> > Only root is able to use wvdial, even though I thought wvdial has been set > > up for use by non-root users. > > was wvdial set up for this by yourself, or by the wvdial install program? > > > When I, as user david, type wvdial, I get an error that david cannot have > > access to /dev/ttyS1. That's better than before, when david couldn't access > > the wvdial.conf file. > > My solution to this is to restrict the access to the wvdial executable and > make it suid. This isn't technically the safest way of doing it but I'd > rather have a simple solution I can keep track of, rather than a > complicated solution that I can't. > > I also have a suid wrapper to 'kill <pidofwvdial' available so that any > user in the appropriate groups can take the modem offline no matter who > put it online.
I just set up ppp on my slink workstation yesterday, and I used sudo to avoid setting scripts suid (although pppd installs as suid root). Even though I'm using pon/poff, I'll bet sudo can solve your problem, too, if suid scripts give you "the feeling". I never used sudo before, but I found it intuitive and flexible and IMHO it would be easier to maintain than keeping track of suid scripts.
