This thread and others here were very helpful for me to get a wl500g conected to the internet with a USB modem (through ISDN, but principle is exactly the same for analogue dialup modem). I wrote a little howto as i went, basically in case i had to start again. I thought the community might like it also. Please let me know if there are any errors, as sometimes its easy to fix a problem and not document it.
ASUS wl500g USB modem howto.
After trawling through the forums at wl500g.info and asking questions, I eventually succeeded to get my wl500g connected to the internet with a USB modem via openwrt.
In my case the USB modem was a Telstra NT1 PlusII ISDN modem, and my wl500g was actually a Mitsubishi Electric R100 (Mitsubishi rebrands them; they are the same thing, I opened up and checked). I assume things are pretty similar with some of the wl500g hacked firmwares - not sure about package support, which is why im using openwrt.
This assumes you know your way around linux, and the wl-500g. IF you dont, play a little with it. If you can get WPA working (by following one of the various HOW-TOs) then you get this to work too. Most of the info i obtained from:
http://wl500g.info/showthread.php?t=510&highlight=usb+modem
On to it then!
Install openwrt via bootwait (remember to use the brcm versions). I used squashfs because thats what ive always used.
Be sure do a
mtd erase nvram
reboot
to get the system clean of the previous firmware, and thus we can start from scratch. IF you know what your doing then this isnt neccessary.
Install packages from whiterussian packages:
ipkg install .....
kmod-usb-core
kmod-usb-ohci
kmod-usb-uhci
And also
kmod-usb-acm
usb-acm one wasnt a whiterussian - i found it via google; at openSplot (http://ipkg.hotsplots.de/openSplot/ipkg/). It provides acm.o: I found one compiled (again via google) for a wl-500g hacked firmware (oleg's Wl500g-1.9.2.7-6b.trx) and tested this all out first. For some reason it failed on dependancy check, so the -force-depends option was required.
Anyway, now i have this:
root@OpenWrt:/lib/modules/2.4.30# ls
acm.o ppp_async.o pppox.o usb-ohci.o wlcompat.o
diag.o ppp_generic.o slhc.o usbcore.o
et.o pppoe.o uhci.o wl.o
make a file called 60-acm in /etc/modules.d with the line "acm" in it:
root@OpenWrt:/etc/modules.d# cat /etc/modules.d/60-acm
acm
I also noticed that in /etc/modules.d the file 60-usb-ohci had "ohci" in it, when really it should have been "usb-ohci" to match the module file name in /lib/modules/2.4.30. So i changed that.
reboot
plug in the modem and look at dmesg:
usb-ohci.c: USB OHCI at membase 0xb8004000, IRQ 2
usb-ohci.c: usb-00:04.0, PCI device 14e4:4715
usb.c: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 1
hub.c: USB hub found
hub.c: 2 ports detected
uhci.c: USB Universal Host Controller Interface driver v1.1
device eth0 entered promiscuous mode
hub.c: new USB device 00:04.0-1, assigned address 2
ttyACM0: USB ACM device
Almost there!!
Now install the microcom (a small terminal emulator) package:
ipkg install microcom_1.02-1_mipsel.ipk
before we can run this to talk to the modem (ie we are looking for AT-OK), we must figure out what device ttyACM0 is - ie it doesnt appear in /dev/usb! The link to it appears to be created as /dev/usb/acm/0
root@OpenWrt:~# microcom -D/dev/usb/acm/0
at
OK
Yeahaa...so it worked. The ~ character gets you a window in microcom to exit.
Now to try PPP, and figure out what Telstra do?
First, install package chat (this is whiterussian package)
And have to run:
insmod slhc.o
insmod ppp_generic.o
insmod ppp_async.o
In the end, these should go into /etc/modules:
root@OpenWrt:~# cat /etc/modules
et
wl
slhc
ppp_generic
ppp_async
Now make up some files:
root@OpenWrt:/etc/ppp# cat chap-secrets
#USERNAME PROVIDER PASSWORD IPADDRESS
yourusername * yourpassword
root@OpenWrt:/etc/ppp# cat pap-secrets
yourusername * yourpassword
root@OpenWrt:/etc/ppp# cat options
debug
lock
auth
root@OpenWrt:/etc/ppp/peers# cat bigpond
lock
/dev/usb/acm/0
921600
persist
noauth
defaultroute
noipdefault
user *yourusername
connect "chat -t 3 -f /etc/ppp/peers/bigpond_chat"
usepeerdns
Note that the default example points chat to /sbin/chat: my chat didnt end up there, and I spent a long time trying to figure this one out.
root@OpenWrt:/etc/ppp/peers# cat bigpond_chat
'' 'AT'
'OK' 'ATZ'
'OK' 'AT Z !Z=9 !T0=0 !T2=10 !T4=1 E0 V1 &D2 &C1'
'OK' 'ATDT*your number'
CONNECT
Note the long AT Z ... init string is specific to my ISDN modem. This would need to be changed if not using the NT1 PlusII.
Now that should be about it! Ahh, but the directory /var/lock doesnt exist: pppd has been failing on this due to the lock option.
mkdir /dev/lock
pppd call bigpond
logread
Jan 1 07:33:05 (none) kern.notice pppd[2180]: pppd 2.4.3 started by root, uid 0
Jan 1 07:33:10 (none) kern.info pppd[2180]: Serial connection established.
Jan 1 07:33:10 (none) kern.debug pppd[2180]: using channel 5
Jan 1 07:33:10 (none) kern.info pppd[2180]: Using interface ppp0
Jan 1 07:33:10 (none) kern.notice pppd[2180]: Connect: ppp0 <--> /dev/usb/acm/0
Jan 1 07:33:13 (none) kern.notice pppd[2180]: local IP address 144.139.25.211
Jan 1 07:33:13 (none) kern.notice pppd[2180]: remote IP address 139.134.58.250
And the final test:
root@OpenWrt:/etc# ping www.bigpond.com
PING www.bigpond.com (144.135.18.32): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 144.135.18.32: icmp_seq=0 ttl=245 time=86.6 ms
64 bytes from 144.135.18.32: icmp_seq=1 ttl=245 time=87.0 ms
So it works:
root@OpenWrt:/etc/ppp/peers# pppd call bigpond updetach
Serial connection established.
using channel 2
Using interface ppp0
Connect: ppp0 <--> /dev/usb/acm/0
Warning - secret file /etc/ppp/pap-secrets has world and/or group access
sent [LCP ConfReq id=0x1 <asyncmap 0x0> <magic 0x2***5466> <pcomp> <accomp>]
rcvd [LCP ConfAck id=0x1 <asyncmap 0x0> <magic 0x****5466> <pcomp> <accomp>]
rcvd [LCP ConfReq id=0x2 <mru 1524> <auth chap MD5> <asyncmap 0x0>]
sent [LCP ConfAck id=0x2 <mru 1524> <auth chap MD5> <asyncmap 0x0>]
rcvd [CHAP Challenge id=0x1 <567d***b>, name = "Dial IP"]
sent [CHAP Response id=0x1 <77f5***>, name = "*******"]
rcvd [CHAP Success id=0x1 "\000"]
CHAP authentication succeeded:
CHAP authentication succeeded
sent [IPCP ConfReq id=0x1 <compress VJ 0f 01> <addr 0.0.0.0> <ms-dns1 0.0.0.0> <ms-dns3 0.0.0.0>]
rcvd [IPCP ConfReq id=0x1 <compress VJ 0f 01> <addr xx.250>]
sent [IPCP ConfAck id=0x1 <compress VJ 0f 01> <addr xx250>]
rcvd [IPCP ConfNak id=0x1 <addr 144.xxxxxx> <ms-dns1 203.49.70.20> <ms-dns3 139.134.2.190>]
sent [IPCP ConfReq id=0x2 <compress VJ 0f 01> <addr xx51> <ms-dns1 203.xx> <ms-dns3 139.xx>]
rcvd [IPCP ConfAck id=0x2 <compress VJ 0f 01> <addr xx.51> <ms-dns1 xx.20> <ms-dns3 139xx0>]
local IP address 144.***********
remote IP address 139.**********
primary DNS address 203.49.70.20
secondary DNS address 139.134.2.190
Test out a ping:
root@OpenWrt:/etc/ppp/peers# ping 66.249.89.99
PING 66.249.89.99 (66.249.89.99): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 66.249.89.99: icmp_seq=0 ttl=241 time=228.7 ms
64 bytes from 66.249.89.99: icmp_seq=1 ttl=241 time=235.8 ms
Unfortunately DNS isnt working (ie ping www.google.com didnt work), nor is routing via the wireless interface.
Kill the pppd connection:
killall pppd
After some help in forum.openwrt.org (thanks EnderWiggen) i found the solutions. Turned out to be trivial.
It seems pppd writes the dns obtained to /etc/ppp/resolv.conf, whereas the system looks to /etc/resolv.conf. On my system /etc/resolv.conf points to /tmp/resolv.conf (ie in the ram area), but i dont remember if i set it that way or if thats how it comes. This gets a little confusing now. Either way we have to make symlinks from /etc/ppp/resolv.conf and /etc/resolv.conf to /tmp/resolv.conf
If the files exist and are linked to /rom/... delete them (rm /etc/resolv.conf) and create the symlink
root@OpenWrt:/etc# ln -s /tmp/resolv.conf resolv.conf
in both /etc and /etc/ppp
Log in again (ie pppd call ...) and check DNS - works! Routing still does not.
Now there are two ways to skin this cat: the manual way by adding the routes:
iptables -A FORWARD -i br0 -o ppp0 -j ACCEPT
iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -o ppp0 -j MASQUERADE
This will be lost on reboot. Another way is to tell the wl-500g that the ppp interface is the connection out to the internet. This is fine if this is always the case (for me it is until i can get ADSL again)
nvram set wan_ifname=ppp0
nvram commit
reboot
And that should be it.
You can now run pppd manually, or we can cleanup a few things.
To /etc/init.d/S10boot add the line:
mkdir /var/lock
(ie if you get the read only error, remember to delete the symlink and copy the file back from ROM)
Now make pppd start up automatically and maintain a permanent connection to the internet, add the last line to inittab. Make sure you really want to do this it may get expensive if, like me, pppd made 400 calls in one day. Didnt bother me, as calls to the ISDN modem line are free:
root@OpenWrt:/etc# cat inittab
::sysinit:/etc/init.d/rcS
::shutdown:/sbin/halt
tts/0::askfirst:/bin/ash --login
::respawn:/usr/sbin/pppd call bigpond nodetach
Now reboot and make sure the connection fires up automatically.
A few possible bugs ive noticed:
If the modem is disconnected from the USB port in a particular way (I think if pppd is still running) then when it is plugged back in it may be assigned /dev/usb/acm/1 and thus you wont be able to dial it. Easy way around this is to instruct family member how to power cycle the wl500g.