[CLUE-Tech] Using Ricochet Under Linux

[Eric J. Bowersox]

I've seen some of the recent discussions with regard to the Ricochet
service that's recently been relaunched here in Denver.  Well, I *won* a
Ricochet modem and three free months of service in their recent
promotional giveaway, and I've just figured out how to make it work
under Linux (in fact, I'm using it now!).  It's easier than you might
think.

Some background: My home system is an 800 MHz Athlon box running
Debian-unstable with kernel 2.4.18.  The box has previously been
configured for PPP dialup network access through a USRobotics Sportster
33.6K modem.

Getting A Connection To The Device
----------------------------------

The Ricochet modem supports either serial or USB connectivity, but USB
will offer the maximum performance, since serial ports are limited to
115.2Kbps (far short of the 400 Kbps maximum promised with Ricochet). 
So your kernel should be set up to use USB and load the appropriate
drivers (such as UHCI) for your motherboard.  You should also have the
"usbserial" driver (Generic USB Serial) compiled as a module.

If you're not using devfs (I don't), set up the device nodes as
described in linux/Documentation/usb/usb-serial.txt, i.e. character
devices, major 188, minor 0-255 (you probably won't need more than 0-3).

Then, to access the Ricochet, load the usbserial driver as follows:

# insmod usbserial vendor=0x0870 product=0x0001

Those numbers are the vendor and product ID numbers for the Ricochet
modem.  Look in your system logfiles and you'll see that the Ricochet is
now bound to /dev/ttyUSB0, or /dev/usb/tts/0 if you run devfs.  (The
number may differ if you already have some other USB devices on your
system.)  You may want to create a symlink for this device, e.g.:

# ln -s /dev/ttyUSB0 /dev/ricochet

At this point, if you use Minicom or some other terminal emulator and
connect to that device, you can talk to it as if it were a regular
modem.  "ATI4", for instance, will give a short, cryptic device ID.

Setting Up The Network Connection
---------------------------------

As you might guess, the Ricochet acts like a modem, so you need PPP to
talk to it.  I used pppconfig to set up a new connection as follows:

Device: /dev/ricochet
Phone number: 3333
User name: ""
Password: ""

Everything else as for a standard PPP connection.

Unfortunately, pppconfig gets confused sometimes when you use empty
strings for the user name and password, so I had to edit my config files
a bit.  Also, note that the actual "port" connect speed is something
like 460800 bps.  Herewith are my configuration files:

--BEGIN /etc/ppp/peers/ricochet--cut here--cut here--
# This optionfile was generated by pppconfig 2.0.15.
#
#
hide-password
noauth
connect "/usr/sbin/chat -v -f /etc/chatscripts/ricochet"
debug
/dev/ricochet
460800
defaultroute
noipdefault
user ""
remotename ricochet
ipparam ricochet
usepeerdns
--END /etc/ppp/peers/ricochet--cut here--cut here--

--BEGIN /etc/chatscripts/ricochet--cut here--cut here--
# This chatfile was generated by pppconfig 2.0.15.
# Please do not delete any of the comments.  Pppconfig needs them.
#
# ispauth PAP
# abortstring
ABORT BUSY ABORT 'NO CARRIER' ABORT VOICE ABORT 'NO DIALTONE' ABORT 'NO
DIAL TONE' ABORT 'NO ANSWER' ABORT DELAYED
# modeminit
'' ATZ
# ispnumber
OK-AT-OK ATDT3333
# ispconnect
CONNECT \d\c
# prelogin

# ispname
# isppassword
# postlogin

# end of pppconfig stuff
--BEGIN /etc/chatscripts/ricochet--cut here--cut here--

In addition, this line is at the end of my /etc/ppp/pap-secrets file:

""      ricochet        ""

Once I did all this, the command "pon ricochet" connected me up right
away.  Naturally, you can use a different name for the service;
"provider" is the default name for pppd.

Service Signup
--------------

Since this was a freebie, I didn't have to go through the signup
process.  Had it not been so, though, I probably would have completed
the signup under Windows before trying to use the modem under Linux.

Mail Setup
----------

Ricochet's SMTP server is mail.ricochet.com, and its POP3 server is
pop3.ricochet.com, so configure your preferred mail client accordingly. 
I have a system set up that uses a local install of Qmail to relay
outgoing mail and fetchmail to pull down incoming mail, and its
configuration is funky, so I won't detail it here.  Suffice it to say
that, if this mail message gets out, it works. :-)

Conclusion
----------

Well, that about wraps it up for now.  In future, I'll be setting up a
Web page somewhere to hold this information; in the meantime, if anyone
else wants to try getting a Ricochet and signing up for their service,
and has any more information that would be useful, post it here to the
list and/or drop me an E-mail and let me know.

-- 
Eric J. Bowersox (Erbo) - <erbo at silcom.com>
Electric Minds - virtual community since 1996.
<http://www.electricminds.org>
"The sands of time were eroded by the river of constant change..."