Before I went over to ADSL I needed a gui ap that could be run from a client and used to initiate a dial-up session remotely on a 2nd box that served as our gateway. I also found that on a stand alone slackware box kppp often failed on first attempt at making a connection but made the connection the second time albeit at the cost of two phone calls. I wrote gx-logon to as a single solution to both these problems. I could use passwordless ssh to run gx-logon from the clients and use it on the gateway box instead of using kppp.

Gx-logon took the place of kppp on the gateway which was also used as a workstation in our home network. A gx-logon icon on both the client's and gateway's desktop allowed users to start gx-logon with the click of a mouse. I set the client up for passwordless ssh so that gx-logon could run on the gateway without the need for a user to enter a password.

I wrote gx-logon to run on my Slackware boxes and it uses Slackware's "ppp-on" and ppp-off"to initiate and terminate dialups sessions. I have also been advised that gx-logon be run can be run on Debian by editing the script to run "pon" and "poff" which are Debian's equivalents to ppp-on and ppp-off.

You will need gxmessage to run gx-logon. Gxmessage was written by Tim Musson and you find out more about it at http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~trmusson/programs.html Debian includes gxmessage under the name gmessage.

With DSL, cable and wireless so common[place in developed countries these days this gx-logon might seem a bit antiquated, However, there might still be some dialup users out there who might be interested in looking at plus it does illustrate how to use gxmessage in a usefull way.