MTN Uncapped on Huawei E367 - Fedora - no packets moving?

[rylan1976]

Hi guys

I've got this USB stick from MTN recently. I'm trying to make it work on Fedora.

So far, if I plug it into the USB port, the option driver and usbserial get modprobed automatically. The needed /dev/ttyUSB* devices get created. The modem shows up in Fedora Network Manager, I can select it and make a connection via PPPD. The LED on the modem itself goes steady-green, indicating (according to its manual) that the modem is connected and registered in the network.

I can do DNS then, for example doing "ping google.com" and I get back that "google.com" is

[root@stefanlaptop.stefanlaptop ~]$ ping google.com
PING google.com (209.85.147.105) 56(84) bytes of data.
^C
--- google.com ping statistics ---
6 packets transmitted, 0 received, 100% packet loss, time 5207ms

[root@stefanlaptop.stefanlaptop ~]$

E. g. DNS resolution is working, and the kernel can communicate with the E367 no problem.

However, NO data is moving. I cannot browse anywhere, or ping any IP address at all...

Anybody encountered this before? How can I fix it? E. g. there IS communication of a sort (how can it do DNS to "know" google is a certain IP?) but no "data" (non DNS "packets") want to move...

Thanks!

[ginggs]

Does the Huawei E367 and MTN SIM card work in Windows? Have you tried a different modem or a different SIM card?

[rylan1976]

No.

Went to MTN and turned out the SIM in the modem was incorrectly RICA'ed somehow.

They RICA'ed it, but now it fails in Linux even more quickly than before. I'll have to try it in Windows after they RICA'ed it.

Before the SIM was RICA'ed, I could connect with KPPP, UMTSMON or NM in Fedora, got an IP allocated, but then nothing would move at all - no packets could be transmitted.

Now, after RICA,in Linux, it just hangs up instantly after CHAP authentication completed by PPPD.

Very strange - it worked "further on" in the process while NOT RICA'ed, after RICA it hangs up on PPPD instantly with signal 15 after CHAP -success- (not failure...)

Thanks for the reply. I'll see if it works in Windows (I'm guessing it should...)

[rylan1976]

Ok, at LAST got this fixed!

The problem turned out to have many angles.

First, my SIM card wasn't correctly activated by the MTN sales person. I had to visit an outlet to get it properly activated.

That was why I had the initial problem with it not sending any packets. It was 100% correctly configured, but it was blocked on the ISP's side. Once I got it properly activated on their network, it started working (I'm writing this using it.)

Also, it was listing like this in /sbin/lsusb:

[rylan@stefanlinux set450]$ lsusb
Bus 005 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 001 Device 005: ID 12d1:1406 Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd.
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub

For this device, 1406 is the "flashdisk mode" product ID. Before you can start messing with it, you need to get it to show

[rylan@stefanlinux set450]$ lsusb
Bus 005 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 001 Device 005: ID 12d1:1506 Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd.
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub

where "1506" is the correct product id for the "modem part" of the device. You "convert" 1406 to 1506 by running usb-modeswitch.

So, basically, what I needed to do was the following to get the MTN South Africa Huawei 367 HSDPA modem working with FC11:

1. Download usb-modeswitch and usb-modeswitch-data (specifically, working with FC11, usb-modeswitch-1.2.0.tar.bz2 and usb-modeswitch-data-20111023.tar). Also I had to download libusb-0.1.12.tar.gz (specifically this version - other versions might not work!) in order to get usb-modeswitch to compile.

2. Compiled libusb. Normal ./configure and make, make install.

3. Compiled usb-modeswitch. Just become root and do make install.

4. Compiled usb-modeswitch-data. Just become root and do make install.

5. make install-ing on usb-modeswitch-data inserted udev rules to do what I describe above, "make" the Huawei 367 product id become "1506" instead of "1406".

6. I then rebooted.

7. Did a lsusb, and the device was now listing correctly as 12d1:1506.

8. Now the next step is to modprobe the kernel modules to work with the device. From here on you'll need to be root, until I say otherwise. I did this modprobing of the correct kernel modules like this:

modprobe usbserial vendor=0x12d1 product=0x1506
modprobe option

9. This created the device nodes /dev/ttyUSB0, /dev/ttyUSB1, /dev/ttyUSB2, /dev/ttyUSB3 which can be used by programs to "talk to" the modem.

10. Then I did

ifconfig eth0 down

to ensure that no other routes or network interfaces exists to confuse the pppd daemon which is used to connect.

11. If you have other interfaces or networks, make sure you execute the relevant commands to eventually see this at this point in the process.

[rylan@stefanlinux set450]$ /sbin/ifconfig
lo        Link encap:Local Loopback
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1
          RX packets:265 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:265 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
          RX bytes:24541 (23.9 KiB)  TX bytes:24541 (23.9 KiB)
[rylan@stefanlinux set450]$

e. g. nothing but the local loopback active.

12. Ensure you make the /dev/ttyUSB0, ttyUSB1, ttyUSB2 and ttyUSB3 devices world-writable by doing this, as root:

chmod a+rw /dev/ttyUSB*

You can now leave root and become your normal user.

13. Now I started up KPPP. This is a PPP GUI app that calls PPPD for you to get your connection going.

14. Work your way through its menus. Name your connection (I used myMTN, which is also the APN for MTN South Africa - not sure if it has an effect or not) and as username and password, give your username and password provided by your ISP. In MTN South Africa's case, it is MTN and MTN (username, and password.)

15. In the modem section, make sure to select /dev/ttyUSB0 as the modem device. Name the modem whatever you want, and also be sure to "Query" the modem by clicking on the relevant button.

16. Make sure, for MTN South Africa, you're using CHAP authentication. It is one of the options in the menus you'll see.

17. At the section where you must put a number in KPPP's GUI which is the number it must "dial", be sure to enter *99# as the number to "dial". Be sure that "wait for dialtone" is OFF.

18. Once you've setup your modem device as /dev/ttyUSB0, and you've specified your username and password, selected CHAP authentication and made sure "wait for dialtone" is OFF, you should be able to click on connect...

Hopefully you'll now be connected. Once you are, do an ifconfig to be sure:

[code]
[rylan@stefanlinux set450]$ /sbin/ifconfig
lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
RX packets:341 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:341 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:29101 (28.4 KiB) TX bytes:29101 (28.4 KiB)

ppp0 Link encap:Point-to-Point Protocol
inet addr:41.124.135.151 P-t-P:10.64.64.64 Mask:255.255.255.255
UP POINTOPOINT RUNNING NOARP MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:11164 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:8133 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:3
RX bytes:13370281 (12.7 MiB) TX bytes:789906 (771.3 KiB)

[rylan@stefanlinux set450]$

as you can see KPPP called PPPD correctly to setup the PPP0 "device" for networking.

Hope this helps somebody...