Re: How to send the DBUS signal to NetworkManager in user space?

[Dan Williams <dcbw redhat com>]

On Wed, 2009-03-18 at 11:56 -0400, Dan Williams wrote:
> On Tue, 2009-03-17 at 16:16 +0800, fangxiaozhi 00110321 wrote:
> > Dear All:
> >  
> >    I have a data card, and it can support the usb ether feature.
> >  
> >    But there are some problems to use in the linux systems:
> >  
> >    1. While I plug the data card into the linux, and after the cdc_ether.ko driver is attached to the device, the NetworkManager will be activated to add our device in its list, and detach the IP of our device.
> >     In this case, which signal or method_call will be received by the NetworkManager from DBUS or HAL?
> 
> Excellent; seems like everyone is moving to this model, which is good.
> Are you using specific commands on the AT ports to activate the
> cdc-ether device?  IE, Option devices use 'AT$OWANCALL' and AT$OWANDATA'
> to start the actual data connection and make the IP address known to the
> connection manager.  Ericsson F3507g cards use other commands and then
> require DHCP done on the ether device.
> 
> How do the huawei cards start the actual data connection?
> 
> A few more questions for you:
> 
> 1) does the device support PPP at all on the AT-capable ttys?
> 
> 2) Which version of NetworkManager are you targeting?
> 
> 3) Does the card advertise one or more CDC-ACM ports and one CDC-ETHER
> port, or are the serial ports still driven by 'option'?
> 
> For now, with NetworkManager 0.7.x, we have limited support for the
> Option 'hso' modems and the Ericsson F3507g.  We may be able to support
> these newer Huawei devices in 0.7.x too.
> 
> For NetworkManager 0.8/head, we have a much more flexible system called
> ModemManager which will definitely have the infrastructure to handle
> your card.  We'd love to add support for your cards to ModemManager, and
> also if possible to NM 0.7.x.
> 
> >    2. While I dial-up the data card to connect to the Ethernet, the NetworkManager will not be activated to refresh the information, such as IP, for our data card in the linux system.
> >      I want to send some signal or method_call to NetworkManager by DBUS to activate it in the user space.
> >      Which signal or method_call can I send ? How to send them?
> 
> This is expected because the card is not handled natively by
> NetworkManager's 3G support.  If possible (and I think it is), we should
> teach NetworkManager about your new hardware, then everything will work
> happily together.
> 
> In return, I have a question for you too :)
> 
> I have a Huawei E160G card (firmware version 11.604.06.00.156) that I am
> trying to make NetworkManager talk to.  The device randomly stops
> responding to AT commands on its first serial port and must be unplugged
> and replugged to make it respond again.  Could you direct me to somebody
> who could help me debug this behavior and thus make Huawei cards better
> supported for NetworkManager users?

I've found out a bit more about this; the E160G provides two serial
ttys, ttyUSB0 (the main port) and ttyUSB1 (the unsolicited reply port).
However, the freezes seem to be trigger when issuing AT commands (like
AT+GCAP) on ttyUSB1 before running NetworkManager.  If no capabilities
probing is done on ttyUSB1, everything is fine.  If any capabilties
probing is done on ttyUSB1, the modem randomly hangs later when NM is
run.  Do you (or anyone in your team) have any idea whether this is
expected behavior on the E160G device, or is there some workaround that
I need to do?

Dan