[tlug] HOWTO: Using Emobile Data Card D02HW (Huawei E220 HSDPA USB Modem) with Debian/Linux

[Dietrich Bollmann <diresu@example.com>]

Hi,

I recently bought an Emobile Data Card D02HW (Huawei E220 HSDPA USB
Modem) and - after some hours of frustration - finally made it work on
my Debian/Linux laptop :)

I am not a network guru at all and my strategy was to randomly try all
kind of permutations of different information, setting and methods I
found on the internet, on man pages, in the system log and in the user
guide of my modem - trial and error and trial and error and
... finally a connection :)

My method seems to work fine - but I am not sure if every detail of my
configuration makes sense.  Also it relies on a kernel newer than
2.6.20+ for the driver.  Please post an answer if you know things
better :)

By the way, the one most helpful document I found was written by
Luca Cappa and is called "Using Huawei E220 with Debian/Linux".
It describes how to use the Huawei E220 HSDPA USB modem to connect 
to some Italian provider and can be found here:
http://ske.sourceforge.net/html/projects/huawei/huawei_tre.html
Thanks Luca :)

I also tried wvdial - somethimes with success and sometimes without.
I still don't understand why it worked when it worked and why not when
not :)

Here my solution:


* howto in short:

1. create the following two files as root:

file /etc/ppp/emobile.chat :

cat > /etc/ppp/emobile.chat <<FIN
ABORT BUSY
ABORT ERROR
REPORT CONNECT
TIMEOUT 10
"" "AT&F"
OK "AT+COPS?"
'+COPS: 0,2,"44000",2' "ATZ"
OK "ATE1"
OK "ATS0=0"
OK 'AT+CGDCONT=1,"IP","emb.ne.jp"'
OK "ATDT*99#"
TIMEOUT 30
CONNECT \d\c
FIN

file /etc/ppp/peers/emobile :

cat > /etc/ppp/peers/emobile <<FIN
lock
connect "/usr/sbin/chat -v -f /etc/ppp/emobile.chat"
/dev/ttyUSB0
hide-password
noauth
debug
novj
460800
defaultroute
noipdefault
user em
password em
modem
crtscts
usepeerdns
nodeflate
nobsdcomp
FIN

here they are:

ls -la /etc/ppp/emobile.chat /etc/ppp/peers/emobile

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 197 2008-05-03 20:45 /etc/ppp/emobile.chat
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 200 2008-05-03 20:45 /etc/ppp/peers/emobile


2. plug in the usb modem

...and give it some time to set up.

The modem contains some memory with some windows executables and a
file browser showing them might pop up.  The files do not contain any
usable information for using the modem with Linux and can be
ignored.


3. connect

by entering the following as root:

/usr/sbin/pppd call emobile


4. open some page in your browser :)

...and don't forget to "work online" (In the case of epiphany
deactivate the option: File -> [ ] Work Offline).


5. disconnect

by killing the pppd process (for example with: killall pppd).


* a slightly longer version of the howto

Same as the short one but I also list the system log messages to
compare them to your own outputs in the case things do not work out of
the box...

1. create the files /etc/ppp/emobile.chat and /etc/ppp/peers/emobile as
before

2. follow the system messages by executing

tail -f /var/log/messages

in some xterm...


2. plug in the usb modem

...and give it some time to set up.

In my case the following log messages are printed to the xterm where I
started the command `tail -f /var/log/messages':

May  3 21:19:44 pippi kernel: usb 5-6.4: new full speed USB device using
ehci_hcd and address 10
May  3 21:19:44 pippi kernel: usb 5-6.4: configuration #1 chosen from 1
choice
May  3 21:19:44 pippi kernel: scsi3 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass
Storage devices
May  3 21:19:44 pippi kernel: usb 5-6.4: USB disconnect, address 10
May  3 21:19:45 pippi kernel: usb 5-6.4: new full speed USB device using
ehci_hcd and address 11
May  3 21:19:45 pippi kernel: usb 5-6.4: configuration #1 chosen from 1
choice
May  3 21:19:45 pippi kernel: usb-storage: probe of 5-6.4:1.0 failed
with error -5
May  3 21:19:45 pippi kernel: usb-storage: probe of 5-6.4:1.1 failed
with error -5
May  3 21:19:45 pippi kernel: scsi6 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass
Storage devices
May  3 21:19:45 pippi kernel: usbcore: registered new interface driver
usbserial
May  3 21:19:45 pippi kernel: drivers/usb/serial/usb-serial.c: USB
Serial support registered for generic
May  3 21:19:45 pippi kernel: usbcore: registered new interface driver
usbserial_generic
May  3 21:19:45 pippi kernel: drivers/usb/serial/usb-serial.c: USB
Serial Driver core
May  3 21:19:45 pippi kernel: drivers/usb/serial/usb-serial.c: USB
Serial support registered for GSM modem (1-port)
May  3 21:19:45 pippi kernel: option 5-6.4:1.0: GSM modem (1-port)
converter detected
May  3 21:19:45 pippi kernel: usb 5-6.4: GSM modem (1-port) converter
now attached to ttyUSB0
May  3 21:19:45 pippi kernel: option 5-6.4:1.1: GSM modem (1-port)
converter detected
May  3 21:19:45 pippi kernel: usb 5-6.4: GSM modem (1-port) converter
now attached to ttyUSB1
May  3 21:19:45 pippi kernel: usbcore: registered new interface driver
option
May  3 21:19:45 pippi kernel: drivers/usb/serial/option.c: USB Driver
for GSM modems: v0.7.1
May  3 21:19:50 pippi kernel: scsi 6:0:0:0: CD-ROM            HUAWEI
Mass Storage     2.31 PQ: 0 ANSI: 2
May  3 21:19:50 pippi kernel: Driver 'sr' needs updating - please use
bus_type methods
May  3 21:19:50 pippi kernel: sr0: scsi-1 drive
May  3 21:19:50 pippi kernel: Uniform CD-ROM driver Revision: 3.20
May  3 21:19:50 pippi kernel: sd 0:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg0 type
0
May  3 21:19:50 pippi kernel: sd 2:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg1 type
0
May  3 21:19:50 pippi kernel: sr 6:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg2 type
5
May  3 21:19:59 pippi kernel: UDF-fs: No VRS found


3. connect

by entering the following as root:

/usr/sbin/pppd call emobile

Here come the the log messages:

May  3 21:29:38 pippi kernel: PPP generic driver version 2.4.2
May  3 21:29:38 pippi pppd[4323]: pppd 2.4.4 started by root, uid 0
May  3 21:29:39 pippi chat[4326]: abort on (BUSY)
May  3 21:29:39 pippi chat[4326]: abort on (ERROR)
May  3 21:29:39 pippi chat[4326]: report (CONNECT)
May  3 21:29:39 pippi chat[4326]: timeout set to 10 seconds
May  3 21:29:39 pippi chat[4326]: send (AT&F^M)
May  3 21:29:39 pippi chat[4326]: expect (OK)
May  3 21:29:39 pippi chat[4326]: AT&F^M^M
May  3 21:29:39 pippi chat[4326]: OK
May  3 21:29:39 pippi chat[4326]:  -- got it 
May  3 21:29:39 pippi chat[4326]: send (AT+COPS?^M)
May  3 21:29:40 pippi chat[4326]: expect (+COPS: 0,2,"44000",2)
May  3 21:29:40 pippi chat[4326]: ^M
May  3 21:29:40 pippi chat[4326]: AT+COPS?^M^M
May  3 21:29:40 pippi chat[4326]: +COPS: 0,2,"44000",2
May  3 21:29:40 pippi chat[4326]:  -- got it 
May  3 21:29:40 pippi chat[4326]: send (ATZ^M)
May  3 21:29:40 pippi chat[4326]: expect (OK)
May  3 21:29:40 pippi chat[4326]: ^M
May  3 21:29:40 pippi chat[4326]: ^M
May  3 21:29:40 pippi chat[4326]: OK
May  3 21:29:40 pippi chat[4326]:  -- got it 
May  3 21:29:40 pippi chat[4326]: send (ATE1^M)
May  3 21:29:40 pippi chat[4326]: expect (OK)
May  3 21:29:40 pippi chat[4326]: ^M
May  3 21:29:40 pippi chat[4326]: ATZ^M^M
May  3 21:29:40 pippi chat[4326]: OK
May  3 21:29:40 pippi chat[4326]:  -- got it 
May  3 21:29:40 pippi chat[4326]: send (ATS0=0^M)
May  3 21:29:40 pippi chat[4326]: expect (OK)
May  3 21:29:40 pippi chat[4326]: ^M
May  3 21:29:40 pippi chat[4326]: AATS0=0^M^M
May  3 21:29:40 pippi chat[4326]: OK
May  3 21:29:40 pippi chat[4326]:  -- got it 
May  3 21:29:40 pippi chat[4326]: send (AT+CGDCONT=1,"IP","emb.ne.jp"^M)
May  3 21:29:40 pippi chat[4326]: expect (OK)
May  3 21:29:40 pippi chat[4326]: ^M
May  3 21:29:40 pippi chat[4326]: AT+CGDCONT=1,"IP","emb.ne.jp"^M^M
May  3 21:29:40 pippi chat[4326]: OK
May  3 21:29:40 pippi chat[4326]:  -- got it 
May  3 21:29:40 pippi chat[4326]: send (ATDT*99#^M)
May  3 21:29:40 pippi chat[4326]: timeout set to 30 seconds
May  3 21:29:40 pippi chat[4326]: expect (CONNECT)
May  3 21:29:40 pippi chat[4326]: ^M
May  3 21:29:40 pippi chat[4326]: ATDT*99#^M^M
May  3 21:29:40 pippi chat[4326]: CONNECT
May  3 21:29:40 pippi chat[4326]:  -- got it 
May  3 21:29:40 pippi chat[4326]: send (\d)
May  3 21:29:41 pippi pppd[4323]: Serial connection established.
May  3 21:29:41 pippi pppd[4323]: Using interface ppp0
May  3 21:29:41 pippi pppd[4323]: Connect: ppp0 <--> /dev/ttyUSB0
May  3 21:29:42 pippi pppd[4323]: CHAP authentication succeeded
May  3 21:29:42 pippi pppd[4323]: CHAP authentication succeeded
May  3 21:29:45 pippi pppd[4323]: Could not determine remote IP address:
defaulting to 10.64.64.64
May  3 21:29:45 pippi pppd[4323]: local  IP address 60.254.246.45
May  3 21:29:45 pippi pppd[4323]: remote IP address 10.64.64.64
May  3 21:29:45 pippi pppd[4323]: primary   DNS address 60.254.193.158
May  3 21:29:45 pippi pppd[4323]: secondary DNS address 60.254.209.158


4. open some page in your browser :)


5. disconnect

by killing the pppd process (for example with: killall pppd).

Messages like these should be printed:

May  3 21:36:39 pippi pppd[4323]: Terminating on signal 15
May  3 21:36:39 pippi pppd[4323]: Connect time 6.9 minutes.
May  3 21:36:39 pippi pppd[4323]: Sent 14807 bytes, received 28663
bytes.
May  3 21:36:39 pippi pppd[4323]: Connection terminated.
May  3 21:36:40 pippi pppd[4323]: Exit.


Good luck :)

Dietrich