wvdial man page on ElementaryOS

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WVDIAL(1)							     WVDIAL(1)

NAME
       wvdial - PPP dialer with built-in intelligence.

SYNOPSIS
       wvdial [ OPTIONS ] [ SECTION ] ...

DESCRIPTION
       wvdial  is an intelligent PPP dialer, which means that it dials a modem
       and starts PPP in order to connect to the Internet.   It	 is  something
       like  the  chat(8) program, except that it uses heuristics to guess how
       to dial and log into your server rather than forcing  you  to  write  a
       login script.

       When   wvdial   starts,	 it   first   loads   its  configuration  from
       /etc/wvdial.conf and ~/.wvdialrc which contains basic information about
       the  modem  port,  speed, and init string, along with information about
       your Internet Service Provider (ISP), such as the  phone	 number,  your
       username, and your password.

       Then  it	 initializes  your  modem and dials the server and waits for a
       connection (a CONNECT string  from  the	modem).	  It  understands  and
       responds to typical connection problems (like BUSY and NO DIALTONE).

       Any  time  after	 connecting,  wvdial  will  start PPP if it sees a PPP
       sequence from the server.  Otherwise, it tries to convince  the	server
       to start PPP by doing the following:

       ·   responding to any login/password prompts it sees;

       ·   interpreting “choose one of the following”-style menus;

       ·   eventually,	sending	 the word “ppp” (a common terminal server com‐
	   mand).

       If all of this fails, wvdial just runs pppd(8) and hopes for the	 best.
       It  will	 bring	up  the connection, and then wait patiently for you to
       drop the link by pressing CTRL-C.

OPTIONS
       Several options are recognized by wvdial.

       -c, --chat
	      Run wvdial as a chat replacement from within  pppd,  instead  of
	      the more normal method of having wvdial negotiate the connection
	      and then call pppd.

       -C, --config=CONFIGFILE
	      Run wvdial with CONFIGFILE as the configuration file, instead of
	      /etc/wvdial.conf.	  This	is  mainly  useful only if you want to
	      have per-user configurations, or you want to avoid having	 dial-
	      up  information  (usernames,  passwords,	calling	 card numbers,
	      etc.) in a system wide configuration file.

       -n, --no-syslog
	      Don't output debug information to the syslog daemon (only useful
	      together with --chat).

       wvdial  is  normally run without command line options, in which case it
       reads  its  configuration  from	the  [Dialer  Defaults]	  section   of
       /etc/wvdial.conf.   (The configuration file is described in more detail
       in wvdial.conf(5) manual page.)

       One or more SECTIONs of /etc/wvdial.conf may be specified on  the  com‐
       mand  line.   Settings  in  these  sections  will  override settings in
       [Dialer Defaults].

       For example, the command:
	      wvdial phone2
       will read default options from  the  [Dialer  Defaults]	section,  then
       override	 any  or  all  of  the options with those found in the [Dialer
       phone2] section.

       If more than one section is specified, they are processed in the	 order
       they  are given.	 Each section will override all the sections that came
       before it.

       For example, the command:
	      wvdial phone2 pulse shh
       will read default options from  the  [Dialer  Defaults]	section,  then
       override	 any  or  all  of  the options with those found in the [Dialer
       phone2] section, followed by the [Dialer pulse] section, and lastly the
       [Dialer shh] section.

       Using  this method, it is possible to easily configure wvdial to switch
       between different  internet  providers,	modem  init  strings,  account
       names,  and so on without specifying the same configuration information
       over and over.

BUGS
       “Intelligent” programs are frustrating  when  they  don't  work	right.
       This  version of wvdial has only minimal support for disabling or over‐
       riding its “intelligence”, with the “Stupid Mode”, “Login Prompt”,  and
       “Password  Prompt”  options.  So, in general if you have a nice ISP, it
       will probably work, and if you have a weird ISP, it might not.

       Still, it's not much good if it doesn't work for you, right?  Don't  be
       fooled  by  the	fact  that  wvdial finally made it to version 1.00; it
       could well contain many bugs and misfeatures.  Let us know if you  have
       problems by sending e-mail to <wvdial-list@lists.nit.ca>.

       You may encounter some error messages if you don't have write access to
       /etc/ppp/pap-secrets and /etc/ppp/chap-secrets.	Unfortunately, there's
       really no nice way around this yet.

FILES
       /etc/wvdial.conf
	      Configuration  file  which  contains  modem,  dialing, and login
	      information. See wvdial.conf(5).

       /dev/ttyS*
	      Serial port devices.

       /etc/ppp/peers/wvdial
	      Required for correct authentication in  pppd  version  2.3.0  or
	      newer.

       /etc/ppp/{pap,chap}-secrets
	      Contains	a  list	 of  usernames	and passwords used by pppd for
	      authentication.  wvdial maintains this list automatically.

AUTHORS
       Dave Coombs and Avery Pennarun for Net  Integration  Technologies.   We
       would also like to thank SuSE and RedHat for adding a number of various
       cool features to wvdial.	 Thanks guys!

SEE ALSO
       wvdial.conf(5), wvdialconf(1), pppd(8), chat(8).

WvDial				 December 2005			     WVDIAL(1)
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