Update on Huawei-E172 card and NetworkManager

Minor changes are required in NetworkManager on Fedora-8 to make it work fine with the Huawei-E172 card and the french mobile broadband network provider SFR.

• install the latest version of hal-info from updates-testing repository.

• if you don't want the usb storage stuff of the card to show up each time you plug it in, add an entry in hal, named /usr/share/hal/fdi/preprobe/20thirdparty/20-huawei.fdi and containing :

  <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> 
   
  <deviceinfo version="0.2"> 
    <device> 
      <match key="storage.bus" string="usb"> 
       <match key="@storage.originating_device:usb.vendor_id" int="0x12d1"> 
         <match key="@storage.originating_device:usb.product_id" int="0x1003"> 
           <merge key="info.ignore" type="bool">true</merge> 
         </match> 
       </match> 
     </match> 
    </device> 
  </deviceinfo>
  

• add an udev rule, that will send the PIN code the the card control device upon card insertion, in a file named /etc/udev/rules.d/99-huawei.rules

  ACTION=="add", KERNEL=="ttyUSB1", ATTRS{idVendor}=="12d1", ATTRS{idProduct}=="1003", RUN+="/usr/local/bin/huawei-e172-send-pin $env{DEVNAME}"
  

• create the script file that will send the PIN code to the card, /usr/local/bin/huawei-e172-send-pin

  #!/bin/bash
  if [ -n "$1" -a -c "$1" -a -w "$1" ]; then
    echo 'at+cpin="1234"' >gt; "$1"
  fi
  exit 0
  

• the two previous steps can be replaced by creating a gconf key containing the pin value, system/networking/connections/*/gsm/pin, of type String. But this won't work on the first connection, because NM currently doesn't wait after setting the pin and before the card becomes available for dialing.

• apply this patch to NetworkManager 0.7 from the updates-testing repo, and rebuild the package:

  --- NetworkManager-0.7.0/src/nm-gsm-device.c.orig       2008-01-09 19:10:50.000000000 +0100 
  +++ NetworkManager-0.7.0/src/nm-gsm-device.c    2008-04-11 15:02:32.000000000 +0200 
  @@ -169,7 +169,7 @@ 
    
          setting = NM_SETTING_GSM (gsm_device_get_setting (NM_GSM_DEVICE (device), NM_TYPE_SETTING_GSM)); 
    
  -       command = g_strdup_printf ("AT+COPS=1,2,\"%s\"", setting->network_id); 
  +       command = g_strdup ("AT+CGDCONT=1,\"IP\",\"slsfr\""); 
          nm_serial_device_send_command_string (device, command); 
          g_free (command); 
    
  @@ -268,10 +268,7 @@ 
    
          setting = NM_SETTING_GSM (gsm_device_get_setting (NM_GSM_DEVICE (device), NM_TYPE_SETTING_GSM)); 
    
  -       if (setting->network_id) 
  -               manual_registration (device); 
  -       else 
  -               automatic_registration (device); 
  +       manual_registration (device); 
   } 
    
   static void 
  @@ -440,7 +437,7 @@ 
          guint id; 
          char *responses[] = { "OK", "ERR", NULL }; 
    
  -       nm_serial_device_send_command_string (device, "ATZ E0"); 
  +       nm_serial_device_send_command_string (device, "ATZ Q0V1E0S0=0&C1&D2"); 
          id = nm_serial_device_wait_for_reply (device, 10, responses, init_done, NULL); 
    
          if (id)
  

• with gconf-editor, go to the system/networking/connections/*/ppp entries related to your gsm connection, and toggle the noauth key to true.

• restart haldaemon, NetworkManager and the nm-applet, and you should be able to connect to your broadband provider, using NetworkManager.

Update:

It appears that the patch to nm-gsm-device.c above, that modifies the ATZ init string and fixes the SFR APN with AT+CGDCONT is not needed. Defaults values should work just fine.