Solaris Resources at Kempston

Configuring PPP on Solaris 7 and Solaris 8 to connect to an ISP

Now that Sun Microsystems have kindly made Solaris free for personal use, on both SPARC and Intel platforms, there may be interest in using Solaris to make a dialup connection to an Internet Service Provider. These pages provide simple step-by-step instructions to configure Solaris to connect to five ISPs in the UK. General notes are also provided in Configuring PPP to connect to any ISP on modifying the instructions to connect to any ISP which supports dialup access using PPP.

The instructions on the following pages have worked for me first time on several installations of Solaris 7 and Solaris 8 and they also work, with minor changes, on Solaris 2.6. If you follow them exactly, they should work for you, too. If you use them and find they work, or if you use them and have some difficulty, I'd appreciate feedback. I shall be delighted to receive your email at mike@kempston.net.

If you have an account with Demon Internet, Netcom UK, U-Net, Direct Connection or Freeserve, which are all Internet Service Providers in the UK, or with Netgate, an ISP in California, please select the appropriate link below. These provide step-by-step instructions with all the details which are specific to these ISPs.

If you have an account with another ISP, use Configuring PPP to connect to any ISP. This provides the same step-by-step instructions but you'll need to know the details which are specific to your particular ISP. Specific details about some other ISPs are included on a subsidiary page.

Note for German readers:

Für alle deutschsprachigen Leser ist diese Anleitung freundlicherweise von Andreas Backhaus übersetzt worden. Die deutsche Übersetzung ist sowohl im PDF als auch im Postscript Format verfügbar. (For all German-speaking readers, this guide has been kindly translated by Andreas Backhaus. The German translation is available either in PDF or in Postscript Format)

A similar Guide to configuring mail is also available which covers the configuration of sendmail for use on a dial up connection and the installation and configuration of fetchmail to retrieve email from POP3 mail servers.

Finally, consider installing TCP wrappers to give you at least some security from unwelcome visitors when your Solaris system is connected to the Net.

This page is maintained by the Kempston Webmaster
Last updated 30 January 2000