PPP on the Mac

For those of you who want to be able to access the web using your Mac, you'll need to use either SLIP or PPP. I reccommend using PPP because it is easier to set up and use. That's IMHO, of course!

Now, to use ppp on the mac, you'll need...

• MacTCP
• ConfigPPP/MacPPP
• NOTE:MacTCP is an Apple Copyrighted product, which can be obtained from your local Apple retailer, or on a CD-ROM which features Mac Comms utilities.

Once you have these two important ingredients, you can begin. Install MacTCP and ConfigPPP in the Control Panels folder. Place the file PPP in the Extensions folder.

Now all that's left is to configure MacTCP and ConfigPPP. Here are some piccies of what I have set up mine as...

MacTCP - More...

MacTCP
Obtain Address: Server

Class: C
Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.0
Domain: odyssey.apana.org.au
IP Address: 203.11.114.1 [default]

Second domain: .
203.11.114.1 [yes, the domain name is a full-stop... see below]

Notice odyssey as the default domain name server. The domain name server is used every time a program that you are using tries to connect to a site on the net by its name.

ConfigPPP - connect script dialog

This is how you would set up ConfigPPP so that it does all the logon sequence for you - just replace the gaps with your details. Easy!

ConfigPPP
Phone Number: 94504141
Modem Init. generally, atz works - but check your modem's manual
Modem Connect timeout: 360 seconds
Leave the Authentication... alone - I use a connect script instead, it seems to work better. Ignore the LCP and IPCP Options buttons alone too - I don't use them, and I doubt you'll ever have to use them.
On to the Connect Script - this is the part which logs with your username and password without you having to lift a finger off the mouse... There are two buttons on the left - wait and out. Wait means that it will wait for the text next to the button to appear, and out means (you guessed it!) it will send whatever is in the box. The button to the far right means carriage return, which is just like you pressing return after typing your username, etc. This is used when sending some text.
Here is what it should look like...
Wait for the text :
Out the text your password with carriage return ticked
Wait for the text $
Send out the text ppp with a carriage return.

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The Domain Name Server info in MacTCP is quite simple to explain - the first server (the default) is used for any requests by programs for anything in the odyssey.apana... domain. Since most of your requests won't be in that domain, the second line has a full-stop as the domain, with odyssey's IP address. So, when a request is received that is out of the odyssey domain, it uses this IP address.