Vodafone Mobile Connect Software On Linux?

[Skuzz]

Hello,
I work in a Vodafone shop in Germany and I have the following question: I have a customer who wanted to know if the Vodafone Mobile Connect software works on Linux? In Germany, we sell the mobile Internet with a Netbook(http://shop.vodafone.de/Shop/privat/unterw...26918554).About Google I have found nothing, I hope that I can help here and also get: D

Sorry for my bad english... (google translator )

Greetings

Yannick

Edit: Ok i found something... http://www.betavine.net/bvportal/resources...etbooks/eeepc 

Problem solved^^

[Neil_Brown]

Correct - the Betavine site is the place to go - if you've got any questions, then just post back here

[Retired-Andy_V]

Hi Skuzz and welcome to the eForum

It appears that you have already found an answer to your question but if there is anything else which comes up please do not hesitate to get in touch. We are always happy to help our international colleagues.

Cheers

Andy H
eForum Team

[heady]

I'm not sure about running the Vodafone Mobile Connect Software on Linux as when I initially tried one of the components would seg-fault.

However, at least for some modems (if not all that support the 3GPP AT command standard) all you will need are the usb_serial and associated kernel modules and the pppd userspace daemon and associated ppp kernel modules (which should be standard on pretty much all Linux distributions).

In fact on the Linux machines I use the E220 modem on - all I require to connect is the following:

chat_ppp0=(
'ABORT' 'BUSY'
'ABORT' 'ERROR'
'ABORT' 'NO ANSWER'
'ABORT' 'NO CARRIER'
'ABORT' 'NO DIALTONE'
'TIMEOUT' '5'
'' 'ATZ'
'OK' 'AT+CGDCONT=1,"ip","internet"'
'OK' 'ATE1V1&D2&C1S0=0+IFC=2,2'
'OK' 'ATE1'
'OK' 'AT+COPS=0,0,"vodafone UK",2'
'TIMEOUT' '60'
'OK' 'ATD*99***1#'
'CONNECT' ''
)

[Neil_Brown]

Hmm... a seg fault is not good - but doesn't necessarily mean a problem in the VMC software. (It could, though!)

Yes, you can dial up via PPP, but, that doesn't give you the integrated vnstat functionality, or the SMS interface. Also, it does require at least a little tinkering at a command line, which is something many people want to avoid / wouldn't know what to do.

[mtop6867]

Users of Ubuntu may be pleased to discover that the Network Manager applet can connect with a dongle directly, without using the VMC software. When you plug in the dongle, wait a moment for the Network Manager to detect it, then a wizard comes up to help create a mobile broadband connection. It asks for the country you are in and the provider you use, and the wizard sets up APN, username, password and the rest automagically. Then you can use the dongle to browse the internet. As has already been mentioned, you can't use the dongle's SMS functionality if you don't use the VMC software. But VMC does not work on all Linux machines. For instance, it works on my netbook using Ubuntu 9.04, but not on my desktop machine using 8.04.

UK Vodafone customers should be aware that, when the wizard asks what provider you use, there are 3 Vodafone options available: contract, pre-paid, and Top Up & Go. When I initially tried to set it up, I selected the pre-paid option, when in fact it should have been Top Up & Go. Selecting the wrong option here prevents successful connection - so make sure you choose wisely!

The mobile broadband wizard claims it can set up connections for dongles and mobile phones. But it can't set up a working connection for my (T-Mobile) phone.

[richie1913]

Thanks mtop6867,I am waiting for my ubuntu cd to arrive and feel much better knowing that,that side of things will be easier than I thought.(Neil_Brown I will be joining Betavine soon as I am a complete novice when It comes to anything to do with Linux,as I have used windows since I was In nappies.I think...No I know I will need a lot of help.)

[heady]

The issue; however, is that not all consumer devices are stable - and the E220 is no exception - it will hang from time to time.

The solution that I'm crafting to try to have an always available connection checks to see if there is IP connectivity to external Internet server(s). If not it will check if the modem is responding on the tertiary control channel; if so it will terminate the PPP session and attempt to re-establish the PPP session. It will effectively continue this forever until a link is established.

If the modem is not responding on the tertiary control channel; it will unload the kernel modules that control the USB bus, serial drivers, PPP drivers etc... It will then reset the USB bus manually and then reload the associated kernel modules. This does the same thing as "pulling and pushing" the modem. This will repeat until the modem responds to the tertiary control channel. Whereby, it will then attempt to re-establish the PPP session and will continue forever until a link is established.

I don't have this fully automated yet - but so far - I've not had to - I have not had any problems establishing a PPP session using my base scripts.

Although - looking through the logs the last time recovery was required was in April.

VMC however, seems to be a nice framework to abstract some of the nasties so I might look at using it sometime in the future for replacing some of the automated link recovery as well as the SMS event handeling.

There are other issues with VMC that one day I might try to tackle:

From the source tarball:
2.1. (VMC) Dependencies
* Linux Kernel 2.6.20 > I am forced to use 2.6.18 for some of my machines. For the E220 modem VMC uses HuaweiAktBbo.o to get around not using 2.6.20 > - but there are much better tools available now. Updating this might improve modem detection success.
...
* Hardware Abstraction Layer HAL.
* X Window System. > I run everything GUI (Gnome/KDE) headless on all machines except Laptops. So complete X only resides on the Laptops. It appears that HAL and VMC GUI makes incorrect assumptions how this should work. So creating an easy command line interface to VMC might be a winner.

[heady]

Vodafone Mods... where did my post go?

Spent some time crafting a thoughtful reply - then submitted.

Got a message saying post being sent to moderator for approval - then a message saying being transferred and then - nothing...

Cannot find the post or status of my post anywhere.

What Ts & Cs did I fall foul of? What keywords hit the filter? Have the rules changed? Or am I being watched? What did I do?

[Neil_Brown]

Heady - I don't disagree with what you are saying at all. And, indeed, CLI access is a requirement in some environments, and just desirable for some people in others. However, if we wish to foster adoption of Linux, and attract people who don't want, say, to pull their firewall logs to get their traffic data, then, having some form of GUI is the way forward, to my mind- but I would not want to lose the underlying power of being able to do things via the command line.


CLI-based VMC has been something we've discussed in the past, for the very reason you reference.

VMC may not be perfect, and isn't designed to be the ideal solution for everyone (very little is) but, for what it does, I think it does a good job. Although, I'm likely biased...

Tighter integration with Network Manager in Ubuntu would be great too, in my opinion.


Got a message saying post being sent to moderator for approval - then a message saying being transferred and then - nothing...

Probably means the board was in approval mode - nothing to be worried about, since your post got through. And, indeed, very insightful and interesting it was - thanks for taking the time to write it!