Going Online with QNX

With the Photon Graphical environment, configuring your QNX box to access the

Net is a piece of cake. In this article, you’ll see how to set up a dial-up

connection and a direct LAN connection to the Internet. You’ll also see how to

use V-Mail, the e-mail client for QNX, and chat with your online friends using

PhICQ, the QNX, clone of ICQ.

Configuring dial-up

On the Photon toolbar, click on the ‘Network Cfg’ applet, and go to the

Network tab. Here, under the section Name Servers, enter the IP address of your

Internet service provider’s DNS server. For example, this would be 202.54.15.1

for VSNL, Delhi. Next, click on the Dial-Ups tab and click the Add button. In

Use Device, select the serial port to which your modem is connected–/dev/ser1

for COM1 and /dev/ser2 for COM2. Check the Default Dialup check box if you have

more than one dial-up account and would like to make the current account as the

default. Under the section Basic Options, enter the phone number of your ISP.

From Login Type, select ‘Interactive’ if you want to see a username and

password prompt after dialing in. If your ISP supports PAP (Password

Authentication Protocol) or CHAP (Challenge Handshake Authentication Protocol)

based authentication, you can select ‘Automatic’ and fill in your username

and password in the text field that will appear. This way, you won’t have to

enter these details every time you connect to your ISP. The third option is to

use a post-dial up script. In case your ISP supports only a terminal logon, you

have to fill in the username and password manually when you’re prompted to do

so. With a post dial-up script, the username and password will be automatically

filled in.

To set up the modem to dial in to your ISP, click on Advanced Options and in

the Modem Init String, enter specific AT commands to set the modem as per your

requirements. The most commonly used string is AT&FX1L3. This sets your

modem to factory defaults, maximizes the volume level, and sets it to dial

irrespective of line condition. Finally, click on Apply and subsequently the

Done button.

Now, click on the Dialer applet on the toolbar and click on Connect to dial

to your ISP. If all the settings are correct, your modem should be able to

connect to your ISP. So, now you can fire up Voyager, the QNX Web browser from

the Photon toolbar and go surfing.

Direct (LAN) connection

If your QNX machine is on a network that has a gateway to the Internet,

configuring the machine to get on the Net is even simpler. Fire up the Network

Cfg applet from the Photon toolbar. You’ll be able to see the name of your

Ethernet interface (en0). If your network is running a DHCP (Dynamic Host

Control Protocol) server, which automatically assigns an IP address to your

machine, select DHCP here. Otherwise, select Manual and give your machine a free

IP address and a net mask. Check with your network administrator on these. Now,

you have to enter your Internet gateway’s IP address on your machine. If you’re

using DHCP, this will probably happen automatically. Otherwise, enter the IP

address in the Network tab. If your network is running a proxy server, open the

Voyager Web browser and go to Edit>Preferences> Connection and check the

Use Proxy Server box. Now, enter the IP address of the machine running the proxy

server and the port number at which the service is running.

E-mail

V-Mail is the mail client in QNX. You can start this by clicking the V-Mail

applet in the toolbar. First, fill in your e-mail information in

Edit>Configuration> General tab. Next click on the Server tab and in

Outgoing Mail Server, specify the name or IP address of your SMTP mail server.

For Default E-mail Server, enter the name or IP address of your POP3 or IMAP4

server. This is usually the same as your SMTP server. For Default e-mail

username, enter your login or e-mail ID. Select the Default e-mail protocol

(usually POP3). To check your e-mail, click on the Check button and you’ll be

prompted for your e-mail account password. To compose a new message, click on

the New button.

V-mail will, however, be discontinued in future releases and a new e-mail

client is under development.

ICQ for QNX

PhICQ (Photon ICQ) is a clone of the ICQ instant messenger that runs under

the Photon graphical environment. We’ve given PhICQ on this month’s CD. To

install it, first copy the file phicq.tar.gz from the directory qnx/utils on the

CD to / (Root) directory using the Photon File Manager. Note that it is /

directory not /root directory. Now, click on the Terminal on the toolbar and

issue the following commands:

cd /

tar -zxvf photon.tar.gz

To start PhICQ, type phicq in the Terminal. This will bring up an ICQ-like

interface. Click on the PhICQ button and select Preferences. If you have an

existing ICQ UIN (Unique Identification Number), fill in the UIN, password, and

nickname. Else click on ‘Create a new user’ for registering a new UIN. Don’t

fill in the password in front of anyone, because PhICQ doesn’t show a * in

place of the typed password, but the clear text. In Preferences>Proxy, you

can opt for going through a proxy server. You can search for a friend using ICQ#

(the ICQ UIN), a nickname, first name, last name, or e-mail. You can fill in or

change your details like nickname, name, age, gender, address, phone, etc. from

the PhICQ> Preferences>Edit Info menu. The On tab in the main window of

PhICQ shows all online users. The Off tab shows offline users, the Msg tab shows

the messages sent to you, and the All tab shows you all of these. Enjoy instant

messaging on a real time platform and make some real friends in the virtual

world.

Shekhar Govindarajan