[pfSense] Orange 3G+ USB Dongle

[Mehma Sarja]

On 2/5/12 1:06 AM, Odhiambo Washington wrote:
>
>         I am thinking of going over to Safaricom to tide us over.
>
>
>     Huawei E1820 (I have tested this and worked with PC-BSD). It's a
>     bit more costly though, costing like KES 9,999
>     Huawei E160 costs KES 2,000 and I have a feeling it will work.
>     I'll try it today at some point and let you know. It can save you
>     some few thousands KES.
>
> So, take this matter closer to the solution for the benefit of Mehma 
> Sarja & others..
>
Thanks! Washington for making time and putting in the effort.
> I have taken time to run tests to find a solution for Mehma's problem. 
> I had a choice between the very expensive Huawei E1820 
> (5.76Mbps/21Mbps) and the relatively cheaper Huawei E160 
> (2Mbps/3.6Mbps). The reason for running a test against the E160 was 
> two-fold: To see if it actually works, and as such make Mehma save a 
> few thousands when he finally decides which modem to go for, seeing as 
> E1820 costs approximately US$ 111 while the E160 costs US$ 22:-)
>
One of our team members has an E160 modem with Safaricom. We have not, 
but will try it out soon.

> In both cases I was able to successfully use the same settings with 
> pfSense 2.0.1 (amd64). Here is the output of `ifconfig` when the modem 
> was connected (and I scp-ed this output to another Unix box using the 
> same connection):
>
> http://62.8.64.102/~wash/ifconfig.txt 
> <http://62.8.64.102/%7Ewash/ifconfig.txt>
>
> The procedure involved running HyperTerminal (this I did on my Windows 
> 8 PC) and disabling the virtual CD-ROM on both devices.
> The AT command string is AT^U2DIAG=0 (to disable, and =10 to re-enable)
>
> I discovered that pfSense (I was running on the LiveCD mode) already 
> had umodem and u3g modules loaded.
> Sorry, I did not check if they were compiled into the kernel or loaded 
> as modules.
>
> And here is my ppp.conf - the exact one I used with the 
> Safaricom-branded Huawei modem(s).
>
> u3g:
>  set device /dev/cuaU0.0
Going through the GUI on PfSense, we see interfaces /dev/cuaU0.0 and 
/dev/cuaU0.2  with the EC122 modem, and I am guessing that depends upon 
which usb port the thing is plugged into.

>  set server /var/run/3g-internet "" 0177
>  set speed 921600
>  set timeout 0
>  set authname saf
>  set authkey data
>  set dial "ABORT BUSY TIMEOUT 2 \
>        \"\" \
>        AT OK-AT-OK \
>        AT+CFUN=1 OK-AT-OK \
>        AT+CMEE=2 OK-AT-OK \
>        AT+CSQ OK \
>        AT+CGDCONT=1,\\\"IP\\\",\\\"safaricom\\\" OK \
>        ATD*99# CONNECT"
We put in #777
>  set crtscts on
>  disable vjcomp
>  disable acfcomp
>  disable deflate
>  disable deflate24
>  disable pred1
>  disable protocomp
>  disable mppe
>  disable ipv6cp
>  disable lqr
>  disable echo
>  #nat enable yes
>  enable dns
>  resolv writable
>  set dns 8.8.8.8
>  set ifaddr 10.1.0.2/0 <http://10.1.0.2/0> 10.1.0.1/0 
> <http://10.1.0.1/0> 255.255.255.255 0.0.0.0
>  add default HISADDR          # See ppp.link*
>
> This was my first time ever using pfSense in a dialup mode, so I wrote 
> my ppp.conf by hand. Of course I did find where this is apparently 
> done using the webUI (under Interface Assignments) but clicking the 
> option for editing ppp.conf and saving it did not seem to modify my 
> ppp.conf. Is this perhaps because I was running LiveCD?
>
> Is pfSense editor able to generate a complete ppp.conf like the one 
> above and write it? That's the only question I had left on my mind.
>
> I believe this will help Mehma in his endeavors.
One of the servers we have there is an Ubuntu box and the EC122 specs 
say that it supports Linux kernel 2.6x and above. There is also a howto 
for that particular model here: 
http://citycellmodemtroubleshoot.blogspot.com/2011/03/installation-of-ec122-modem-in-ubuntu.html

So, we seem to have options.

Mehma
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.pfsense.org/pipermail/list/attachments/20120205/c5c68342/attachment.html>