GSM / GPRS / UMTS with OpenBSD News 06/10/2006 - during c2k6 I started to hack on a driver for newer HSDPA-capable cards manufactures by option, stay tuned 05/30/2006 - macppc supports now com* at cardbus? as well 03/27/2006 - macppc has com(4) now 03/07/2006 - Support on i386/amd64 was added to OpenBSD for the Sony Ericsson GC89 03/04/2006 - Today I was supposed to give a talk about GPRS/UMTS and OpenBSD at Linuxforum.dk 2006. Due to issues at work, I could not attend this conference. However Wim Vandeputte from OpenBSD gave my talk. The slides are available as PDF. Overview While I mostly focused on pc cards latetly, much of the information in regard to connecting "to the internet" found here also applies to cell phones attached through a usb cable or similar to the computer. Parts of the information can be found in the ppp.conf.sample file on OpenBSD machines. Personal experience There are various datacards which can be used to connect an OpenBSD maschine to a GPRS or UMTS service and establish a ppp session. Personally I have tested with the following: Siemens/Fujitsu Connect2Air CompactFlash (GSM/GPRS only) Novatel Wireless Merlin U530 and Merlin U630 (both GSM/GPRS/UMTS) Sony Ericcson GC75, GC89 (GSM/GPRS/EDGE) Option Fusion UMTS Quad-GPRS (GSM/GPRS/UMTS, WLAN not supported on OpenBSD Huawei Mobile Connect E618 (apparently Huawei does not list the E618 there, for whatever reason)

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The Siemens Connect2Air works fine on i386, macppc and Zaurus. The Novatel cards have been reported previously to work fine on i386 too. Changes to make this card work on i386 went into the tree between 3.7 and 3.8. The Novatel cards has two standard UARTS, thus it attaches to the com(4) driver and then presents to serial devices. The first one is used to establish the ppp connection. I am currently not sure, what is done with the second serial device (maybe management? Am currently investigating on that).

With a CompactFlash-to-PCMCIA Adapter, I successfully use my Novatel U530 card with my Zaurus. Here is a pictures: UMTS capable Zaurus.

pppd configuration for using GPRS and UMTS

The configuration happens in /etc/ppp/peers/. To understand the config files, reading pppd(8) is suggested. For now I have a different set of files for the Connect2Air Card and the Merlin card. This is mainly because I've had not the time to revise the config for GPRS-only connect (as done with the Connect2Air card) and so far just took the time to optimize my configuration for UMTS/GPRS connects. Most likely all of the options that I use for umts/gprs connects make sense for gprs only (like turning off all the compression). Some options (like default remoteip and noipdefault are ISP specific.

pppd requires an ppp interface. Your kernel must have support for the ppp device (GENERIC has this) and the ppp device needs to be initialized. To have the ppp0-device setup for you upon booting create an empty /etc/hostname.ppp0 file.

• pppd config file for gprs connects gprs only options for pppd
• the chat script that talks to the card (Siemens Connect2Air CF) and dials for gprs connects.
• pppd config file for umts/gprs connects gprs/umts options for pppd
• the chat script that talks to the card (Novatel Wireless Merlin U530/U630) and dials for umts/gprs connects.
• pppd config file for Sony Ericsson GC89: pppd options
• the chat script that talks to the Sony Ericsson GC89 Card

Vendor links

These are links to the various vendors of GSM/GPRS/UMTS/HSDPA modules (pc card, MiniPCI express etc.)

• Huawei
• Novatel Wireless
• Option
• Sierra Wireless
• Sony Ericsson

Various links

These are some links to various sites covering GSM/GPRS/UMTS in regard to open source operating systems. and a few others.

• pharscape.org covers the linux nozomi driver for Option's HSDPA capable PC-Cards