I am running RedHat 7.0 and up until now I have been su'ing to root and running wvdial to dial up my ISP, but now I want to have other people use my computer also, but do not want to have to give each of them the root password. However, when I try to run wvdial as another user, it says that it cannot open /dev/ttyS1 because it is busy, even though I know it isn't, because if I use su and do the exact same thing it works fine. I tried the RedHat PPP dialer but it is crap and seems to not do anything at all. What can I do to fix this? Thanks in advance
/bobthebat

Try #5 to answer this question (bloody Netscape).

Sounds like you are using KDE. I had the same problem. The quick fix was I switched all users to Gnome, which wasn't a problem since it's a home system. No problems after that.

If you want to continue using KDE, configure your modem connection using /usr/bin/rp3-config (as root). From that point on, your users should be able to connect on their own.

If not, let us know.

oddness
 

Well actually I am using GNOME, and I don't even have KDE installed, but I just figured out something very odd. If I use the RH PPP dialer, it does nothing immediately after I click it, which is why I thought it didn't work, but when I open an application such as Netscape, which needs internet access, it *then* starts to dial. This seems very odd to me. Is this how yours works also?

Have you made sure that the permissions are set properly? Not just for /dev/ttyS1 but for wvdial, wvdial.conf, pppd?

If not then try that, you may want to create a group called dial-up, and give the group the correct permissions.

Re: oddness
 

Nope, mine doesn't go that way. I have to dial up before I launch Netscape or Mozilla. Otherwise it get "host not found" etc. And then things with Netscape get ugly from there.

So is it working well for you now?

It seems to be working fine now, except for that fact that it still waits to dial. I don't know what that's all about, but its fine as long as it works.