Linux Networking Clearly Explained - lions-wing.net

CHAPTER 1 • CREATING A DIAL-UP INTERNET CONNECTION 35
To change the permissions on pppd, you have to log in as
the superuser or root user. If you are using your ordinary
user account, log in as superuser by doing the following:
open a terminal window, type su and press Enter, and type
your password and press Enter. Now type chmod u+s
/usr/sbin/pppd and press Enter.
Testing Your Modem with a Communications Program
Still not working? Let us watch the modem in action and
make sure it is functioning correctly. To do so, you can
use a communications program such as minicom, which is
included with most Linux distributions. A communications
program enables your computer to connect to non-
Internet dial-up services, such as bulletin board systems
(BBS). Here, you will use minicom just to see whether
your modem will respond to minicom, get a dial tone, and
connect successfully. If it does, it is a good bet that the
problem lies in the information you have supplied to
KPPP; chances are you made a typing mistake, or your ISP
gave you the wrong information.
To run minicom, do the following:
1. Open a terminal window, and see whether
minicom is installed on your system. To do so, type
whereis minicom and press Enter. If it is installed
in /usr/bin, you can start the program by typing
minicom and pressing Enter.
The program immediately attempts to access your
modem. If all goes well, you will see the characters
AT followed by an initialization string (commands
that configure the modem), followed by the
modem’s OK response. If you do not see OK, you