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Additional ISP files

I've uploaded a fairly comprehensive selection of files for various providers world wide. They are available from www.vigay.com/inet/providers/. Please feel free to submit others or ask me if I have other ISPs.

How to write and install new provider files into the Ant Suite

Obtaining the relevant Provider file

The Ant Suite comes with quite a few pre-defined scripts for connecting to most popular ISPs. However, with the immense growth of the internet, it is quite often impossible to keep bang up to date with new providers and internet companies springing up all the time.

However the Ant Suite is flexible enough for you to create your own provider files if you are feeling confident enough to, or download and install provider files that a number of other people have created.

Provider files are in the form of a plain text file, containing a number of commands and parameters required for connecting to a specific ISP.

Assuming you've found the provider file for the ISP you wish to use you can proceed....

Installing the ISP file
Firstly, you need to know where InetSuite stores its provider files. These are stored within !InetSuite.Internet.Providers

There are two ways to install a new ISP file into the InetSuite;

If you have SparkFS then you can insert the new file into one of the existing country files. Although these appear as 'data' files, they are in fact archive files containing all the relevant provider files for the specified country. Drag the country data file onto the !SparkFS icon and it will be opened, displaying all the individual provider files in a normal filer-type display window.

Simply drag your new one into this filer window to insert the new ISP file into the country database.

If you don't have !SparkFS you can still install new provider files because the Ant Suite recognises both archives and ordinary directories as 'countries'. Open the providers directory (above) and simply create a new directory called (for example) NewISPs or something. Then copy your new ISP file into this new directory. Indeed, like the other country archive/directories, you can have multiple new ISP files inside your new directory.

Using your new ISP file
Once the actual file has been copied into the Providers directory you should be able to select it from the main InetSuite configuration window. Re-load InetSuite configuration and click on 'Provider setup'. This will open the provider setup window and you can click on the small icon to the right of country to give a list of countries. Either select the country you copied the new file into or select your new directory (which should now appear in the listing).

Next, click on the 'IS Provider' menu icon and select the new ISP - which should now be displayed in the listing.

Having followed these two steps you should be able to setup the rest of the configuration as you would do for any existing ISP file, and instructions should be in the InetSuite manual.

Writing/Editing your own provider files (for more confident users)
The easiest way of creating a new provider file is to copy and then edit an existing one. For simplicity I would recommend using the Freeserve one, because this is more of a generic file.

Make a copy of the existing provider file, which will give you a basis from which you can edit the relevant ISP specific entries. For this example, I will assume that you've copied the Freeserve one to use as a template for your new ISP.

Load the file into your favourite text editor, or !Edit if you don't have an additional one installed. This will display the various settings and parameters that each ISP requires in order for you to logon. Firstly, note that all lines starting with a # (hash) are comments so will be ignored by InetSuite. These are there for your reference only and usually denote what parameters are required on the following line. I would not advise changing these because some are used for indexing.

Provider name
This is the name of the provider you wish to create.

Machine name domain[, IP address]
This is normally the name of the ISP domain (ie. the bit after the @ in your potential email address) preceeded by a . (dot) and followed by a comma and the word Dynamic. Most ISPs now use a dynamic IP address, so unless you know for definite that your ISP assigns you a static IP address, then leave this.

Dynamic IP supported? (YES/NO/FORCE)
Best to leave this as FORCE for the time being.

PPP supported? (YES/NO/FORCE)
Again, best to leave this as FORCE for the time being.

Protocol: prompt? (YES/NO), Special features[, PIPEX User prefix]
Generally this can be left as NO, -1 unless your ISP specifically requires otherwise.

Mail fetching server, transport type (SMTP/POP2/POP3/IMAP)
Enter the name of your ISPs POP3 mail server here, followed by /ucb, POP3. eg. pop.freeserve.net/ucb, POP3

The mail server itself is called pop.freeserve.net (this will obviously change depending upon ISP). You may or may not require the /ucb bit on the end of the mail server name, depending upon whether it correctly downloads your mail when you've finished configuring it. The POP3 bit simply tells the InetSuite to use POP3 as a mechanism for fetching your email messages from the ISP.

Mail sending (SMTP) server, news (NNTP) server
Again, enter here the name of your ISPs mail sending server, followed by a comma and then the name of the news server.

DNS servers (IP addresses)
Sometimes referred to as nameservers, these two sets of four numbers tell InetSuite where your ISPs name servers are located. If you get these wrong, it's unlikely that you will be able to browse the web or connect to the mail/news servers (above). This is the most common cause of 'Can't resolve host' type errors. Each set of four numbers is separated by a comma. Again, these details should be obtainable from your ISP. Generally two are required; a primary name server and a secondary name server - so that a second one can be fell back upon if the first one fails to respond.

PoPresence locations, telephone numbers
This is followed by a list of one or more telephone numbers for dialin access for the ISP. Each number should be on its own line and separated by a comma from a name (which is what's given when you select one from the InetSuite provider setup configuration window). Most providers now use a single 'local' number. However, you can add others if you like.

Login scripts (Special features is -1)
This is where most problems are likely to lie. If you are unsure as to what your ISP requires when you dialin, leave this line followed by a single line saying

pxScript=start_ppp();
This will tell InetSuite to start the PPP connection as soon as you're connected. The ISP and InetSuite should then negotiate with each other automatically.

NB. Some providers may require a specific 'login' script, but this is generally a special case nowadays.

Email address
This line should be followed by a single line giving an example email address for the ISP. This is so that InetSuite knows the format of email addresses. Simply enter your own email address but substituting EXAMPLE for the personal specific bits. For example, my interalpha email address is pvigay@interalpha.co.uk so I would enter EXAMPLE@interalpha.co.uk here. Some ISPs (such as Freeserve) though give you a sub-domain as well so if your address is something like paul@vigay.freeserve.co.uk then you would enter EXAMPLE@EXAMPLE.freeserve.co.uk. Enter exactly this, ie. the word EXAMPLE in capital letters. InetSuite will substitute the text EXAMPLE for a valid email address when you select the provider file.

ISP homepage URLThe following line is for reference only and generally points to the ISPs main homepage.
Time serverThis would be the name of your ISPs time server. This can safely be left blank if you're unsure.

Proxy servers (Scheme, Server:port, Exclude)
The following lines contain optional information about http, ftp etc proxy servers. This is not essential (unless you happen to know them) to getting online using your new provider script.

Your new ISP file should now be complete. You should save it and follow the instructions above for installing it.

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Last edit: 10th Apr 2016 at 1:55pm
(2900 days ago)

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