From owner-freebsd-questions Tue Feb 10 04:21:11 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id EAA15694 for questions-outgoing; Tue, 10 Feb 1998 04:21:11 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from TRUTH.WOFFORD.EDU (truth.wofford.edu [199.190.174.30]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with SMTP id EAA15683 for ; Tue, 10 Feb 1998 04:21:08 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from WELCHDW@TRUTH.WOFFORD.EDU) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 1998 7:21:04 -0500 From: Dan Welch To: WELCHDW@truth.wofford.edu CC: QUESTIONS@FreeBSD.ORG, WELCHDW@truth.wofford.edu Message-Id: <980210072104.2100d29b@mail.wofford.edu> Subject: RE: modem auto answer periods Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG > What's the best way to turn auto-answer on and off automatically at > specified times? It's clear that cron does this job; what I seek is > an appropriate way to handle the modem. I tried having cron just > echo the command sequences (e.g. ats0=0) to the modem, but that does > not work well for some modems: after a few cycles of this they get > out of sync with the system and require manual intervention even > though I am using hardware handshaking. I received 3 good suggestions: [] Karl Pielorz suggested that I use "chat" instead of "echo" to communicate with the modem. Since this will send commands to the modem only as the modem indicates readiness for them, I think I see in this suggestion why I had the trouble with "echo". [] Lists suggested using scripts to change the modem line's entry in /etc/ttys from "on" to "off", then force getty to restart with these values from the new file. This is an effective technique that has other applications, too. [] efinley@castlenet.com (Elliot Finley) suggested that I use mgetty. Wondering why, I followed up by reading the info files that accompany mgetty 1.0.0 and found that mgetty will refuse to answer the incoming call if a certain file name exists in a certain directory. It appears (to me) that mgetty never places the modem into auto answer mode, prefering to watch for ring signals directly I suppose, so refusing to answer is adequate. In this method I have only to create and destroy a dummy file to disable and enable dial-in service under mgetty. Very clean. My thanks to all three of you! To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe questions" in the body of the message