UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

i'm trying to set up my internet connection and i was told i need to edit the file
/etc/ppp/pap-secrets
but i get a permission denied message...why??

Maybe u did not login as root
or maybe u do not have write access

i did login as root...but i'm not sure if i have write access...how can i check?

hi justchillin,

if you do a "ls -l" at your promt, you will get to see something like this...

"drw-r--r-x" or "-rw-r--r-x".

Here after 'd' next 3 characters represent the root. In the above case "rw-" indicate that the root has Read, and Write permissions.
Similarly you can check for your desired file as

ls -l {filename}
In your case it should be
ls -l pap-secrets

Jay.

A word of caution....... it is NOT adviseable to surf the internet or to be logged on for extended periods of time with "Root" permissions.

Why? :???

Well, if somebody gains control of your machine, and you have "super-user" powers, they do too! Think of the implications here.

Solution
You can open a terminal and temporarily logon as "root" and do what you need to do, then close that terminal and/ or logoff the terminal and you have an ordinary account again.

Tip
Most folks do a dual boot to a unix flavor so as to keep the windows partition. If this windows partition was compromised prior to the unix install then, the unix partition is also open to exploit.
One should try to do a clean install on a machine without a dual boot partition if one possibly can,however; this is not always possible.


joetech

thanks for the replies i will try that out when i get home tonight...

ok well i tried and it didn't work...i have edited all the individual files but how do i get them to run each time i try to connect to the internet (i think that is what is supposed to happen)...i still get "modem is busy" messages???

oh, and how do i know if my ethernet card is configured properly??

i don't know any unix guru's so i'm relying on you all...

thanks