usb modem on wl500g?!!

[jimmy]

one silly question: anyone knows if is possible to connect an usb modem to wl500g and work via analog dialup throu the router?
i know it doenst make much sense, but it´s the only internet service i can get?

[Dex]

Hello Jimmy,

Linux supports usb modems that are conform to the USB Communication Device Class Abstract Control Model by the ACM module. Anywhere in the internet there should be a compatibility list with supported modems. I have compiled the ACM module for the WL500g and it works successfully with the ELSA Microlink 56K USB Modem. Currently I' am working on the dial on process (pppd with chat). But to use an USB modem comfortable with the WL500g some scripts (eg rc.wan) and the web page for the WAN configuration must be enlarged with the feature PPP over USB Modem. Because I' am not an Linux expert I have to read many manuals for this work and therefore it goes very slow. Any help is welcome.

[jimmy]

can you give me a hinton where can i find some imformation about this???

[wirelesswan]

I'm also trying to make my USB 1xRTT cell phone work as a modem with the WL500g. It would be great to share the 256K with a LAN and WLAN. It would also make a a great emergency or short term hotspot.

My Sanyo 8100 cell phone does conform to the Linux usb modem standard, but it seems like I need a missing module called acm.o to make it work.
I've been able to get it working under linux on my laptop using the instructions at http://lukewarm.homelinux.net/scp8100/. There is also some more generic Linux usb modem information at http://www.linux-usb.org/USB-guide/x332.html.

Here's a syslog of my failed attempt on the WL500g:
Jun 22 16:43:39 user.info klogd: hub.c: new USB device 00:04.0-1.3, assigned address 7
Jun 22 16:43:39 user.warn klogd: usb.c: USB device 7 (vend/prod 0x474/0x701) is not claimed by any active driver.
Jun 22 22:43:41 daemon.info FTP server: daemon is started

~ # insmod acm
insmod: acm.o: no module by that name found.

PPP support already exists, so I think just a module is needed to recognize the USB modem.

I also have a Zoom USB 3090 v.92 modem that I could test if someone would be so kind as to compile the module, or give me a push in the right direction.

Thanks

[wirelesswan]

I think the module we need is ACM.o
acm.c in the source for OpenWRTG, but it doesn't look like it's compiled into a module. I'd love to get my 1xRTT cellphone working. It's a bit laggy, but I get nearly 200K with my phone, and it would be nice to share that with the LAN/WLAN when the Cable goes down.

[Dex]

Hello wirelesswan,
please see attached the desired module acm.o compiled for the wl500g . This module works successfully with an ELSA microlink modem. The attachement also includes a terminal program compiled for the wl500g (microcom), useful for testing the module and modem.
Dex

[wirelesswan]

Dex,
I did some more digging.
The acm.o file seems be a zip archive of a couple of minicom files. The path inside the zip reference a directory called /home/knoppix/Desktop/ACM.

Could something have gotten mixed up when you posted?

Thanks.

[Dex]

wirelesswan,
sorry & mea culpa. Please check the new attached zip file.

Dex

[wirelesswan]

Dex,
Thanks again.
ACM.o worked like a charm. It found both my Sprint phone, and another USB modem. Connecting to the internet works when I fire up microcom and type ATDTxxxxxxx then quit microcom and start pppd by hand. It seems like most linux dialup setups use a little program called "chat" to process chat scripts that will take care of things like dialing, checking for the CONNECT string, re-dialing on hangup, and handing control off to pppd at the right time. Since the pppd in the ASUS distribution was probably designed for just pppoe, the chat executable is missing. I'm looking for the source for chat, but that would seem like the last piece of the puzzle.

[Dex]

Hi wirelesswan,

I have already compiled the chat program (see the attachment) and used it with the pppd daemon. But always the chat program has established the modem connection to the ISP and switch back to the pppd the modem hangs up immediately. I don't know the reason for this behaviour at the moment. If you try the chat program please report your experience. I am interested to know whether you can observe this behaviour too. This may be helps to encircle the problem.
Good luck

[Nenik]

BTW: I have managed stable pppd connection both over usb->serial and GSM phone using GPRS and over acm and EVDO phone using fast data CDMA450 network in Czech Republic.
I've compiled kernel modules and chat myself though and debugged connection scripts on a notebook first .
I can share details if you wish.

[Antiloop]

Originally Posted by Nenik

BTW: I have managed stable pppd connection both over usb->serial and GSM phone using GPRS and over acm and EVDO phone using fast data CDMA450 network in Czech Republic.
I've compiled kernel modules and chat myself though and debugged connection scripts on a notebook first .
I can share details if you wish.

nenik.. please attach them as a zip or rar file here!

[Nenik]

Originally Posted by Antiloop

nenik.. please attach them as a zip or rar file here!

I'd rather attach a tar.bz2, but OK, I'm able to create zip ;-)

So here it goes.
It is structuted as overlay to be clear where the files belong to.
Modules are there, chat is there and also pppd scripts both for EVDO over acm CDMA450 modem and gprs over prolific usb->serial and GSM.

For EVDO, you need to change username in evdo and username and password in chap_secrets. For GPRS, you probably only need to update APN in gprs_chat.

I'm currently starting it manually (telnet in, pppd call evdo),
as GPRS lasts forever and I have CDMA for testing only till friday anyway.

Note that currently you have to load modules manually before starting pppd. Also, no problem uploading the files just to ramfs, but you need to update paths then.

[Nenik]

NAT was not working correctly for me with provided configuration. After loooong analysis (involving drawing tons of IP headers and manually verifying checksums) I found that demasqueraded packets comming back to LAN were having (consistently) wrong IP header checksum.
After another long round of trials and errors, I've realized that using different options for PPP stack "fixes" this problem. It seems to me that there is some bug in the ppp kernel code, but I can't spot it.
Anyway, here I'm providing different pppd script that makes my Asus correctly NAT outgoing traffic over EVDO modem.

Use the /etc/ppp/peers/evdo instead of the same file provided in the previous bundle. Of course you need to put your username here.
If you touch anything else than the user name (and location of the chat binary and script), don't complain it doesn't work.

Other people work on modification of the configuration web interface....

[Nenik]

OK, one more note: I have modified /etc/ppp/options (I had to modify it some time ago to make everything working with GPRS, and I have already forgot about it.

My current options file contains this:
lcp-echo-failure 3
lcp-echo-interval 20
noauth
noaccomp

I hope now it's all to make it working also for the rest of the world...