If dial-out PPP configured through "netcfg" The dial-out PPP scripts do not work properly. ifcfg-ppp0 if created using rp3-config, netcfg cannot use it and will ot make a dial-up PPP connection, instead returns the error Failed to activate /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-ppp0" If PPP scripts created using netcfg, then rp3 will dial and make a PPP connection but PPP does not work properly and cannot ping any host. However if rp3-config is used instead of rp3 and a "debug" is used then it works.
This is correct. The new rp3 tool is not meant to interoperate with netcfg. The rp3/wvdial combination can use MSDNS information sent over the link to configure your /etc/resolv.conf to use the proper nameservers to resolve addresses. Unless your ISP is doing something strange, the addresses of its nameservers shouldn't change, and after your initial connection, scripts generated using netcfg should work fine. I'm marking this as "not a bug" because we only recommend use of netcfg in the few situations where rp3 and wvdial don't work correctly. If there is some other problem, please reopen this bug.
Although it's probably not directly related to the original query above, there is one case you may wish to document where wvdial doesn't work correctly. This is where the remote system includes the following in its prompt text (taken from a works system I had to configure recently): Q> Welcome to the login server for our employees Q> ============================================= Q> Q> Please enter your ID: rhw Q> ...and your password: ********* Q> Q> Please wait, validating your account...........OK. Q> Q> ================================================================ Q> For PPP access, please type 'use PPP', otherwise type 'direct'. Q> Q> Cmd: There are two problems with the above that cause wvdial to hiccup: 1. The initial prompt text includes the word 'login' and often results in wvdial sending the user ID before the system is ready. 2. The secondary prompt contains the word PPP but states that it needs to be in the form 'use PPP' to start up PPP access, and not in the form of the word PPP on its own. The latter could be dealt with by adding the following rule to wvdial's AI code for detecting how to start up PPP: ?. If in the secondary prompt, we see QUOTED text entirely on a single line that contains PPP (located in a case insensitive manner), we use the quoted text as the command to send. However, the only way I can see to deal with the first problem would be to require that the word login occur either on the line where we stop receiving characters, or on the immediately preceding line, and I would tend to suspect that such would cause other problems...
I'm forwarding this to the documentation folks for review. Thanks for your your help in tracking down what is probably a netcfg bug.
I have now joined the wvdial development list, and am working on various patches for wvdial that should make suchlike setups easier to deal with...
Reviewed by Docs; am closing it out as NOTABUG, but will work with the author doing the rp3 documentation to see if the point about netcfg and rp3 not working together can be mentioned in future releases...