1 <chapter id="global-settings">
2 <title>Global &kppp; settings</title>
4 <para>The changes made here affect all accounts you have set up in &kppp;</para>
6 <sect1 id="global-accounts">
7 <title>The <guilabel>Accounts</guilabel> tab</title>
10 <screeninfo>The <guilabel>Accounts</guilabel> tab</screeninfo>
13 <imagedata fileref="kppp-config.png" format="PNG"/>
16 <phrase>The <guilabel>Accounts</guilabel> tab</phrase>
18 <caption><para>The <guilabel>Accounts</guilabel> tab</para>
23 <para>In this dialog, you can manage the accounts themselves. The names of the
24 accounts appear in a list on the left of the dialog.</para>
26 <para>To delete an account, select the <guibutton>Delete</guibutton> button.
27 You will be asked to confirm before the account is finally deleted.</para>
29 <para>You can make a copy of an account with the <guibutton>Copy</guibutton>
30 button. You could use this for example, to separate different users in the
31 family, although that would normally be better done by having them be different
32 users in the OS as well! Or perhaps you just have more than one account with
33 the same <acronym>ISP</acronym> and wish to use both of them.</para>
35 <para>Choosing <guibutton>Edit...</guibutton> will take you to the dialog
36 described in <link linkend="dialog-setup">Dialog Setup</link>, but with the
37 selected accounts details.</para>
39 <para>Choosing <guibutton>New...</guibutton> will offer you the choice between
40 the <link linkend="wizard">Wizard</link> or the <link
41 linkend="dialog-setup">Dialog Setup</link> already described.</para>
43 <para>If you select an account, and you have turned on <link
44 linkend="account-accounting">accounting</link> then the accumulated information
45 for that account will appear in the two panels labelled <guilabel>Phone
46 Costs:</guilabel> and <guilabel>Volume:</guilabel> respectively.</para>
48 <para>To the left of the accounting display, are two buttons:
49 <guibutton>Reset...</guibutton> and <guibutton>View Logs</guibutton>.</para>
51 <para>Pressing <guibutton>Reset...</guibutton> will reset the <guilabel>Phone
52 Costs:</guilabel> and <guilabel>Volume:</guilabel> information to 0. You would
53 typically want to do this once a month or quarter, when you have received your
54 phone bill and reconciled the telephone costs. You can reset either
55 independently, and are offered the choice of which item you want to reset, when
56 you press the <guibutton>Reset</guibutton> button.</para>
58 <para>Pressing <guibutton>View Logs</guibutton> will open another window, where
59 a log of all the calls made with &kppp; will be displayed. If you have kept
60 logs, you can move forward and backward, in monthly steps. This might be useful
61 if you have received an abnormally large phone bill and are investigating
66 <sect1 id="global-device">
67 <title>The <guilabel>Device</guilabel> tab</title>
70 <screeninfo>The <guilabel>Device</guilabel> tab</screeninfo>
73 <imagedata fileref="kppp-device-tab.png" format="PNG"/>
76 <phrase>The <guilabel>Device</guilabel> tab</phrase>
78 <caption><para>The <guilabel>Device</guilabel> tab</para>
83 <para>Here you can select and configure your modem.</para>
87 <term><guilabel>Modem Device</guilabel></term>
89 <para>Choose the device appropriate for your hardware.</para>
92 <term><filename>/dev/ttys0</filename></term>
94 <para>DOS or &Windows; users will know this as COM1, while COM2 is
95 <filename>/dev/ttys1</filename> and so on. These devices are
96 the ones normally used on &Linux; systems.</para>
100 <term><filename>/dev/cua0</filename></term>
102 <para>The first serial line (COM1). COM2 is usually
103 <filename>/dev/cua1</filename> and so on. These devices are commonly used on
104 BSD systems, namely FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD. Older &Linux; systems may also
105 have these, although on &Linux; they were renamed some time ago to <filename>/dev/ttyS<replaceable>x</replaceable></filename>.</para>
109 <term><filename>/dev/ttyI0</filename></term>
111 <para>On &Linux; these belong to internal <acronym>ISDN</acronym> cards. These
112 devices emulate a common Hayes compatible modem.
113 <filename>/dev/ttyI0</filename> is for the first,
114 <filename>/dev/ttyI1</filename> is for the second
115 <acronym>ISDN</acronym> card and so on. These devices are only available in the
116 &Linux; version.</para>
120 <term><filename class="symlink">/dev/modem</filename></term>
122 <para>Many &Linux; distributions make a symbolic link from the real modem device
123 to <filename class="symlink">/dev/modem</filename>. <emphasis>You should avoid
124 using this one.</emphasis>. Use the real device that it is pointing to
132 <term><guilabel>Flow Control</guilabel></term>
134 <para>Select from Hardware (CRTSCTS), Software (XON/XOFF) and no flow control.
135 The recommended setting is Hardware flow control.</para>
139 <term><guilabel>Line Termination</guilabel></term>
141 <para>Choose the correct <quote>Enter</quote> character sequence for your
142 modem. Most modems will use <quote>CR/LF</quote>, however some modems need a
143 different setting. If you experience trouble while running a login script, play
144 with this parameter.</para>
148 <term><guilabel>Connection Speed</guilabel></term>
149 <listitem><para>Choose from the list of connection speeds supported by your
150 serial port. Note that the serial port supports much higher speeds than your
151 modem in most cases. You should probably start with the highest number
152 available, and only reduce it if you have connection problems.
156 <term id="lock-files"><guilabel>Use Lock File</guilabel></term>
158 <para>Activate this option if you want &kppp; to create a lockfile. Under
159 &Linux; the folder for such a file will be <filename
160 class="directory">/var/lock</filename>. Programs such as
161 <application>mgetty</application> depend on the existence of such lock files,
162 and &kppp; will not work with <application>mgetty</application> if the lock file
163 is not set. Make sure that you don't use the option <option>lock</option> for
164 <application>pppd</application> if you want &kppp; to lock the modem, since the
165 <application>pppd</application> option <option>lock</option> will induce
166 <application>pppd</application> to try to lock the modem device. Since &kppp;
167 will have already locked the device, <application>pppd</application> will fail,
168 and &kppp; will display the error <errorname>pppd died
169 unexpectedly</errorname>.</para>
173 <term><guilabel>Modem Timeout</guilabel></term>
175 <para>This is the time in seconds that &kppp; will wait for the
176 <returnvalue>CONNECT</returnvalue> response from your modem. A setting of about
177 30 seconds should be sufficient for most purposes.</para>
184 <sect1 id="global-modem">
185 <title>The <guilabel>Modem</guilabel> tab</title>
188 <screeninfo>The <guilabel>Modem</guilabel> tab</screeninfo>
191 <imagedata fileref="kppp-modem-tab.png" format="PNG"/>
194 <phrase>The <guilabel>Modem</guilabel> tab</phrase>
196 <caption><para>The <guilabel>Modem</guilabel> tab</para>
203 <term><guilabel>Busy Wait</guilabel></term>
205 <para>This is the length of time the modem should wait before redialing, after
206 it has received a busy signal. Note there are requirements by telecom providers
207 in some countries, which ask you to not set this too low.
212 <term><guilabel>Modem volume</guilabel></term>
214 <para>Use the slider to set the modem volume. Left is low volume, center is
215 medium volume, and right is high volume. On some modems, low volume is the same
216 as turning the volume off, and on other modems, medium and high are effectively
217 the same thing.</para>
220 <varlistentry id="modem-commands">
221 <term><guibutton>Modem Commands</guibutton></term>
223 <para>In this dialog you can fill in any particular commands appropriate for
224 your modem. If you own a Hayes compatible modem, you most likely won't need to
225 change any of the defaults, but you are encouraged to read the <link
226 linkend="appendix-hayes-commands">Hayes Commands</link> Appendix in this help file. The
227 information supplied there can be very helpful in cases where you experience
228 trouble setting up a stable connection with your <acronym>ISP</acronym>'s
229 modems. In particular the two settings for <guilabel>Pre-Init Delay</guilabel>
230 and for <guilabel>Post-Init Delay</guilabel> if you are experiencing modem
231 lockups. These settings make &kppp; pause a little just before and just after
232 sending the initialization string to your modem. The <guilabel>Pre-Init
233 Delay</guilabel> will by default also send a CR, unless you have set it the
234 delay interval to 0.</para>
238 <term><guibutton>Query Modem</guibutton></term>
240 <para>Pushing this button will make &kppp; ask your modem to identify itself.
241 On success, your modems response will be displayed in a dialog. This may or may
242 not prove to be informative, depending on your modem.</para>
246 <term><guibutton>Terminal</guibutton></term>
248 <para>Pushing the <guibutton>Terminal</guibutton> button will bring up a mini
249 terminal. You can use the mini terminal to test your modem and to experiment
250 with the negotiation protocol for initializing a ppp connection with your
251 <acronym>ISP</acronym>. You no longer need a terminal program such as
252 <application>minicom</application> or <application>Seyon</application>.</para>
259 <sect1 id="global-graph">
260 <title>The <guilabel>Graph</guilabel> tab</title>
263 <screeninfo>The <guilabel>Graph</guilabel> tab</screeninfo>
266 <imagedata fileref="kppp-graph-tab.png" format="PNG"/>
269 <phrase>The <guilabel>Graph</guilabel> tab</phrase>
271 <caption><para>The <guilabel>graph</guilabel> tab</para>
276 <para>Here you can set the colors used by the &kppp; graph. You can set
277 different colors for <guilabel>Background color</guilabel>, <guilabel>Text
278 color</guilabel>, <guilabel>Input bytes color</guilabel> and <guilabel>Output
279 bytes color</guilabel>.</para>
283 <sect1 id="global-misc">
284 <title>The <guilabel>Misc</guilabel> tab</title>
287 <screeninfo>The <guilabel>Misc.</guilabel> tab</screeninfo>
290 <imagedata fileref="kppp-misc-tab.png" format="PNG"/>
293 <phrase>The <guilabel>Misc.</guilabel> tab</phrase>
295 <caption><para>The <guilabel>Misc.</guilabel> tab</para>
300 <para>Here are some options that don't really fit in with other sections, but
301 can be very useful nonetheless.</para>
305 <term><guilabel>pppd Version</guilabel></term>
307 <para>The version number of the pppd daemon on your system.</para>
311 <term><guilabel>pppd Timeout</guilabel></term>
313 <para>&kppp; will wait this amount of time after running the script and starting
314 <application>pppd</application> for <application>pppd</application> to establish
315 a valid <acronym>ppp</acronym> link before giving up and killing
316 <application>pppd</application></para>
320 <term><guilabel>Dock into Panel on Connect</guilabel></term>
323 <para>If this option is chosen, &kppp; will dock into the panel where it will be
324 symbolized by a small animated icon. Use the <mousebutton>left</mousebutton>
325 mouse button on this icon to restore &kppp;'s window. The
326 <mousebutton>right</mousebutton> mouse button will open a popup menu that offers
327 to restore the window, show transfer statistics, or close the connection. This
328 option overrides <guilabel>Minimize Window on Connect</guilabel>.</para>
333 <term><guilabel>Automatic Redial on Disconnect</guilabel></term>
335 <para>Selectintg this will have &kppp; try to reconnect if you are
340 <term><guilabel>Show Clock on Caption</guilabel></term>
342 <para>This will have &kppp; display the time connected on the caption of the
343 &kppp; window, while you are online.</para>
347 <term><guilabel>Disconnect on X-server shutdown</guilabel></term>
349 <para>Checking this will cause &kppp; to terminate the <acronym>ppp</acronym>
350 link, disconnect the modem, and terminate accounting in an orderly fashion, when
351 the X-server shuts down. This is useful if you are prone to forgetting you are
352 online, when you shut down the X-server, or if you simply don't want to worry
353 about manually disconnecting your session. If you don't want &kppp; to hang up
354 the modem on X-server exit, you should leave this checkbox empty. Beware that
355 if you have accounting enabled, and you leave this option turned off, you will
356 have an unterminated accounting entry in your logs, from each time the X-server
357 exits and &kppp; terminates.</para>
361 <term><guilabel>Quit on Disconnect</guilabel></term>
363 <para>If enabled, &kppp; will exit when you disconnect from the internet. If disabled, &kppp; will stay open after disconnection.</para>
367 <term><guilabel>Minimize Window on Connect</guilabel></term>
369 <para>If this option is chosen, &kppp; will be minimized after a connection is
370 established. The elapsed connection time will be shown in the taskbar.</para>
377 <sect1 id="global-about">
378 <title>The <guilabel>About</guilabel> tab</title>
380 <para>The <guilabel>About</guilabel> tab shows version, license, and author
381 information about &kppp;.</para>