Palm-PPP Mini-Howto

by Stefan Märkle 
stefan@maerkle.de 
initial version:  1.9.1999
   last revised: 25.4.2000

Since Palm-OS 3.0, 3Com's Palms come with an integrated TCP/IP-Stack. The
device is therefor able to talk ppp (and slip) over either a direct serial
connection e.g. the cradle you sync in, or to use a serial modem to connect 
to a remoe machine. This is also true for  infrared connections via IRDA, so
you are able to use the builtin modem of some mobile phones (e.g. Siemens
S25 or Nokia 8810) to establish a network connection with your palm.

This Mini-Howto explains the setup of a network connection between the 
Palm handheld device and a Linux box running mgetty and pppd, so you can
establish a network connection either throuh a direct serial cable, or by
attaching a modem to the host and dial in remotely.

There are many applications available that use Palm's network capabilities,
among them rather interesting (or should I say ridiculous) ones like a
vncviewer (if you don't know it, think of it as kind of an X-Server) or
palmIRC, wich are rather a proof of concept than useable applications.
But there are some 'Killerapps' as well:
- Network Hotsync: The Palm Desktop and pilot-xfer support syncing not only
from the cradle directly attached but also from a network connection to the
'home' - machine.
- ppp/imap: there are various email-clients that allow you to retrieve and
send email from your 'normal' mailhosts.
Useable clients do also exist for telnet/ssh, nntp and http.


Palm: 
- Under Preferences -> Modem insert the Phone Number '00' for a direct
  serial connection.
- in Preferences -> Network the type  is set to 'Unix', User is your Username on the Linux box and Password 
  the password for the respective Linux user
- If your OS is Version 3.0 or less, install the Software 'DirectLink.prc' on your palm device.

Linux Box:
- inittab
#
# /etc/inittab
#
...
# mgetty for the palm device.
palm:23:respawn:/usr/sbin/mgetty -s 57600 palm
...
# end of /etc/inittab

- mgetty
- mgetty.config:
#
# mgetty configuration file
#
...
# direct connection of a Palm Device through serial link (cradle)
#
port palm
  direct y
  speed 57600
...

-login.config:
# login.config
#
...
/AutoPPP/ -	a_ppp	/usr/sbin/pppd file /etc/ppp/options.palm
...

if you also want to have a serial Terminal login with palm you can add the 
line:
...
*	-	-	/bin/login @
...


- pppd
- options.palm:
usehostname
local
lock
auth
login
+pap
-chap
crtscts
ms-dns 10.13.250.1
10.13.250.3:10.13.250.4

The Machine where my cradle is connected to, has ip 10.13.250.3, the palm 
will get the 10.13.250.4 and my nameserver has the 10.13.250.1 . Insert 
your appropriate values.

- pap-secrets:
# Secrets for authentication using PAP
...
# Every regular user can use PPP and has to use passwords from /etc/passwd
*  *  "" 10.13.250.4
...

Note that I didn't succeed running it without the IP of the palm in the 
pap-secrets. Thought it should, but my pppd didn't agree ;-)


When everything is up and running, you can connect the palm by placing it in
the cradle and starting Directlink with a speed of 57600 Bps.
Inserting a lin 'debug' in options.palm will make pppd print its status
informations to syslog, where you can trace the connection. For your palm
to be able to connect to computers other than your cradle-host, IP-forwarding
has to be enabled on the host (echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward).
If you add your new IP to /etc/hosts or your nameserver, you finally will be 
able to do great things like 'ping palm'. ;-)

Links:
DirectLink : http://www.metasync.com/pilot/vitallink.html
PalmVNC : http://www.icsi.berkeley.edu/~minenko/PalmVNC/
ssh : http://www.isaac.cs.berkeley.edu/pilot/
ptelnet : http://netpage.em.com.br/mmand/ptelnet.htm
YanOff : http://www.free.de/mjordan/yanoff/yanoff.html
MsgAgent & palmIRC : http://members.tripod.com/~hokamoto/palm.html