ModemManager vs NetworkManager (and the overlap of functionality) : Best Practices

[Aleksander Morgado]

On Mon, Mar 13, 2023 at 2:09 PM Peter Naulls <peter at chocky.org> wrote:
>
> On 3/13/23 08:34, Robert Colvin wrote:
>
> > but this leaves me with more questions than answers (after playing for a while)
> >
> > As I understood it, NM was responsible for managing the modem itself, whereas MM would handle tasks like automatically failing over a wireless network to a cellular connection - but would rely on NM to manage the interface to the modem. But in this "simple" task there is some overlap/grey area - for example, a cellular data connection requires things like APNs, where should that fall? it seems it has landed in both NM and MM.
>
> "It's complicated".
>

Heh, yeah :)

> I use MM in OpenWrt, and I have a separate script to monitor connections and
> restart the modem when required.  It's not an ideal or tightly integrated
> solution, but it's pretty robust at this time.  There may be other pieces too,
> in particular udev rules for invoking usbmodeswitch and such.  In OpenWrt,
> ModemManager intergrates with netifd, which a lot like NetworkManager, and there
> are scripts that tie them together.
>

Forgot about USB modeswitch, good point, it's something we always take
for granted and there are still cases out there that require it.

-- 
Aleksander