[plug] Help! UWA + SNAP + Ubuntu How To?

[Craig Ringer]

On Mon, 2005-05-09 at 13:37 +0800, Matthew PROUSE wrote:
> My lady is an honours student at UWA - and has a dual booting NEC  
> notebook. Windows XP and Ubuntu 5.04. She would like to SNAP connect her  
> GNOME desktop into the UWA system, is this possible?
> 
> UWA has a linux instruction page, but it appears to be out of date. The  
> URL is: http://www.snap.uwa.edu.au/linux_setup_instructions.html

I found the same.

I eventually got it working - it's not that bad but the setup isn't as
simple as it could be and could be better documented too. (Note: just
saw your note about targeting this at the non-technical user. Er...
sorry. Please ask if there are bits you don't get - I've tried to keep
it sensible and I don't have time to go into more detail right now.)

It's possible this is "the hard way". If so, sorry... maybe one of the
UCC gurus can point out the easy way if so. Anway, this is how I got it
all going.

First, get a kernel with mppe support. On Debian, it's usually easiest
to "apt-get install kernel-patch-mppe" then build a kernel the "debian
way" including the " --added-patches mppe " argument to make-kpkg.
Worked for me. I'm not going to cover that in more detail, there's a
fair bit of info on using the debian tools to build kernels on the 'net.
Make sure your kernel includes support for GRE tunnels
(CONFIG_NET_IPGRE) and ppp including MPPE (CONFIG_PPP_MPPE).

On Debian derived distros such as Ubuntu, for SNAP you need to install
the following packages:
	ppp
	pptp-linux
	wireless-tools
	dhcp-client  (or equivalent)
and preferably:
	iproute

"apt-get install $PACKAGE_NAMES" will do nicely.

I recommend the following for general network use and debugging:
	tcpdump
	tethereal
	ethereal
	ethtool
	netcat
	ssh (duh!)
... but they're not necessary to get connected to SNAP.

Now install the file attached to this mail as /etc/ppp/peers/snap,
changing the "username" entry to your SNAP username, and then as root:

# echo "$SNAP_USERNAME	*	$SNAP_PASSWORD" >> /etc/ppp/chap-secrets

That should be the basic setup done. From now on you need to be at a
SNAP location. To confirm SNAP is present at your location:

# iwlist $INTERFACE scan

you should see at least one result with the ESSID "SNAP" returned.

Now, to actually bring up the basic link to SNAP (roughly equivalent to
getting the cable plugged in on a wired network) it should be as simple
as:

# iwconfig $INTERFACE mode Managed essid SNAP key xx-xx-xx-xx-xx

where the key is documented on the appropriate UWA pages. You must use
the hex form.

If you got all that right, the link light on your card should light up.
You now need to get a DHCP lease:

# dhclient $INTERFACE

if all goes well, `ifconfig $INTERFACE' will show an IP address and
you'll be able to ping 130.95.11.2 . If that all works, you need to
bring up the VPN to SNAP. With the peers file I provided installed you
should just be able to:

# pon snap

and it should come up fine. You should now be able to browse the 'net
etc. Well, it works for me anyway :-)

I haven't yet figured out how to build an /etc/network/interfaces entry
that does the bring-up work for me, largely because I haven't tried yet.
Hopefully it's not too hard.

> I am certain someone here is running Ubuntu and has snapped into the UWA  
> network. How do you do it?

I'm using a massively cut-down Sarge on an ancient laptop, but its much
the same deal.

> Please remember that I am not a UWA student, and am unlikely to do the  
> setp myself, so please target your responses at a non-technical user.

Er... well, hope this helps, though it's probably not in the detail
you're after.

-- 
Craig Ringer
-------------- next part --------------
noauth
noipx
proxyarp
require-mppe-128
lcp-echo-interval 30
lcp-echo-failure 4
name ringec01
remotename snap
updetach
defaultroute
replacedefaultroute
pty "pptp 130.95.11.2 --nolaunchpppd"