Q I have a Devolo dLAN HomePlug 85Mbps Ethernet Starter Kit. Devolo provides a software utility to enable encryption between each device, but I don't know how to install the provided software.
A This is a source package: you need to compile it, but first there are a couple of requirements you should install from Synaptic. Dlanconfig depends on libpcap, which is installed by default in Ubuntu, but to compile against it you also need the libpcap-dev package. You also need to the build-essentials package, which includes the compiler and other tools needed to build software from source. Once these are installed through Synaptic, open a terminal and change the the directory containing the file you downloaded from www.devolo.com, then run
tar xf dLAN-linux-package-XX.tar.gz cd dLAN-linux-package-XX ./configure make cfgtool sudo make install-cfgtool
The first two lines unpack the archive and change to the directory containing its file. The next two build the config tool from source and the last one installs the files to your system. If you decide to remove the software at any time, repeat the process, but make the last command
sudo make uninstall
Now you can start the program with
sudo dlanconfig eth0
and change your passwords. You will need the devices' security codes, which cannot be read when they are plugged in, so make a note of these first. Run dlanconfig and take the option to change the remote password, which also changes the one for the local device. If you change the local device first, you will not be able to connect to the remote one to change that because the passwords no longer match. If you have the USB version of the dLAN devices, you need to change the last two lines of the build process to
make usbdriver sudo make install-usbdriver
to install that or simply
make make install
to install both. Building the USB driver requires the kernel sources, so use Synaptic to install the linux-source package first.