Re: Looking for advice about using NM with a Sprint U301 modem

[Daenyth Blank <daenyth gmail com>]

On Thu, Jun 3, 2010 at 11:27, Daenyth Blank <daenyth gmail com> wrote:
> On Thu, Jun 3, 2010 at 11:19, Dan Williams <dcbw redhat com> wrote:
>> On Wed, 2010-06-02 at 12:54 -0400, Daenyth Blank wrote:
>>> On Wed, Jun 2, 2010 at 08:12, Daenyth Blank <daenyth gmail com> wrote:
>>> > On Wed, Jun 2, 2010 at 03:16, Dan Williams <dcbw redhat com> wrote:
>>> >> On Thu, 2010-05-27 at 12:04 -0400, Daenyth Blank wrote:
>>> >>> Hi all,
>>> >>>
>>> >>> I'm trying to find out some information regarding the Sprint U301 3G
>>> >>> modem. Our use case for it is that it will be attached to an embedded
>>> >>> machine running ubuntu with networkmanager, in addition to our
>>> >>> software. I've been trying to get this modem to connect reliably and
>>> >>> am having some issues with it. I've added a udev rule so that the
>>> >>> usbserial driver is given the correct vendor/product information, and
>>> >>> it connects automatically on boot, but not reliably. Some boots it
>>> >>> does not connect at all and won't until I reboot. Sometimes it
>>> >>> disconnects while the machine is running. If it disconnects either by
>>> >>> itself or from deactivating the connection, it will not connect again
>>> >>> and needs a reboot. The nm/mm logs say that serial requests are timing
>>> >>> out when it's in the non-connected state. I haven't been able to
>>> >>> recover from the disconnected state with anything about a reboot.
>>> >>>
>>> >>> Is there anything we can do with this device to increase reliability?
>>> >>> Failing that, can you recommend a usb Sprint 3G modem that will be
>>> >>> more reliable? If there are none, do you have any recommendations for
>>> >>> any brand of 3G modem that will work well in this situation? The boxes
>>> >>> will be deployed where manual access is not easy, so it needs to be
>>> >>> able to connect and recover from disconnections automatically, or at
>>> >>> least in a way that can be scripted easily.
>>> >>
>>> >> You're certainly not going to be able to get the WiMAX part of the
>>> >> device working automatically since we dont' have drivers for the Beceem
>>> >> chipset of the WiMAX side.  However, the EVDO side should work with
>>> >> cdc-acm, so if you have to use 'usb-serial' there's already something
>>> >> wrong.
>>> >>
>>> >> I suspect you need to use usb_modeswitch to eject the fake CD that the
>>> >> device provides too, correct?
>>> >>
>>> >> Honestly, UTStarcom-based devices (which the 300 and 301 are rebrands
>>> >> of) often don't work that well as you've found out.  I'd recommend a
>>> >> Sierra device instead, as Sierra is also very active in Linux kernel
>>> >> development and has great support for their devices.
>>> >>
>>> >> Dan
>>> >>
>>> >>
>>> >
>>> > Thanks Forest, Dan. I'm going to recommend to our client that we use
>>> > the Sierra cards. Appreciate the advice!
>>> >
>>>
>>> I'm looking into the 598 now, and I'm having a little trouble getting
>>> NM to recognize it. I plug in the device and I can see by using dmesg
>>> that the sierra driver gets loaded, but when I run
>>> nm-connection-editor and try to edit the connection, it doesn't get
>>> listed in the device dropdown. Is there anything I have to do to get
>>> it recognized? I also haven't been able to find any good guides on
>>> setting it up. I'm running Ubuntu Karmic right now.
>>
>> It should show up in the menu after a few seconds.  Try grabbing some
>> debugging information as described here to figure out why things aren't
>> working:
>>
>> http://live.gnome.org/NetworkManager/Debugging
>>
>> under the "Debugging NetworkManager 0.8.x 3G connections" section.
>> Basically, we want to get modem-manager logs to find out why the modem
>> doesn't appear to be found.
>>
>> Dan
>>
>>
>>
>
> I'll try to get that today, first with a normal install and then with
> the configs that Forest suggested.
>

I waited a few minutes as you suggested and then I was able to add the
connection... I must have just been impatient during my testing the
other day. Thanks for the help!