Re: Wvdial and non-root access

[Dave Baker <dsb3@earthlink.net>]

> 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'm running a very restricted access computer, so it's a problem if one
person dials up and walks away ... 


dave


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