Using the modem

[bigmal]

Hi,

Just been reading the networking documentation on how to use the internal modem to dial out. It says to edit the file "rc.sysinit.tivohack" in the rc.d directory but I can't find that file at all.

I'm running the latest NZ tivo image. Is this file no longer used?

Any help is appreciated.

Cheers, Jeremy.

[petestrash]

I believe the NZ installer is virtually the same as the OzTiVo one, in that case the easyist is to boot the installer CD and set the modem up using the menu options.

Peter.

[catdog]

Which ISP do you intend to use? I have had difficulty in finding a decent isp in NZ which will work (xtra works but too expensive!).

[bigmal]

I was using kwik.net and was having trouble connecting.
I'll play with it a bit more and try a few different ISP's.

[zollymonsta]

Which ISP do you intend to use? I have had difficulty in finding a decent isp in NZ which will work (xtra works but too expensive!).

I used to use my internal modem with paradise.net and it worked perfectly (two tivo's worked flawlessly).

Cheapest plan is: Primary Plan - $10 for 20 hours internet access.

Cheers,
ZollyMonsta

[mpnash]

For info, I originally set up my father's TiVo using internal modem dialing into pl.net (PlaNet) and that all worked first time. I assume PlaNet use simple plain text (login) authentication, as I didn't need to do anything to the default /etc/ppp-options nor /etc/pap-secrets files on the default oztivo 1.6.2 image.

So now a question...

Which ISP do you intend to use? I have had difficulty in finding a decent isp in NZ which will work (xtra works but too expensive!).

Dad recently ditched PlaNet, so I'm now trying to help him change it to use an existing xtra dialup account instead. Explaining how to do this all over the phone is a little tough (explaining vi commands is a lotta fun!), but we thought we'd give it a go...

We set up hyperterm over serial, and I talked him through changing the /etc/tclient line to contain xtra's dial-in number, user, pass. All looked good, so he rebooted and forced a call. This rang but failed with an 'ISP not answering' type message in the TiVo System Info screen.

So I said look at /var/log/tclient and he described entries something like:

Mar 29 21:13:58 (none) comm[150]: Trying to login
Mar 29 21:13:58 (none) comm[150]: Login is complete.
Mar 29 21:13:58 (none) comm[150]: Modem dialcode is 1
Mar 29 21:13:58 (none) comm[150]: CallStatusReporter: Phase: Calling, Status In Progress
Mar 29 21:13:58 (none) comm[150]: CallStatusReporter: sending message "CL|31"
Mar 29 21:13:58 (none) comm[150]: CallStatusReporter: Phase: Start_PPP, Status In Progress
Mar 29 21:13:58 (none) comm[150]: CallStatusReporter: sending message "ST|33"
Mar 29 21:13:58 (none) comm[150]: Going to start pppd.
Mar 29 21:13:58 (none) comm[150]: Pppd:Start: enter
Mar 29 21:13:58 (none) comm[150]: Pppd::Start: fork()ed (pid = 178)
Mar 29 21:13:58 (none) comm[150]: Pppd::Start: storing child pid as 178
Mar 29 21:13:58 (none) comm[150]: Pppd::Start: waiting for PPP - 1
Mar 29 21:13:58 (none) comm[178]: Pppd::Start: fork()ed (pid = 0)
Mar 29 21:13:58 (none) comm[178]: Pppd::Start: spawning pppd 
Mar 29 21:13:58 (none) comm[150]: Pppd::Start: waiting for PPP - 2
Mar 29 21:13:58 (none) comm[150]: Pppd::Start: waiting for PPP - 3
...
Mar 29 21:13:58 (none) comm[150]: Pppd::Start: waiting for PPP - 10

and then some sort of error message, which I guess suggests that it seemed to time out when trying to establish the PPP connection (am I right?). Note, I checked that the xtra dialup account authenticated OK from MSWndows.

So from here, I'm wondering is it as simple as following some of the instructions at:
http://minnie.tuhs.org/twiki/bin/vie...thBuiltinModem
i.e.
(a) editting /etc/ppp-options to change the line:
user oztivo
to
user ISPUSERNAME
(b) changing the default /etc/pap-secrets file to instead contain the line:
ISPUSERNAME * ISPPASS
(c) I assume we do not need to alter the DialPrefix in rc.sysinit since the modem worked before and the call seems to happen...


AND/OR...
Do I also need to talk him through the tivoapp mod (ouch!) at
http://forums.oztivo.net/showthread.php?t=1213
From catdog's comment about xtra above, am I right in thinking that the tivoapp mod is not needed for xtra dialup?

EDIT: the tivoapp mod *is* required for NZ xtra!

I guess we'll try changing the ppp and pap files first and see if that works.

Sorry for this lengthy tome, but any info/advice greatly appreciated.
Martyn.

[mpnash]

Just found relevant issues/help in this thread:
http://forums.oztivo.net/showthread.php?t=1470

I think an older version (around 30Nov2006) of nic_config_tivo may have created a blank ppp-options file. Apparently that has been fixed in recent (2007) versions of nic_config_tivo. 'update -y' at a bash prompt should get it...

[mpnash]

Turns out that the latest version of nic_config_tivo (dated 28 Jan 2007; file size 23754 bytes), also creates a blank /etc/ppp-options file.

If you run into this problem, you can fix it by copying the /etc/ppp-options.orig file and manually adding your ISP dialin username using the following commands at a bash prompt in a telnet session:

cd /etc
rw
cp /etc/ppp-options.orig /etc/ppp-options
echo "user ISP_USER_NAME" >> /etc/ppp-options
ro

...where ISP_USER_NAME is your dialin username for your ISP.

Note that nic_config_tivo correctly updates the /etc/tclient.conf and /etc/pap-secrets files.

[mpnash]

Further to above: the following should fix the nic_config_tivo problem for modem setup (note, Warren may make an update available for
'update_oztivo -y' download):

Edit /sbin/nic_config_tivo and replace line 269:
[i.e.
cat $pppops | sed "s/^user.*/user $username/" > $pppops || \
fatal "Cannot update $pppops"
]

with:
cat $pppops | sed "s/^user.*/user $username/" > $pppops.tmp || \
fatal "Cannot update $pppops"
mv -f $pppops.tmp $pppops


To edit above file you'll need to make the filesystem read-write using:

cd /sbin
rw

...then edit and save /sbin/nic_config_tivo as above. Make sure nic_config_tivo is executable using:

chmod 775 /sbin/nic_config_tivo

then set filesystem back to read-only using:
ro

Then nic_config_tivo should correctly create/update the following 3 files for the modem option:
/etc/tclient.conf
/etc/ppp-options
/etc/pap-secrets


Cheers,
Martyn.

[mpnash]

Just to confirm that a new version of /sbin/nic_config_tivo is now available for download using the bash prompt command:
update_oztivo -y

This fixes (for me) the updating of the /etc/ppp-options file for modems.
Thanks Peter!