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 command).

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

--remotename

Override the Remote Name setting in the dialer configuration section of the configuration file. This is mainly useful when you dial to multiple systems with the same user name and password, and you don't want to use inheritance to override this setting (which is the recommended way to do it).

--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.

--no-syslog

Don't output debug information to the syslog daemon (only useful together with --chat).

--help

Prints a short message describing how to use wvdial and exits.

--version

Displays wvdial's version number and exits.

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 command 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.

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 <.

Also, there is now a mailing list for discussion about wvdial. If you are having problems, or have anything else to say, send e-mail to <.

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.

/etc/wvdial.conf

Configuration file which contains modem, dialing, and login information. See

/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.

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