Linux - HOWTO (With Stats)

[mxc]

Mmmmm --- When I put the card in the phone it all seems to work and get registered on vodacom network. I will need to find a windows machine to test it on

[nextstep]

Hi, I did go thru most of this thread, I got my 3G Novatel U630 working in Suse 9.3 with Kinternet with out to much hassel... Didn't even look at wvdial.

The same here, I got the Option card to work on SuSE 10 on a Sony Vaio FS35GP, also using KInternet. I started of with wvdial as per Tazz_Tux, but could not get it going.

Getting KInternet to work was not too difficult, the only problem is that I have to re-insert my datacard after each drop of the 3G connection. Reason being that I've included the PIN in the config, and it fails to init properly the 2nd time round.

But all in all, a rather pleasant experience

Thanks to Tazz_Tux and !!DV!! for your input on this forum!

[ic]

That's interesting - I switched from GNOME to KDE in Ubuntu, I should try KInternet, not that there's anything wrong with TT's wvdial.conf - just that I haven't automated the modprobe [I don't always have the 3G Option card in my notebook at startup] .

@nextstep, from day 1 I disabled asking for the PIN on an ordinary cellery phone - IMO less complication when using data sim card in a data card .

[nextstep]

That's interesting - I switched from GNOME to KDE in Ubuntu, I should try KInternet, not that there's anything wrong with TT's wvdial.conf - just that I haven't automated the modprobe [I don't always have the 3G Option card in my notebook at startup] .

@nextstep, from day 1 I disabled asking for the PIN on an ordinary cellery phone - IMO less complication when using data sim card in a data card .

Seems as if modprobe is enabled by default in SuSE. As far as the PIN goes, I'm going to diasble that as well.

[v3gout]

Since Saturday 27 Jan I've been getting strange things with wvdial - it used to work fine, there has been no change to wvdial.conf; but this is what I'm seeing:

(uname says: Linux earth 2.6.12-10-386 #1 Mon Jan 16 17:18:08 UTC 2006 i686 GNU/Linux)
(wvdial says: WvDial 1.54.0: Copyright (c) 1997-2002 Net Integration Technologies, Inc.)
(pppd says: pppd version 2.4.3)

APN internetVPN:

--> WvDial: Internet dialer version 1.54.0
--> Initializing modem.
--> Sending: ATZ
OK
--> Sending: ATE0V1&D2&C1S0=0+IFC=2,2
ATE0V1&D2&C1S0=0+IFC=2,2
OK
--> Sending: AT+COPS=0,0,"Vodacom-SA",2
OK
--> Sending: AT+CGDCONT=1,"IP","internetvpn";
OK
--> Sending: AT+CGEQMIN=1,4,64,384,64,384
OK
--> Sending: AT+CGEQREQ=1,4,64,384,64,384
OK
--> Modem initialized.
--> Sending: ATDT*99***1#
--> Waiting for carrier.
CONNECT
--> Carrier detected. Starting PPP immediately.
--> Starting pppd at Tue Jan 31 21:14:19 2006
--> Warning: Could not modify /etc/ppp/pap-secrets: Permission denied
--> --> PAP (Password Authentication Protocol) may be flaky.
--> Warning: Could not modify /etc/ppp/chap-secrets: Permission denied
--> --> CHAP (Challenge Handshake) may be flaky.
--> pid of pppd: 9514
--> Using interface ppp0
--> pppd: and
--> pppd: and
--> pppd: and
--> pppd: and
--> pppd: and
--> local IP address 196.207.36.242
--> pppd: and
--> remote IP address 10.64.64.64
--> pppd: and
--> primary DNS address 10.11.12.13
--> pppd: and
--> secondary DNS address 10.11.12.14
--> pppd: and

Note the bogus DNS addresses ... when these come through, name resolution does not work at all, and I can't connect to anything.

APN internet:

--> Sending: ATZ
OK
--> Sending: ATE0V1&D2&C1S0=0+IFC=2,2
ATE0V1&D2&C1S0=0+IFC=2,2
OK
--> Sending: AT+COPS=0,0,"Vodacom-SA",2
OK
--> Sending: AT+CGDCONT=1,"IP","internet";
OK
--> Sending: AT+CGEQMIN=1,4,64,384,64,384
OK
--> Sending: AT+CGEQREQ=1,4,64,384,64,384
OK
--> Modem initialized.
--> Sending: ATDT*99***1#
--> Waiting for carrier.
CONNECT 57600
--> Carrier detected. Starting PPP immediately.
--> Starting pppd at Tue Jan 31 21:14:57 2006
--> Warning: Could not modify /etc/ppp/pap-secrets: Permission denied
--> --> PAP (Password Authentication Protocol) may be flaky.
--> Warning: Could not modify /etc/ppp/chap-secrets: Permission denied
--> --> CHAP (Challenge Handshake) may be flaky.
--> pid of pppd: 9618
--> Using interface ppp0
--> pppd: and
--> pppd: and
--> pppd: and
--> pppd: and
--> pppd: and
--> local IP address 10.54.38.170
--> pppd: and
--> remote IP address 10.64.64.64
--> pppd: and
--> primary DNS address 10.11.12.13
--> pppd: and
--> secondary DNS address 10.11.12.14
--> pppd: and

Again, note the strange DNS addresses. I'm sure that previously *two* sets of addresses used to come through.

Every now and then, the addresses come through as expected:

--> pppd: and
--> local IP address 10.54.88.93
--> pppd: and
--> remote IP address 10.64.64.64
--> pppd: and
--> primary DNS address 196.25.255.34
--> pppd: and
--> secondary DNS address 196.25.255.3
--> pppd: and

Here the DNS addresses are correct, ... and then everything works fine.

Can anyone see problems in my wvdial.conf? Using the same datacard with Dashboard version 5 works fine on the 'internet' APN. The 'internetVPN' APN gave me trouble yesterday with accessing vodacom sites, but I don't think that's related.

[vodacom3g]

I've seen the same DNS being issued on a stock standard Windows XP / VMC system, so I believe you're being issued with these from the network.

I have forwarded your situation to the networking guys.

Tazz, can you help here?

ic, maybe this can be part of the Linux thread?

[ic]

v3gout, anything applicably juicy in /var/log/messages at the time?

...
ic, maybe this can be part of the Linux thread?

Was considering merging the threads, but let's see if there's anything in logfiles...

[v3gout]

When it works:

Jan 31 21:18:10 earth pppd[9964]: pppd 2.4.3 started by peter, uid 500
Jan 31 21:18:10 earth pppd[9964]: Using interface ppp0
Jan 31 21:18:10 earth pppd[9964]: Connect: ppp0 <--> /dev/ttyS1
Jan 31 21:18:10 earth pppd[9964]: CHAP authentication succeeded
Jan 31 21:18:15 earth pppd[9964]: Could not determine remote IP address: defaulting to 10.64.64.64
Jan 31 21:18:15 earth pppd[9964]: local IP address 10.54.88.93
Jan 31 21:18:15 earth pppd[9964]: remote IP address 10.64.64.64
Jan 31 21:18:15 earth pppd[9964]: primary DNS address 196.25.255.34
Jan 31 21:18:15 earth pppd[9964]: secondary DNS address 196.25.255.3

When it doesn't work:

Jan 31 21:17:54 earth pppd[9869]: pppd 2.4.3 started by peter, uid 500
Jan 31 21:17:54 earth pppd[9869]: Using interface ppp0
Jan 31 21:17:54 earth pppd[9869]: Connect: ppp0 <--> /dev/ttyS1
Jan 31 21:17:54 earth pppd[9869]: CHAP authentication succeeded
Jan 31 21:18:01 earth pppd[9869]: Could not determine remote IP address: defaulting to 10.64.64.64
Jan 31 21:18:01 earth pppd[9869]: local IP address 10.52.147.112
Jan 31 21:18:01 earth pppd[9869]: remote IP address 10.64.64.64
Jan 31 21:18:01 earth pppd[9869]: primary DNS address 10.11.12.13
Jan 31 21:18:01 earth pppd[9869]: secondary DNS address 10.11.12.14

Can't see much difference ... but the fact that it uses a default remote address looks odd.

[ic]

That is strange...

@Tazz_Tux, any ideas on how to debug this problem?

[nicovdw]

What is the output of
cat /etc/resolv.conf
before and after the connection ?

And what is the output of
cat /etc/sysconfig/network

What command do you use to connect?

[ic]

...
What command do you use to connect?

wvdial .

[v3gout]

Before connecting:

peter@earth:~$ cat /etc/resolv.conf
nameserver 168.210.2.2
nameserver 196.14.239.2
search mshome.net

With bogus DNS addresses returned:

peter@earth:~$ cat /etc/resolv.conf
nameserver 10.11.12.13
nameserver 10.11.12.14
search mshome.net

Successful connection:

peter@earth:~$ cat /etc/resolv.conf
nameserver 196.25.255.34
nameserver 196.25.255.3
search mshome.net

Maybe you need to be more specific about what you were looking for ... this is Ubuntu 5.10:

peter@earth:~$ cat /etc/sysconfig/network
cat: /etc/sysconfig/network: No such file or directory

[nicovdw]

Ok, I am not too sure where this goes in Ubuntu, but with the Redhat distros you can put an entry in /etc/sysconfig/network

PEERDNS=no

to prevent dialup and dhcp to overwrite your /etc/resolve.conf. So if you want to go that route, just figure out where to turn peer dns off, and specify all your dns servers manually in the order you want them used.

You can also write a little script to fix your dns entries when they go FUBAR.

#!/bin/bash bash
perl -pi -e 's/10.11.12.13/196.25.255.34/' /etc/resolv.conf
perl -pi -e 's/10.11.12.14/196.25.255.3/' /etc/resolv.conf

[v3gout]

Thanks for this work-around - I'll try it (but I'd much rather get the right addresses from the GGSN (or whatever)). Makes me think there's something unhealthy lurking in the network!

[v3gout]

Thanks for the suggestion - manually editing the DNS addresses does work.