RaspberryPi 2 with Huawei E398

[Dan Williams]

On Mon, 2015-05-18 at 18:23 +0100, John Whitmore wrote:
> On Mon, May 18, 2015 at 06:33:28PM +0200, poma wrote:
> > On 18.05.2015 18:22, poma wrote:
> > > On 18.05.2015 17:33, John Whitmore wrote:
> > >> On Fri, May 15, 2015 at 03:54:36PM +0100, John Whitmore wrote:
> > >>> On Fri, May 15, 2015 at 09:29:11AM -0500, Dan Williams wrote:
> > >>>> On Fri, 2015-05-15 at 16:11 +0200, Aleksander Morgado wrote:
> > >>>>> On Fri, May 15, 2015 at 10:28 AM, John Whitmore <arigead at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >>>>>> I'm trying to put together a system which uses 2 Huawei E398 USB Dongles with
> > >>>>>> two different operator SIM's so that if one modem has no coverage the other
> > >>>>>> takes over.
> > >>>>>>
> > >>>>>> I've followed the debugging information on [1] to try and get my hands on the
> > >>>>>> logs but not sure where the NetworkManger is sending its logging info. I do
> > >>>>>> have the output from ModemManager, which I'll attach to this email.
> > >>>>>>
> > >>>>>> I'm not sure that the logging from ModemManager will be of any help at all as
> > >>>>>> it might not be the issue. What is happening is that I can establish a
> > >>>>>> connection but as soon as I start to do a ping test from the command line the
> > >>>>>> whole system freezes.
> > >>>>>>
> > >>>>>> This is with one 4G Dongle in place, I was hoping to be able to manage both
> > >>>>>> connections.
> > >>>>>>
> > >>>>>> I'm using raspbian 2015-05-05 with kernel 3.18.13
> > >>>>>>
> > >>>>>> If I can send on anything else please let me know. I'd really like to get this
> > >>>>>> system working. Unfortunately I've only got two E398 Dongles so I can't try
> > >>>>>> with a different modem at present. I'll try and get my hands on another.
> > >>>>>>
> > >>>>>>
> > >>>>>> [1] : http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/ModemManager/Debugging/
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>> Ouch; ModemManager 0.5.2 is way too old... Could you setup
> > >>>>> ModemManager 1.4.8 with libqmi to try?
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>> Also, just to make sure, you are using an external *powered* usb hub
> > >>>>> to connect the modems to the RPi, right? The RPi cannot handle the
> > >>>>> power consumption of 1 single modem in connected state.
> > >>>>
> > >>>> Good point; even some laptops cannot power modems adequately, hence they
> > >>>> ship Y cables with modems that pull power from 2 USB ports :)  Always
> > >>>> good to check this out when the modem crashes while connected.
> > >>>>
> > >>>> Dan
> > >>>>
> > >>>>
> > >>>
> > >>> Oh dear!!! I never thought of software versions at all. I believe that there
> > >>> is a version of Ubuntu for the RPi so I'll give that a go and get back to
> > >>> you. If I can get Ubuntu it usually has more recent packages.
> > >>>
> > >>> Thanks for your help with that I'll let you know.
> > >>>
> > >>> John
> > >>
> > >> It's a funny old Linux world. Raspbian had an old unsupported version of
> > >> ModemManager in place so I tried out the RPi Ubuntu Mate distro for a later
> > >> version of the tools. 
> > >>
> > >> My first problem on Ubuntu is however that usb_modeswitch is refusing to eject
> > >> the device. That's funny as Raspbian 2015-05-05 was ejecting it
> > >> automatically. A quick look at the udev rules showed that Raspbian has a line
> > >> for each modem, so for the modem I'm using the line is:
> > >>
> > >> # Huawei EC156, Huawei E372u-8
> > >> ATTRS{idVendor}=="12d1", ATTRS{idProduct}=="1505", RUN+="usb_modeswitch '%b/%k'"
> > >>
> > >> The Ubuntu Mate version of the udev rules has a more generic Huawei rule for
> > >> all devices:
> > >>
> > >> # Generic entry for all Huawei devices
> > >> ATTRS{idVendor}=="12d1", ATTR{bInterfaceNumber}=="00", ATTR{bInterfaceClass}=="08", RUN+="usb_modeswitch '%b/%k'"
> > >>
> > >> So maybe that generic udev line ain't working for me so I copy and paste the
> > >> more specific line into Ubuntu's udev rules, and remove the generic line. So
> > >> now when I insert the modem, again nothing. 
> > >>
> > >> A quick look at dmesg and it appears that usb_modeswitch was trying but scsi
> > >> was telling it to get lost!  "rejecting I/O to offline device"
> > >>
> > >> [  468.804298] usb 1-1.4.5.5: new high-speed USB device number 12 using dwc_otg
> > >> [  468.906295] usb 1-1.4.5.5: New USB device found, idVendor=12d1, idProduct=1505
> > >> [  468.906357] usb 1-1.4.5.5: New USB device strings: Mfr=3, Product=2, SerialNumber=0
> > >> [  468.906376] usb 1-1.4.5.5: Product: HUAWEI Mobile
> > >> [  468.906393] usb 1-1.4.5.5: Manufacturer: Huawei Technologies
> > >> [  468.908509] usb-storage 1-1.4.5.5:1.0: USB Mass Storage device detected
> > >> [  468.909352] scsi host2: usb-storage 1-1.4.5.5:1.0
> > >> [  469.905485] scsi 2:0:0:0: CD-ROM            HUAWEI   Mass Storage     2.31 PQ: 0 ANSI: 0
> > >> [  470.025146] sr 2:0:0:0: [sr0] scsi3-mmc drive: 0x/0x caddy
> > >> [  470.026182] sr 2:0:0:0: Attached scsi CD-ROM sr0
> > >> [  470.027015] sr 2:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg0 type 5
> > >> [  470.135151] scsi 2:0:0:0: rejecting I/O to offline device
> > >> [  470.135191] scsi 2:0:0:0: killing request
> > >>  
> > >>
> > >> It's hard to know which route is easier. Raspbian can eject the devices but
> > >> has an old version of NetworkManager and ModemManager, where as Ubuntu has
> > >> later versions of the tools but can't eject a CD device. Maybe I need another distro.
> > >>
> > > 
> > > These are different operation modes, as far as I understand.
> > > 
> > > http://www.draisberghof.de/usb_modeswitch
> > > 
> > > 
> > >> Man USB modems are aything but Universal Serial Devices!
> > 
> > 
> > Besides, you can subscribe to the "Discussions about the Fedora ARM Project"
> > https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/arm
> > and see if you can, by talking with folks there, improve the overall experience in using your favorite toy.
> > 
> > Good luck.
> > 
> > 
> 
> I've gone back to Raspbian as that is able to modeswitch the device,
> downloaded and installed the latest version of ModemManager. It all seems to
> be ok on the face of it but the ModemManager was installed to /usr/local/sbin
> and it's working off a Different DBus name then the uninstalled older version.
> 
> /org/freedesktop/ModemManager1/
> 
> because ModemManager is using "1" I assume that's why it can't talk to
> NetworkManger which still expects if to be using the DBus at
> /org/freedesktop/ModemManager/

Correct; ModemManager 0.7 (released Dec 2012) and later corrected many
deficiencies in the original MM API.  Basically, (1) we learned a lot
since 2008 about how modems work, (2) the MM 1.0+ API works with
standard D-Bus features like the Object Manager and PropertiesChanged
signals, and (3) it works with multi-mode devices like yours that speak
any combination of GSM, UMTS, LTE, CDMA, EVDO, etc.

Obviously that also requires that NetworkManager come along for the
ride, which was done in NetworkManager 0.9.8 and later (released in
February 2013).

You can also use 'mmcli' to control ModemManager from scripts, or use
the D-Bus interface yourself.  The parts that NetworkManager handles are
mostly configuration storage and IP setup, though you can (and people
have) written their own tools to read ModemManager's bearer
configuration and configure the relevant interface (or launch pppd) and
change routing.

Dan