Re: Setup for multiple different gsm.sim-operator-id?

[Thomas Haller <thaller redhat com>]

On Wed, 2019-09-04 at 21:59 +0200, Einar Jón wrote:
> On Wed, 4 Sep 2019 at 17:11, Thomas Haller <thaller redhat com>
> wrote:
> > On Wed, 2019-09-04 at 16:46 +0200, Einar Jón via networkmanager-
> > list
> > wrote:
> > > Hello
> > >
> > > A bit of a newbie question, but is it possible to set up
> > > NetworkManager to use (one of) multiple SIM cards?
> > >
> > > We have an embedded (headless) device that can use a few
> > > different
> > > operators. Only one will be used at a time, but I can't be
> > > certain
> > > which one.
> > > So having them all somehow available would be preferred.
> > >
> > > Basically, I'd like to set up a connection that has 5 blocks of
> > > values of
> > > gsm.sim-operator-id=12345
> > > gsm.apn=myapn
> > > gsm.username=user
> > > gsm.password=hunter2
> > > Everything else should be the same.
> > >
> > > Then it connects using the APN of the sim-operator-id that
> > > matches
> > > the
> > > "operator id" that I get from "mmcli -m <number>"
> > >
> > > What is a sensible way to handle multiple mobile operators in
> > > NetworkManager?
> > > I have access to nmcli and nmtui, but no graphical tools.
> >
> > Hi,
> >
> > I think that is not possible, you would need a different connection
> > profile for each operator.
>
> I was thinking of doing that, creating profiles
> modem12345.nmconnection
> modem22334.nmconnection
> modem556677.nmconnection
> etc...
>
> But grabbing
> IMSI=$(mmcli -m XX| awk /operator id/ ...)
> and calling
> nmcli c do-stuff modem$IMSI
> seems to be the wrong way to use NetworkManager.

Hi,

I think you would create each profile only once.

Afterwards, you should be able to

  nmcli device connect $MODEM

and then (depending on the SIM), only one of the profiles is a
suitable candidate to activate. You can set properties in the profile
that tie to the operator, can't you?

The only problem is that you have a larger number of profiles, 
and that you need to create them (once).

> > Note there is merge-request [1]. If that gets merged, the APN
> > settings
> > would be automatically read from the mobile-broadband-provider-info
> > file. That should solve your issue in a different way.
> >
> > [1] 
> > https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/NetworkManager/NetworkManager/merge_requests/98
>
> That might work. If I can put my own apns and passwords in the
> mobile-broadband-provider-info file I'd get the same result.
> I guess I could just play around with the patches a bit.
>
> > best,
> > Thomas
>
> --
> Regards
> Einar Jón

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