Can't connect with pppd with modem (pcmcia)

Forum: Networking
Topic: Can't connect with pppd with modem (pcmcia)
started by: ngmlinux

Posted by ngmlinux on Feb. 08 2006,04:03

I've installed a pcmcia modem (the green light on the modem confirms the driver is working, although DSL gives an unsupported Card message while booting).

In any case when I try to run the ppp daemon to connect to the internet I get the error message that '/dev/modem' is an unrecognized option. Indeed, /dev/modem did not exist. I then ran dmesg which reported two UARTS that I am almost possitive are the serial lines to my modem. ttyS00 and ttyS01. I tried symbolically linking these to /dev/modem with no success.

This modem works fine with other distros, so I'm not sure what the issue is here. I've verified that the drivers I've installed are set to persist.

DSL does support dial up modems, correct?

Thanks.

Posted by ngmlinux on Feb. 15 2006,00:00

Apparently the ttyS00 and ttyS01 are serial lines unrelated to the modem. In any case I am expecting an entry to appear under /dev like /dev/ttyS0 or /dev/cuaX.

I can't find anything like this under /dev however the pcmcia utility in DSL does correctly identify my card.

By the way, it comes to my attention that my previous post (above) on this issue was "inflamatory" to some of the forum members, I appologize to anyone who feels offended. I like to put in my best effort to ensure postings on this forum are productive and proffessional.

Posted by roberts on Feb. 15 2006,01:53

Of course DSL supports dial up modems, external real modems, pcmcia real modems and Lucent Technologies winmodems.

The dialup GUI tool does not setup a link to /dev/modem, as normally it is not needed.

For eample using a pcmcia Linksys card, it is recognized in the PCMCIA tool as:

Linksys
EtherFast 10&100 + 56k PC Card (PCMLM56)

Using the Dialup tool I manually select ttyS1 and am able to use dialup.

Posted by ngmlinux on Feb. 15 2006,01:57

I understand the part about /dev/modem and how that can manually be pointed to the actual /dev name.

The issue here is that I can't find the actual /dev name. It is usually ttyS0 in Ubuntu, however I don't see a ttyS0 in /dev nor do I see any other common names I've found in my research (ie. cuaX).

Additionally I don't see my modem when I run dmesg.

Any thoughts?

Thanks.

Posted by roberts on Feb. 15 2006,02:09

You should have a /dev/ttyS0 and /dev/ttyS1
Also from DSL Control Panel -> PCMCIA Tool -> Info
you should see your modem info displayed.

Posted by ngmlinux on Feb. 15 2006,02:28

In DSL Control Panel -> PCMCIA Tool -> Info my modem info is correctly displayed.

In /dev I have ttyS[0..7] listed. Apparently I don't have entries for ttyS00 and ttyS01 in /dev.

However when I dmesg, the only UARTs that come up are ttyS00 and ttyS01. There is no mention of the ttySX's in dmesg.

Posted by ngmlinux on Feb. 15 2006,22:21

Here's some more infomation on my issue that may or may not be of help:

At boot the following messages are given:

Code Sample

PCMCIA found, starting cardmgr.
cardmgr[104]: Starting, version 3.2.5
cardmgr[104]: Unsupported card in socket 0
cardmgr[104]: Product Info: "Sierra Wireless", "AC775", "EDGE Network Adapter", "R1"
cardmgr[104]: manfid: 0x0192, 0x0710 function: 6 (network)

Also, information on the linux driver for the card and setup can be found < here >.

Let me know if there is any other information that would be useful in debuging this.

Thanks.

Posted by roberts on Feb. 15 2006,23:11

A wireless dialup modem? Never heard of such a thing.
Does it connect to a wired base station?

At first I thought this might be a wireless network card and then you should be trying the pppoe script?

Without having such equipment, sorry, cannot help much.
Maybe someone has a clue.

Posted by ngmlinux on Feb. 15 2006,23:35

Don't be too concerned with the wireless aspect of the modem, it works exactly like wired dialup modem on the software side. It dials a phone # via ppp.

The issue does not appear to be ppp related at all, I simply can't find an entry for the card under /dev.

Posted by ngmlinux on Feb. 16 2006,00:03

I found a page < here > that more or less describes what I am doing.

From this I have a guess at what might be going wrong. I think since I am still getting the Unsupported card message, I'm guessing that the updated /etc/pcmcia/config file may not be loading/overwriting from the flash image until after cardmgr runs.

The way I got that file to persist is by editing it and adding it to filetool.lst I've verified that it does persist but i'm concerned that there may be a syntax issue in that it does not load early enough in the boot process. Any thoughts?

Thanks.

Also wanted to mention this is a 16-bit pcmcia card (not Cardbus) and requires serial_cs, which I've been able to modprobe.

Here's another website with what may possibly be a related issue:
< http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/f/topic-3-8-9454-5.html >

Posted by ngmlinux on Feb. 16 2006,03:07

Does DSL use any non standard pcmcia settings, acpi settings, ...

Is there any way to "look up" the /dev name of a pcmcia device? (Assuming it's working and I simply don't know the /dev name)

Posted by ngmlinux on Feb. 17 2006,02:21

I found a tool called cardinfo in DSL (type sudo cardinfo at bash prompt). This brings up a GUI utility that reports the modem information and the serial device name. It turns out that it is /dev/ttyS2. For some reason I have to hit the various reset buttons in this utility several times and wait a substantial amount of time but it eventually recognizes the modem. When it recognizes the modem it stops identifying it as a type 6 Networking device and starts recognizing it as a type 2 Serial device. When it finally initializes it works.

So now the problem has been reduced to a much smaller issue. That being why it takes so long to get the modem recognized by cardinfo (for it to stop saying unsupported card) and why it has to be reset so many times. Any ideas?

Thanks.

Posted by howlingmadhowie on Feb. 20 2006,10:25

thank you for your persistence

i have had similar problems with a laptop and a umts-modem, which was recognised under ubuntu5.10 und suse10.0 correctly and not recognised correctly under dsl2.1

i shall try out your solution in the near future.

thanks again.

howie

Posted by ngmlinux on Feb. 20 2006,17:28

Howie, please do and let me know how that goes. Don't forget to add the driver in such a way that it persists.

If you have any luck getting the card to be recognized quickly and automatically (without having to play with cardinfo on each boot), let me know how that's done as well.

Thanks.

-Nathan