Quit Exit this utility"

Exit the terminal window using the following command

exit

Connecting to your ISP

Before you connect for the first time you need to add yourself to both the dip and dialout groups by using the commands

sudo adduser YOURNAMEHERE dip

sudo adduser YOURNAMEHERE dialout

# connect to the ISP configured as "comcast"

pon comcast

# disconnect the ISP configured as "comcast"

poff comcast

If you are trying to connect as default "provider" you need to use the following commands to connect and disconnect

pon

poff

You can check the last messages generated by these commands with

# shows the (status) messages generated by pon and poff

plog

Configuring a Dial-Up Connection using gnome-ppp

GNOME PPP is an easy to use graphical dialup connection configuring and dialing tool with system tray icon support.It uses GNOME/GTK+ for its graphical interface and integrates well in GNOME desktop environment, but it can be used in other environments.

It also uses WvDial dialer as its backend, providing simple configuration via config files. You can also use plain wvdial if you don't have X running.

Install gnome-ppp Ubuntu

sudo apt-get install gnome-ppp

This will complete the installation.

If you want to open the application go to Application--->Internet--->GNOME PPP

Once application opens you should see the following screen

In the above screen you need to click on setup to configure your settings you should see the following screen configre the modem settings

Next click on networking tab to configure network settings

Next click on options tab to configure general options

Once you have all the details enter the details you can see the following screen

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112 Responses

  1. Peter says:

    Thanks for a great page!

    I’ve already set up the modem using the network option in Ubuntu 6.06lts and it does dial out. It is a Lucent Winmodem. However, Firefox still comes up with a blank page – seems that it can’t tie itself in to the modem. I searched and found a log that showed that the connection timed out. Is there a setting I am missing out on?

  2. Richard Ayres says:

    Found article extremely helpful until I reached gnome-ppp. I am installing an external modem to an older pentium running Breezy Badger which incidently is the version that has caused me the least number of headaches. Dapper refuses to install, merely locking up at the installing hardware drivers stage without any explanation ( presume insufficient RAM).
    All was fine until the section on gnome-ppp. There is no such section under applications>internet so Iam at a loss as to how to proceed. as with the previous response Firefox seems to be ignorant of the sertup and displays the default ubuntu page. HELP!!!

  3. Anurag says:

    Hi,

    I am trying to help my parents to connect using step 1. They are in India and I am in US, so I could guide them using phone only. I instructed them using the step 1, but the modem connection doesn’t activate and dial at all.

    To check the modem, I asked them to use wvdial and the output showed that no modem was found at /dev/modem. I asked them to wvdialconf and I guess it tried to search modem and said it didn’t find the modem or it was busy. They cannot install anything else since they do not have internet. Any guidance would be extremely helpful.

    Regards
    Anurag

  4. Jose says:

    Hi, Im testing Feisty Fawn, I got dial up access but after setting up the connection (configuring my ISP using PPPconfig) I get connected but I can´t surf the net (there is no data transfer, anyone got any suggestion to solve this issue? thanks!

  5. I installed Ubuntu 6.01 on my Dell inspiron 4150 laptop with a PCMCIA 56k external modem in ttyS3.
    It worked ok on Fedora 3 which recognized the port and modem with “Kudzu” at installation time, and thereafter when I completed the configuration.

    Ubuntu cannot seem to do this. Either that, or I do not know how to configure the dial-up option from the graphic setup under Systems>Administration>Networking>Network Settings>Modem Connection.

    Ethernet connection using DHCP works just fine under eth0. It is ppp0 that I can’t get started under Ubuntu 6.10

    John

  6. John F. Kohler says:

    I just re-installed Fedora 3 to see if the hardware had gone bad. I put in a 33.6 kbps pcmcia modem, and the “Kudzu” software at installation recognized it in the ttyS3 slot. When Fedora 3 started, I configured the software for the dial-up modem and it worked ok, but slower than the 56k pcmcia modem I had earlier.

    I am sure it is not the hardware. Something in Ubuntu 6.10 does not recognize the port, modem, or something.
    A strange things on 6.10 when I configure the modem under the graphic windows System>Administration-networking… The entered items, i.e. phone number don’t stay. The next access to the dialog box, they’re gone.

    Incidentally The failure is not unique to Ubuntu 6.10 alone. It also happens on Fedora 4, 5, 6, and I’ll bet 7 when it comes out.

    John

  7. Amith Sebastian says:

    i was trying to set up my GPRS connection using Gnome. By mistake i changed the init string which came by default with the GnomePPP software. This i replaced with the init string which i got from the ISP. But this is not working. Is there any way i can get back the string which comes as default in the Gnome PPP software

  8. Rudi says:

    my modem was installed in device manager but not configured or not detected in internet configurations, so I can’t establish an internet connection…is there any solutions?please help me…

  9. Gethyn says:

    For those having problems, http://linmodems.technion.ac.il/#scanModem might give you some help getting your modem up and running from a hardware point of view.

    Once that’s done, one problem I’ve found in Ubuntu is that if you have also have an ethernet card, the default route to the internet is not changed to use the modem upon establishment of a dialup connection. The symptoms of this are: the connection is established okay according to kppp or wvdial or whatever you use, but trying to access external sites (e.g. through Firefox) just gets stuck at the “Looking up somesite.com” stage. To fix the problem, you can use the command ‘sudo route add default ppp0’ after your dialup connection has started. I believe it’s also possible to fix this by editing the file /etc/ppp/peers/ (where is the name you gave to the dialup connection when you were setting it up) to include the options ‘defaultroute’ and ‘replacedefaultroute’, but I haven’t yet been able to test this.

  10. Lord Angel says:

    Hello, thanks for the article but I have a question for using win modems under ubuntu, I went to linxmodem website and I installed the driver necessary for my modem to work but when I finished installing the driver the modem will try to dial but will come back with error ( can’t recognize the dial tone ) what causes this and is there a way to fix it ?

  11. John Holmgren says:

    Got everything configured OK, I think, as “sonic”. But when I did “pon sonic” nothing happened and “plog” revealed:

    Sep 13 20:02:18 JHT40UUU pppd[31488]: pppd 2.4.4 started by john, uid 1000
    Sep 13 20:02:19 JHT40UUU chat[31490]: Can’t get terminal parameters: Input/output error
    Sep 13 20:02:19 JHT40UUU pppd[31488]: Connect script failed
    Sep 13 20:02:20 JHT40UUU pppd[31488]: Exit.

    I also tried the pulldown “Gnome ppp” and got this error message:

    “Cannot open modem”

    and the log revealed:

    –> Ignoring malformed input line: “;Do NOT edit this file by hand!”
    –> WvDial: Internet dialer version 1.56
    –> Cannot open /dev/modem: No such file or directory
    –> Cannot open /dev/modem: No such file or directory
    –> Cannot open /dev/modem: No such file or directory

    I’m baffled.

    JH

  12. Rajib says:

    Hi,
    i have try to add USB modem for internet conectivity which actually uses PPPo connetion. Now when i try to download packages from synaptic package manager it successfully downloading. But when i try to browse through browser it is not able to do it. I try to add network properties. I need to put IPS’s phone number, username and password. I try to put phone number “#777” but it is not acceptable. So how do i need to configure network option?

  13. Steven Roberts says:

    Very helpful. Thanks.

  14. ismail says:

    thanks, I’ll give it a try

  15. Ankit says:

    hey its great..very helpful…thx a lot

  16. Mike says:

    I’m trying like hell to get a dial up connection going under Ubuntu 9.10 but I cannot get the account to authenticate. I’ve tried it on two different accounts and nether will authenticate. I know the UN and PW are correct I’ve tried Gppp and Kppp without success. It dials out perfectly. I’m using an external USR V.92 and I also have an internal one that dials up as well. So, it’s not my hardware.

    Geesss man this should be simple. I can get the wireless network stuff to work, but not simple dial up.

    I’m trying to get away from Microsoft because I’ve been attacked so often by viruses and malware, but I’ve just turned from one set of problems to another.

  17. midi says:

    hey.., what a great complete article !!

    thx a ton for it

    i’ll give it a try

  18. roman says:

    Hi I need help for ubuntu7.1 and reliance datacard ec325.
    I had net but suddenly he has cuted. it seems permissions problem in wvdial. exit code=16, a modem hung up the phone. Anyone can help me with wvdial, ppp config, or anything else. My pppconfig doesn’t work too, … disconnected.

  19. Jeffrey says:

    My 2009 ubuntu version is not even close to the one pictured, after administration nothing is the same.

  20. PHLAKcede says:

    Worked perfectly with my ubuntu 5, using an 33.3 ISA internal modem.
    The illustrations and instructions were VERY helpful.
    Nice job!

    Thank you.

  21. chinthaka says:

    i want to know how can make broadband connection

  22. I have probably been looking around online for like the last 20 minutes for a site like yours. So i just want to give you a big thank you and tell you too keep up the hard work. Have a great weeken! =) Thank you!

  23. Indian says:

    i could not even find the networking option in ADMINISTRATION>NETWORKING, i could only find this
    ADMINISTRATION>NETWORK TOOLS….please help….IF you can answer, mail me to [email protected]

  24. jasir says:

    i’ve got a BSNL WLL Huwawei 2288 (India)
    i’ve got ubuntu 9.04

    any idea how to connect to the net using this?
    pls let me know

  25. Jim says:

    I thought this would solve my problems but once I arrive at the terminal command line section nothing is the same and nothing works. Im useing 7.10 and I mbeginning to think it belongs at the bottom of the sea with all the lawyers

  26. mike says:

    i m using fedora 9 and i want dial up connection through my GPRS enabled phone.. so kindly help me..

  27. NavTux says:

    > Ignoring malformed input line: “;Do NOT edit this file by hand!”
    –> WvDial: Internet dialer version 1.60
    –> Cannot open /dev/modem: No such file or directory
    –> Cannot open /dev/modem: No such file or directory
    –> Cannot open /dev/modem: No such file or directory

    I ve configure gppp for my bsnl nic card
    it shows this error

    what is the solution

  28. rasal says:

    i Got everything configured OK, I think, as “provider”. But when I did “pon” nothing happened and “plog” revealed:

    Sep 13 20:02:18 JHT40UUU pppd[31488]: pppd 2.4.4 started by john, uid 1000
    Sep 13 20:02:19 JHT40UUU chat[31490]: Can’t get terminal parameters: Input/output error
    Sep 13 20:02:19 JHT40UUU pppd[31488]: Connect script failed
    Sep 13 20:02:20 JHT40UUU pppd[31488]: Exit.

  29. ravibabu says:

    i’m using ubuntu 9.04. i can’t able to connect my reliance dail up modem. how to detect it first and how to connect it? please mail me

  30. Kasim says:

    I have ubuntu 9.04. I am using bsnl gprs dial up connection. I can make connection. But i can not browse or download. Firefox is looking for website…. Plz help immediatelx. Itz very urgent

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