Changes to WvDial since the initial release: 1.51 (2002 03 04) ---- - Synchronize with libwvstreams v3.69 - WvDialConf actually works with this release - Applied some patches from Andrew W. Nosenko <awn@bcs.zp.ua> that fix a couple of typos, and which makes sure that the wvdialconf man page gets installed. - Applied some patches from RedHat to make sure that WvDial and WvStreams compile clean on 64 bit architectures. Also did some cleanup to make sure that the goofy GCC that RedHat ships doesn't complain on some bits of WvDial. - Applied patches from SuSE to ensure that WvDial compiles cleanly using GCC 3.1, as well, adapt a patch to make sure that wvdialconf creates the wvdial.conf file mode 660. Also applied their multi-phone number patch (so it will dial several phone numbers in order if you ask it nicely), as well as their check to make sure inherited sections actually exist. - Applied a mega patch from SuSE that added better ISDN support, added USB modem support, added a "--no-syslog" option, inactivity timeouts, interactive passwords (WvDial will now prompt you for passwords if you ask it to), Connection checking once you're online (which can probably be adapted to run your copy of retchmail (or if you are still using fetchmail.. I guess you could run that as well) once you are online. It also reputedly works better with DialD. - Applied patch from Dushyanth Harinath <dushy@symonds.net> to implement the "Dial Attempts" option, which will now cause WvDial to stop trying to dial after the number in this option is exceeded. - It should be mentioned somewhere that all of these nifty new features are pretty much completely untested. So please bang at them, look at them, and please send the bug reports to wvdial-list@lists.nit.ca. That's where all of the cool wvdial hackers hang out ;) 1.50 (2002 01 28) ---- - Added handling of Configuration Files in other places than /etc/wvdial.conf - Added support for Lucent WinModem devices (/dev/ttyLT) - Added support for command line options (you can now do cool things like: wvdial password=currentSecureIDNumber HeadOffice - Changed so that WvStreams is now not included in the base distribution so you need WvStreams installed as a separate package in order for WvDial to do anything intelligent. 1.42 (Sometime ago) ---- - There were some changes - not sure what they were anymore, but there were some changes between 1.41 and 1.42 1.41 (1999 01 06) ---- - Some internal changes to wvstreams for compatibility with non-gcc compilers. Nothing much that will interest most people, but anyone hacking on wvdial should hack on this version. 1.40 (1999 08 02) ---- - Lots of changes to the underlying wvstreams library and API; you probably won't notice, but it's much cleaner/faster/better now. - '%' is now a valid prompt character. - The wvdial/MENUS file documents login menu types that we currently do/don't support. Patches to fix any of the unsupported ones are (VERY!) welcome, but try to make sure you don't break any supported ones while you're at it. - After wvdial guesses at a login menu, it now reverts to default_reply. That means if menu guessing doesn't quite work the first time, you have a chance to recover and send 'ppp' instead. - Michael K. Johnson from Red Hat fixed a bug with baud rate detection: we weren't actually checking if the kernel allowed us to set the new rate, so wvdialconf choose the wrong one sometimes. - mkj also added support for a "--chat" option to wvdial: this will allow you to use wvdial as a drop-in replacement for the "chat" program, because wvdial will talk on stdin/stdout and log messages to syslog. Try something like this: pppd connect 'wvdial --chat' /dev/ttyS2 115200 Thanks, Michael! - If you have the liblockdev library installed, we use that instead of our own routines to create lock files in /var/lock. Among other things, that makes /dev/modem symlinks safe! (But _everybody_ has to use liblockdev on your system if you really want it to be useful.) - "New PPPD = yes" is now the default, because nearly everyone has the new pppd nowadays. You can still turn it off if you want. 1.30 and 1.31 (never released) ------------- - These were pre-release versions distributed to Patrick Patterson (author of kwvdial) and Red Hat, respectively, to help them integrate their packages with wvdial. 1.20 (1998 11 07) ---- - Auto Reconnect is on by default. It was supposed to be before. Oops. Changed some of the delays, too. - WvDial is now smarter with short menus that arrive at the same time as their prompts. Previously, the prompt would get lost, and so the prompt wouldn't get answered even if wvdial successfully found the option. - We can now read menus such as "Press P for PPP, R for shell" correctly. - Now using the latest WvStreams library, with several bugfixes and cleanups. - New autodependency mechanism is MUCH faster. 1.10 (1998 09 23) ---- - The '$' character is now a valid prompt character. (So the bash$ prompt can work!) - WvDial keeps track of how many times it has tried to connect during the current session. It also auto-redials if your ISP hangs up on you, and has an exponential backoff timer (delay doubles each time) if it simply can't connect for some reason. - wvdialconf was setting Init, not Init1 in /etc/wvdial.conf. Unfortunately, there is no such option, so people wanting to change the ATZ were getting confused. 1.01 (1998 09 10) ---- - "Remote Name" option now defaults to '*' instead of 'wvdial' -- this should help people using CHAP. - People with 7e1 connections (ie. certain Compuserve dial-ins) should now be able to connect, because WvDial ignores the incoming parity bit. - WvDial no longer re-initializes the modem on exit. 1.00 did sometimes, for a rather silly reason. - Because of another silly error (capitalization of the word 'Modem') WvDial 1.00 was printing the "-->" arrow for _all_ lines, not just informational messages. - There was an obscure bug that caused crashing with certain very specific prompt styles. 1.00 (1998 08 25) ---- - There really wasn't much wrong with it! This version is 0.41 with patches for a few build problems, the latest WvStreams library, and up-to-date documentation. 0.41 (1998 05 16) ---- - Now works better with pppd 2.3.x: you don't need "noauth" in /etc/ppp/options. Set the option "New PPPD = yes" in wvdial.conf. - Cleaned up some compile problems with the egcs compiler. - Longer delay between TERMinating and KILLing pppd. 0.40 (1998 04 19) ---- - WvDial now aborts a connection sequence if it sees that the modem has dropped carrier. You can disable this with the "Carrier Check" config file option. - Boolean (on/off) options in wvdial.conf can now be set to 1/0, on/off, yes/no, and true/false. - Much cleaner prompt detection code. Now wvdial can understand any of the following menu formats: 1. Start PPP (1) Start PPP [1] Start PPP Press (1) for PPP whack 1 - PPP If you press "1", you get PPP. - An all-new "stupid mode" disables prompt responses entirely and just runs pppd immediately when you connect, using PAP. This is for (you guessed it) "stupid" ISP's that give a login: prompt but don't let you actually log in, but work fine anyway if you just use PAP. Just set "Stupid Mode = yes" in wvdial.conf. - Up to 9 different init strings, via the config options Init1 through Init9. - Change your dial prefix and dial command separately from the phone number, possibly even in a separate [Dialer] section of wvdial.conf. WvDial now dials the modem like this: "Dial Command" "Dial Prefix" "Phone" Where by default, "Dial Command" is ATDT and "Dial Prefix" is blank. - Didn't update the manpages, again. 0.31 (1998 03 15) ---- - WvDial would segfault for some people if pppd died. Thanks to <davidw@cks.com> and <dsb3@earthlink.net> for pointing this out. The problem was caused by referring to WvDialer::modem after it had been deleted after a disconnect. - Debian package no longer redirects pon/poff to pon.wvdial/poff.wvdial; it was too dangerous and done incorrectly. Also changed postinst to only create wvdial.conf at the "configuration" phase of installation. - Included a fix from <dsb3@earthlink.net> to search for ISP "welcome" messages and avoid the 5-second "don't know what to do" delay. The implementation of this may change later. - WvDial now isn't quite as eager to respond to login prompts; it waits 100ms first. That way, if a server prints several login prompts in a row, wvdial won't try to answer all of them. 0.30 (1998 03 07) ---- - We now use the modem's carrier detect to notice when, during login, the connection has dropped. - login and password prompt override, with the "Login Prompt" and "Password Prompt" options. - Some fixes to prompt detection: "sign*on" is detected, and "~" doesn't count as a prompt string. We don't do blank-line prompts yet since they're still a bit suspicious. - Added --help and --version command-line options. - We now warn when you specify a non-existent wvdial.conf section on the command line. - Some minor changes to the output display. 0.25 (1998 02 14) ---- - wvdial now has a mailing list! Send a message (subject: subscribe) to wvdial-list-request@worldvisions.ca if you want to get in on all the latest action. All new releases will be announced here. - Added support for pppd 2.3.x, by editing pap-secrets instead of using the "deprecated" +ua option. This unfortunately means that you will need to run wvdial as root at least the first time after you set/change your password in /etc/wvdial.conf. (The +ua option was removed from pppd for security reasons, and most people agree that setting a PPP password is an "administrative" task to be done by root.) - You can now supply an arbitrary number of config file sections on the wvdial command line and wvdial will take options out of them in order. For example: "wvdial uwaterloo quiet" might take the phone number from the [Dialer uwaterloo] section, the init string from the [Dialer Quiet] section, and the rest of the information from the [Dialer Defaults] section. - Removed various unneeded files from the source tree. Some of it was Linux-specific, and getting compiled for no reason. WvDial should _hopefully_ build with very few changes on other systems, now. - "&c0" init string problem fixed -- "CLOCAL" mode should have been enabled in wvmodem.cc. 0.20 (1997 12 21) ---- - Debian package now uses debhelper instead of debmake. - Much-improved WvLog class produces cleaner and more readable screen output. (And provides room to grow into nice features like syslog.) - Simplified WvDialer class by using the new WvLog stuff, fixing several bugs in the process. - Much better prompt detection / response, now officially tested at least once. - Slightly better ppp negotiation string detection. It's still stupid, but it works. - Thanks to Stephen P. Molnar <smolnar@postbox.acs.ohio-state.edu> for noticing some horrible bugs in the config file parser, which may now be fixed. - The return code of pppd is now reported correctly. 0.12 (1997 12 18) ---- - Quick change to search /dev/ttyI* (ISDN) as well as /dev/ttyS*. This MAY be all that's necessary to support ISDN... but we're probably not so lucky. Let us know! 0.11 ---- - Tiny fix to rules.mk in the source code archive so that non-Debian (actually, non-bash2) users can compile WvDial.
