sudo apt-get install seahorse-plugins

After installing the package, go to System -> Preferences -> Encryption and Keyrings, select a default key to use and decide whether you want to include your own key by default when encrypting files. This is sometimes a good idea if you ever want to open a file you encrypted to someone else. Below are some screenshots of the Seahorse preferences.

Here are some screen shots of the context menu options that appear when you right click on files in Nautilus.

When you choose to encrypt a file, you can select as many public keys as you’d like. Here’s an example of the dialogue.

Using PGP has never been easier. There are still some improvements to the UI I would like to see completed, but overall the most important features are there.

Related posts:

1. Nautilus File Selection
2. Perform GnuPG Functions Within Vim
3. Symmetric Key Encryption with GnuPG

To read existing EXIF tag data, simply run jhead against an image without any options. As you can see from the example below, my date is set to the year 2022.

jhead image.jpg
File name : image.jpg
File size : 159390 bytes
File date : 2004:01:12 07:35:23
Camera make : Samsung
Camera model : Digimax 200
Date/Time : 2022:02:12 04:04:17
Resolution : 800 x 600
Flash used : Yes
Exposure time: 0.045 s (1/22)
Aperture : f/2.8

To clear all EXIF data from the file, use the -de option. Then recreate the EXIF fields with the -mkexif option, and check the data again. Notice the new Date/Time is set to the timestamp on the file.

jhead -de image.jpg
Modified: image.jpg

jhead -mkexif image.jpg
Modified: image.jpg

jhead image.jpg
File name : image.jpg
File size : 147751 bytes
File date : 2004:01:12 07:35:23
Date/Time : 2004:01:12 07:35:23
Resolution : 800 x 600

To change the entire timestamp manually, use the -ts option. Notice, there is no space between the -ts and the option. I could not trust the month and day, so I simply chaged the date to midnight on January 1, 2003.

jhead -ts2003:01:01-00:00:00 image.jpg
Modified: image.jpg

jhead image.jpg
File name : image.jpg
File size : 147751 bytes
File date : 2004:01:12 07:35:23
Date/Time : 2003:01:01 00:00:00
Resolution : 800 x 600

For many more options, check out the man page or visit the jhead site for more info.

Related posts:

1. Quickly Identify Video File Attributes
2. Console Framebuffer in Ubuntu
3. Resize and Watermark Images in Linux

First, from a computer with all the applications preinstalled, retrieve your installed package list and redirect the output to a file called packages.txt.  Save this package list somewhere so that you can use it for the restore process.

sudo dpkg --get-selections > packages.txt

To restore all the applications from your list, you must follow a three step process very carefully.

sudo dpkg --clear-selections
sudo dpkg --set-selections < packages.txt
sudo aptitude install

You will be prompted to install all the new applications in the list.

Another example of what this process allows you to do is create a baseline of all the applications after a clean installation of Ubuntu.  Let’s say you would like to remove any applications installed since the clean install, perform the exact same process, and any package not defined in that list will be removed.

sudo dpkg --get-selections > clean-install-package-list.txt
sudo dpkg --clear-selections
sudo dpkg --set-selections < clean-install-package-list.txt
sudo aptitude install

The very first command of “–clear-selections” marks all currently installed packages to the state “deinstall”.  When you restore the list of applications using “–set-selections”, only packages ommited from the list will remain in the “deinstall” state.  Aptitude will honor the deinstall state and remove the extra packages, leaving you only with packages from the list. Most excellent. :-)

Related posts:

1. Useful APT Aliases
2. Ubuntu Studio
3. Oracle Database 10g XE on Ubuntu

In the following example, we will set up a very simple firewall adequate for almost anyone.

First, let’s check the status of UFW, and the currently installed iptables rule set. The following displays that UFW is disabled and that there are no rules for iptables INPUT chain.

Check firewall status

sudo ufw status
Firewall not loaded

sudo iptables -L INPUT -n | column -t
Chain             INPUT  (policy  DROP)
target            prot   opt      source     destination

Enable UFW

Now, let’s enable UFW and examine the change to iptables’ INPUT chain.

sudo ufw enable
Firewall started and enabled on system startup

sudo iptables -L INPUT -n | column -t
Chain             INPUT  (policy  DROP)
target            prot   opt      source     destination
ufw-before-input  all    --       0.0.0.0/0  0.0.0.0/0
ufw-after-input   all    --       0.0.0.0/0  0.0.0.0/0

The default policy was changed to drop all traffic, and two new chains are referenced. For a much better understanding of what the default rules are, take a look at the files “/etc/ufw/before.rules” and “/etc/ufw/after.rules“.

Connection Tracking

For your convenience, UFW also enables some very useful connection tracking rules, which intelligently inspect outbound application traffic and dynamically allows the return traffic for you. By default, TCP, UDP, FTP and IRC connection tracking modules are loaded, but others may be added to the IPT_MODULES variable in the file “/etc/default/ufw“.

For example, I sometimes need to use TFTP for sending and receiving firmware to and from routers. So I typically add “nf_conntrack_tftp” to the variable IPT_MODULES.

IPT_MODULES="nf_conntrack_ftp nf_nat_ftp nf_conntrack_irc nf_nat_irc nf_conntrack_tftp"

Remember to reload UFW so that the conntrack module is loaded.

sudo /etc/init.d/ufw restart

Allowing inbound services

If your system runs server applications such as DNS, SSH, TFTP and web, then you can add them to your firewall rules using these very simple commands. If you don’t run servers on your machine, this step can be skipped.

sudo ufw allow 53
sudo ufw allow 22/tcp
sudo ufw allow 69/udp
sudo ufw allow 80/tcp

Notice that the first command I used did not specify UDP or TCP. When omitted, UFW adds both protocols. DNS uses TCP for larger DNS exchanges like zone transfers and huge replies, so you’ll probably want both.

UFW displays the results very nicely.

sudo ufw status
Firewall loaded

To                         Action  From
--                         ------  ----
53:tcp                     ALLOW   Anywhere
53:udp                     ALLOW   Anywhere
22:tcp                     ALLOW   Anywhere
69:udp                     ALLOW   Anywhere
80:tcp                     ALLOW   Anywhere

SYN cookies and more

UFW can be used to load kernel options, too. These are defined in “/etc/ufw/sysctl.conf“. For example, I wanted to enable SYN cookies which was added to thwart certain TCP DoS attacks. Modify the following line to 1 in order to enable the feature.

net/ipv4/tcp_syncookies=1

Logging can suck

Okay, if you’re on a busy network and don’t want to fill up your syslog, you might want to disable UFW’s logging.

sudo ufw logging off

And really that’s all there is to it. Be sure to check out the man page for some more examples and features you may be interested in.

Related posts:

1. fwknop: Single Packet Authorization in Ubuntu
2. VLAN Hopping on Cisco Voice-enabled Switch Ports

At the time of this writing, there was no Ubuntu/Debian package, but compiling the game is a snap.

To get the latest version, please visit the Word War Vi site and download the source code.

Install Prerequisites and Dependencies

sudo apt-get install build-essential gnome-core-devel portaudio19-dev libvorbis-dev

Extract, Compile and Install
Replace x.xx in the file name with the current version number of the file downloaded. It shouldn’t need to be mentioned, but just in case. :-)

tar zxfv wordwarvi-x.xx.tar.gz
cd wordwarvi*
make && sudo make install

Execute and Have fun

wordwarvi

I noticed when running the game, my audio sounded a bit garbled. Changing the Sound Device seemed to clear it up, although the number varied depending on the sound card of each of the machines I’ve tested it on. Try incrementing the number until one sounds normal.

wordwarvi --sounddevice 0
wordwarvi --sounddevice 1
wordwarvi --sounddevice 2


Related posts:

1. Ubuntu Studio
2. Console Framebuffer in Ubuntu
3. Oracle Database 10g XE on Ubuntu

1. Ensure the initrd image includes framebuffer support by adding “fbcon” and “vesafb” to /etc/initramfs-tools/modules.

$ echo "vesafb" | sudo tee -a /etc/initramfs-tools/modules
$ echo "fbcon" | sudo tee -a /etc/initramfs-tools/modules

2. Remove (or comment out) “vesafb” from blacklisted modules in /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-framebuffer.

#blacklist vesafb

3. Add the desired framebuffer variable to the default kernel options section in /boot/grub/menu.lst. For 1024×768, the string should look like the following.

#defoptions=quiet splash vga=791

4. Update GRUB.

$ sudo update-grub

5. If Usplash is configured for a higher resolution than your framebuffer, it will appear off-centered. So adjust /etc/usplash.conf to use the same resolution.

xres=1024
yres=768

6. Update initramfs to rebuild the initrd image.

$ sudo update-initramfs -u

After rebooting, your usplash will appear as normal and you can Ctrl+Alt+F1 to a console after your X environment has finished loading. The text in your console should now appear much smaller and will be much easier to use for large amounts of console work.

Related posts:

1. Ubuntu Linux + Dell Wireless 5700 CDMA/EVDO Card
2. Fixing Dates in Image EXIF Tag Data from Linux
3. Oracle Database 10g XE on Ubuntu

If you’re interested in learning Oracle, you’ll be pleased to know that you can install a free version of it called Oracle Database Express Edition (XE); and it’s available for Debian and Ubuntu! This is great for anyone looking to learn one of the most popular enterprise databases in the world, without hurting the wallet. You can also freely distribute and develop against this platform, so it’s definitely worth giving it a try.

Visit their site for more details, and instructions for installing it via Oracle’s very own repository:
http://www.oracle.com/technology/tech/linux/install/xe-on-kubuntu.html

Here’s my own paraphrase of the installation procedures.

Add Repository and Install:

$ echo "deb http://oss.oracle.com/debian unstable main non-free" | \
sudo tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list
$ wget http://oss.oracle.com/el4/RPM-GPG-KEY-oracle -O- | sudo apt-key add -
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install oracle-xe

Configure and Start Database:

$ sudo /etc/init.d/oracle-xe configure

Get Started:
Applications -> Oracle Database 10g Express Edition -> Get Started

For a great tutorial on how to start using Oracle, be sure to check out the book “Hands-On Oracle Database 10g Express Edition for Linux“, (ISBN: 007226327X). You can find it at your local book store or on the web.

Oracle also has a free online tutorial located on their website:
http://st-curriculum.oracle.com/tutorial/DBXETutorial/index.htm

Related posts:

1. Backup and Restore Package Lists in Ubuntu
2. Ubuntu Linux + Dell Wireless 5700 CDMA/EVDO Card
3. fwknop: Single Packet Authorization in Ubuntu

Related posts:

1. Backup and Restore Package Lists in Ubuntu
2. GnuPG Context Menu Options for Gnome Nautilus
3. fwknop: Single Packet Authorization in Ubuntu

Single Packet Authorization (SPA) using “fwknop” is probably one of the coolest recent innovations in server and network access control technology. Just what is SPA, you ask? SPA is a method of limiting access to server and network resources by cryptographically authenticating users before any type TCP/IP stack access is allowed.

In it’s simplest form, your Linux server can have an inbound firewall rule that by default drops all access to any of it’s listening services. Nmap scans will completely fail to detect any open ports, and zero-day attacks will not have any effect on vulnerable services since the firewall is blocking access to the applications.

The server however has a nifty trick up it’s sleeve. An authorized user sends a single encrypted UDP packet that is passively sniffed and analyzed by the fwknopd service running on the server using pcap. If successfully authenticated, fwknopd dynamically creates an iptables firewall rule, granting the source IP address of the authorized client access to the service for a defined period of time (default is 30 seconds). Pretty frickin’ cool, eh?

Okay, so here’s how to get it working in Ubuntu 7.04.

In this example, the service we will be protecting is SSH. I will be using a simple firewall rule that blocks all inbound connections, but has an unrestricted outbound policy. The client will authenticate using a GNUPG key pair.

1. We start by setting up the firewall. I’ve provided a firewall script below that should work for most configurations. Tailor this to your needs. Do NOT use this script unless you know for sure you want all traffic blocked.

$ wget http://www.savvyadmin.com/downloads/firewall
$ sudo cp firewall /etc/init.d/firewall
$ sudo chmod 755 /etc/init.d/firewall
$ sudo update-rc.d firewall defaults 10
$ sudo /etc/init.d/firewall start

2. Install fwknop prerequisites.

$ sudo apt-get install build-essential libpcap-dev mailx -y

3. Download latest version of fwknop from the official website, and install.

Site: http://www.cipherdyne.org/fwknop/download/

$ wget http://www.cipherdyne.org/fwknop/download/fwknop-1.8.1.tar.gz
$ tar zxvf fwknop-1.8.1.tar.gz
$ cd fwknop-1.8.1
$ sudo ./install.pl

(The installer will ask you a couple of questions. You will need to provide the interface you wish the service to monitor, and specify that the installation should run as a server).

$ sudo update-rc.d fwknop defaults 20

4. You (the client) and the server should use individualized PGP key pairs for this to work as securely as possible. The client will use it’s own private key to digitally sign the SPA packet payload, and then use the servers public key to encrypt it as well. The server will use the clients public key and digital signature to verify that the SPA packet originated from a trusted source. This means that both the server and the client will need a signed copy of each others public keys in their keyring.

The instructions on how to generate these key pairs are located at:

http://www.cipherdyne.org/fwknop/docs/gpghowto.html

Once you have followed the sites instructions, you’re almost ready to have SPA working. I know it’s a lot to take in if you are not familiar with the concepts behind the PGP cryptosystem, so make sure to read up on it if you’re feeling a bit lost. Gnupg’s manual is located here.

5. As also mentioned in the above referenced article, you will need to edit the fwknop configuration file “/etc/fwknop/access.conf”. An example of this configuration is shown below.

SOURCE: ANY;
OPEN_PORTS: tcp/22;
DATA_COLLECT_MODE: PCAP;
GPG_HOME_DIR: /root/.gnupg;
GPG_DECRYPT_ID: SERVER_KEY_ID;
GPG_DECRYPT_PW: PASSWORD_HERE;
GPG_REMOTE_ID: CLIENT_KEY_ID;
FW_ACCESS_TIMEOUT: 30;

6. Start the fwknopd service:

$ sudo /etc/init.d/fwknop start

7. You should now be ready to test things out using another computer with the fwknop client. You install everything exactly the same as the server, with the exception of specifying that the installer should run fwknop as a client.

The typical authorization process from client to server can be completed as follows.

$ fwknop -A tcp/22 --gpg-recip SERVER_KEY --gpg-sign CLIENT_KEY -w -k SERVER_IP

The “-w” flag queries www.whatismyip.com for the clients real ip address and uses that as the source address. This is useful when you are behind a NAT firewall, since the source address specified on the SPA packet would otherwise be a local address.

If you are on the same network as the server, or simply do not have to worry about NAT, the syntax would be as follows:

$ fwknop -A tcp/22 --gpg-recip SERVER_KEY --gpg-sign CLIENT_KEY -a CLIENT_IP -k SERVER_IP

If successful, your server adds the appropriate access list entry for you to connect using your ssh client. You will have 30 seconds to make the connection, after which the access list is dynamically removed.

$ ssh username@SERVER_IP

It is important to note that the SPA packet is sent to the servers IP address using the destination port of UDP/62201. You must ensure that this port number is allowed outbound from the network you are connecting from, and that no router or firewall is blocking it from reaching your server.

It should also be noted that the time stamp embedded in the SPA packet must fall within 120 seconds of the servers clock. You should make sure that both the server and client are using NTP to keep their clocks as close as possible.

Check out your syslogs and iptables output for useful information while testing.

$ watch -n1 sudo iptables -L -n
$ tail -f /var/log/syslog

Hope this provides you with some very useful information to get you started with SPA.

Related posts:

1. Ubuntu’s Uncomplicated Firewall (UFW)
2. DenyHosts: Automated SSH Brute Force Response System
3. VLAN Hopping on Cisco Voice-enabled Switch Ports

If you are not using the the GDM auto login feature, simply make sure your keyring password is the same as your login password, this way it is automatically unlocked for you. The keyring passwords are now easy to change from “Applications… Accessories… Passwords and Encryption Keys… Edit menu… Preferences… Password Keyrings.” Highlight the “login” entry, and use the “Change Unlock Password” button.

The original instructions below ONLY apply to versions previous to Ubuntu 8.04.

ORIGINAL POST:
If you would like to avoid having to type in a password to access your gnome keyring, then you are in luck. To quote from the authors web site, “PAM_KEYRING is a pam module that launches the gnome-keyring-daemon and then unlocks a keyring using your login password.”

In Ubuntu 7.04, this comes in handy when using Network Manager to connect to your wireless network. Typically users are prompted for the “master” password to their keyring manager immediately after logging on to gnome, and this can become tedious. Installing and configuring PAM_KEYRING is a snap.

1. Install libpam-keyring from universe repositories.

$ sudo apt-get install libpam-keyring

2. Add the pamkeyring module to /etc/pam.d/gdm

$ echo "@include common-pamkeyring" | sudo tee -a /etc/pam.d/gdm

UPDATED: (10/25/2007)
With the release of Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy, libpam-keyring is no longer needed, as this feature has been built by default in with the package “libpam-gnome-keyring”.

UPDATED: (04/21/2008) – For GDM Auto-Login Users

Sorry for not updating this post sooner. I helped someone else with this offline a while back. Here’s an excerpt from my email. It works well with Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy, and “should” work with Hardy, unless there’s been some major changes with the libpam-gnome-keyring package that I don’t know about.

The auto login feature of GDM relies on the GDM processes ability to run Gnome as your user account, but it does not have to know the password, as it’s using an “su” command to accomplish the magic.

There lies the problem. The keyring uses the password supplied by the user to unlock itself, and being that no password is supplied to pam, it cannot unlock the keyring.

From a useful bug report, one fellow outlined how he has always done it previously using a login script. He used a tool called “pam-keyring-tool” included with the libpam-keyring package. The new libpam-gnome-keyring package does not include this binary, so in order for this to work, you need compile it from source.

I’ve successfully got it working using the following procedures:

Step 1: Download latest pam_keyring source code. I like to place all source code in /usr/src/:

cd /usr/src/
sudo wget http://www.hekanetworks.com/opensource/pam_keyring/pam_keyring-0.0.9.tar.gz

Step 2: Unpack source code

sudo tar zxfv pam_keyring-0.0.9.tar.gz

Step 3: Install prerequisites

sudo apt-get install build-essential libglib1.2-dev libglib2.0-dev
sudo apt-get install libtool libgnome-keyring-dev libpam0g-dev

Step 4: Compile and Install

cd /usr/src/pam_keyring-0.0.9
sudo ./configure --prefix=/usr
sudo make
sudo cp src/pam-keyring-tool /usr/bin/

Note: I’m not doing a “make install” because I only want this binary to be installed and nothing else)

Step 5: Test binary

/usr/bin/pam-keyring-tool --help

If you get a nice usage menu, you’ll see what the tool options are, and your compilation is complete.

Step 6: Create login script called “unlock-keyring.sh”.

Since the file will contain your password in clear text, you’ll want to keep it in your home folder, readable only by your user. Yes… I know this is lame.

mkdir ~/scripts
sudo chmod 750 ~/scripts
touch ~/scripts/unlock-keyring.sh
sudo chmod 750 ~/scripts/unlock-keyring.sh
sudo gedit ~/scripts/unlock-keyring.sh

Add the following to the script:


#!/bin/bash
echo "PASSWORD_HERE" | /usr/bin/pam-keyring-tool -u -s

Step 7: Add the script to your gnome session startup scripts

System -> Preferences -> Sessions

Under Startup Programs, add a new entry that will appear first in the list. e.g. “1-unlock-keyring”

The command will be:
“/home/USERNAME_HERE/scripts/unlock-keyring.sh”

Step 8: Ensure your /etc/pam.d/gdm-autologin is set to it’s defaults. This was the default Gutsy 7.10 version for reference.

#%PAM-1.0
auth requisite pam_nologin.so
auth required pam_env.so readenv=1
auth required pam_env.so readenv=1 envfile=/etc/default/locale
auth required pam_permit.so
@include common-account
session required pam_limits.so
@include common-session
@include common-password

Step 9: Restart GDM or simply reboot.

I really hope this helps you guys out.

Related posts:

1. Revelation Password Manager for Gnome
2. GnuPG Context Menu Options for Gnome Nautilus
3. Ubuntu Linux + Dell Wireless 5700 CDMA/EVDO Card

The following post is pretty outdated, and while it’s still relevant, I do not use Gnomad2 any more. I prefer other applications such as Banshee, Rythmbox, and Amarok. Banshee is by far my favorite because of it’s simplicity, clean interface and album art support. KDE users will probably prefer Amarok, and Rhythmbox is by far the simplest. All of these devices have MTP and iPod support, and are available in virtually every distribution repository.

Original Post:

If you would like to get your Creative Zen V Plus or related portable music player working in Ubuntu 7.04 and above, you’re in luck!

All you need is “Gnomad2″ (please see updated notes at the top of this post) as the graphical front end to your players music and playlists, and several libraries that are installed as dependencies (i.e. libmtp5). MTP stands for Microsoft Transfer Protocol, and libmtp5 is the key component to making this work.

As of this writing, the Creative Zen V Plus was not added to the libmtp5 udev rules file. This means that you would need root privileges to run Gnomad2, unless you changed the default permissions. No worries… correcting this is very easy to do.

1. First, install “Gnomad2″. The required dependencies will be installed by default.

sudo apt-get install gnomad2

2. To allow access to the Zen player using your normal user account, you must specify which permissions the device should have applied to it. These permissions can be set easily in a file supplied with the libmtp5 package. Edit the file as shown below.

sudo gedit /etc/udev/rules.d/65-libmtp.rules

Simply add the following and save your changes:

# Creative Zen V Plus
SYSFS{idVendor}=="041e", SYSFS{idProduct}=="4152", SYMLINK+="libmtp-%k", MODE="666"

Note: You may need to verify that the “idProduct” variable matches your device Product ID. To obtain this information perform an “lsusb” after plugging in the Zen player. The output will look like the following:

sudo lsusb
Bus 005 Device 007: ID 041e:4152 Creative Technology, Ltd
<snipped for brevity>

In the above example, “041e” represend the Vendor ID (Creative), and the second number to the right, “4152” is your Product ID (Zen V Plus). If your device is different, simply change the values accordingly.

3. Re-plug your Zen player and wait for it to fully initialize to it’s final on-screen display. Start Gnomad2, and have some fun!

For more information on how to use Gnomad2, check out their website: http://gnomad2.sourceforge.net/

No related posts.

ORIGINAL POST: Great news! The internal Dell Wireless 5700 Mini PCI Express Card for use with CDMA/EVDO networks is very easy to get working with Linux. The following tutorial was written for Ubuntu 7.04 (and works with 7.10 Gutsy), but the procedures are essentially the same for most Linux distributions. Please consult with your distribution documentation to assist with any differences.

Here’s how to get it going.The card is presented to the operating system as a USB device and is used as a dialup modem via the “usbserial” kernel module. You load this kernel module with two variables that are specific to your wireless card; the Product and Vendor Identifiers.

You can find these values by listing the USB devices with “lsusb”.

$ lsusb
Bus 005 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 003 Device 002: ID 413c:8103 Dell Computer Corp. Wireless 350 Bluetooth
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 004 Device 002: ID 413c:8114 Dell Computer Corp.
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 046d:08c6 Logitech, Inc.
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 0000:0000

Although not obvious, the above output shows the 5700 wireless card as being on Bus 004 Device 002. The Vendor ID is 413c, and the Product ID is 8114. You can verify this by running “sudo lsusb -v | less” and search through the output for the device details.

$ sudo lsusb -v | less
Bus 004 Device 002: ID 413c:8114 Dell Computer Corp.
Device Descriptor:
bLength 18
bDescriptorType 1
bcdUSB 1.10
bDeviceClass 0 (Defined at Interface level)
bDeviceSubClass 0
bDeviceProtocol 0
bMaxPacketSize0 64
idVendor 0x413c Dell Computer Corp.
idProduct 0x8114
bcdDevice 0.00
iManufacturer 1 Novatel Wireless Inc.
iProduct 2 Novatel Wireless EXPD CDMA
iSerial 0
bNumConfigurations 1

Note: For a nice graphical view of you USB devices, check out “usbview”, which you can install with “sudo apt-get install usbview”. Here’s a screenshot of usbview in action, showing the specifics of my card:

Next you need to load the appropriate kernel module with values from above in the following format:

$ sudo modprobe usbserial vendor=0x413c product=0x8114

Typically, your card will map itself to “ttyUSB0″. You can check by looking through your kernel logs.

$ grep tty /var/log/messages
Jun 2 18:10:49 laptop kernel: [ 18.920000] usb 4-2: generic converter now attached to ttyUSB0

You should ensure that your computer loads the usbserial kernel module at bootup by adding the same variables to /etc/modules.

$ sudo sh -c 'echo usbserial vendor=0x413c product=0x8114 >> /etc/modules'

Now to actually configure your device for use, simply use your favorite dial-up configuration utility. I prefer “pppconfig”, so here’s the basic steps:

$ sudo pppconfig

Select “Create a connection”
Provider Name: verizon
Select “Dynamic DNS”.
Select “PAP” as the Authentication method
Username: phone_number_here@vzw3g.com
Password: anything… “password” for example.
Speed: 115200
Select “Tone”
Phone Number: #777
Define device as “ttyUSB0″

I also add the following two lines to /etc/ppp/peers/verizon to prevent annoying automatic disconnections due to a lack of lcp responses.

$ sudo sh -c 'echo lcp-echo-failure 0 >> /etc/ppp/peers/verizon'
$ sudo sh -c 'echo lcp-echo-interval 0 >> /etc/ppp/peers/verizon'

My completed /etc/ppp/peers/verizon configuration looks like the following:

# This optionfile was generated by pppconfig 2.3.15.
#
#
hide-password
noauth
connect "/usr/sbin/chat -v -f /etc/chatscripts/verizon"
debug
/dev/ttyUSB0
115200
defaultroute
noipdefault
user "5551112222@vzw3g.com"
remotename verizon
ipparam verizon
usepeerdns
lcp-echo-failure 0
lcp-echo-interval 0

Add the following lines to your /etc/network/interfaces file:

iface ppp0 inet ppp
provider verizon

Restart Network Manager so that it reads the change from the last step.

$ sudo /etc/dbus-1/event.d/25NetworkManager restart

By doing so you will be able to connect and disconnect from Network Manager:

You should receive an IP address within a few seconds, and you’re ready to surf. One thing I noticed is that there’s a lack of notification from Network Manager that your dial-up connection is actually up and running after a successful connection. The status icon does not change, and the “Connection information” menu item remains unavailable. You can of course use “ifconfig” to display your current IP address and status of the ppp0 interface.

If you look at /var/log/messages, you will also find all the nice pppd connection output.

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1. VirtualBox Wireless Bridging
2. Console Framebuffer in Ubuntu
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