NimbeLink Skywire LTE CAT1 User manual

Enabling CDC_ETHER Connection
for Skywire
®
GSM CAT1
NimbeLink Corp
Updated: February 2018
PN 30262 rev 4 © NimbeLink Corp. 2018. All rights reserved. 1

Table of Contents
Table of Contents 2
1. Introduction 3
1.1 Orderable Part Numbers 3
1.2 Overview 3
1.3 A Note on CDC_ETHER 3
1.4 Testing 3
2. BeagleBone Black Setup 4
2.1 Overview 4
2.2 BeagleBone Black Setup 4
2.2 Modem Setup 4
2.3 Verify and Test The Connection 5
3 Troubleshooting 6
3.1 No connection in Section 2.3 6
3.2 Connection Stops After a Short Time 6
PN 30262 rev 4 © NimbeLink Corp. 2018. All rights reserved. 2

1. Introduction
1.1 Orderable Part Numbers
Orderable Device
Description
Carrier
Network
Type
NL-SW-LTE-WM14
Skywire CAT1 LTE GSM
AT&T/T-Mobile
LTE
NL-SW-LTE-WM14-B
Skywire CAT1 LTE GSM
AT&T/T-Mobile
LTE
NL-SW-LTE-WM14-C
Skywire CAT1 LTE GSM
AT&T/T-Mobile
LTE
NL-AB-BBBC
Skywire BeagleBone Black Cape
Any
Any
1.2 Overview
The Skywire® CAT1 LTE modem supports CDC_ETHER, an Ethernet over USB
protocol that allows for an easy data connection. This application note provides a
working example of setting up the CDC_ETHER connection on a BeagleBone Black.
1.3 A Note on CDC_ETHER
For CDC_ETHER to work, the Linux kernel needs to have support for the CDC_ETHER
USB device class built in. If it does, then when the modem is connected via USB, an
ethernet device will simply appear (usually as “eth1”, “eth2”, etc.). If it does not appear,
then chances are the Linux kernel version you have does not support CDC_ETHER.
1.4 Testing
This procedure was tested on the following OSs and hardware:
Hardware
BeagleBone Black Rev. 3
Operating Systems
Debian 8.6 (Kernel 4.4.36-ti-r72)
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2. BeagleBone Black Setup
2.1 Overview
Setting up the CDC_ETHER connection on the BeagleBone Black allows for automatic
setup and connection, providing an easy way to get a internet data connection to your
BeagleBone Black.
2.2 BeagleBone Black Setup
Start your BeagleBone Black and login as root .
2.2 Modem Setup
You will need to set your APN in the modem. To do this, connect to the modem using a
terminal program such as screen , minicom , or picocom . This example uses
picocom , and the modem will show up as /dev/ttyACM0 :
# picocom -b 115200 /dev/ttyACM0
Once connected, issue the following command:
AT%PDNSET=1,"[your apn]","IP"
replacing [your apn] with the APN of your SIM. For instance, if you setup your
modem with a NimbeLink AT&T SIM activated on go.nimbelink.com, your APN is
10569.mcs and you would enter:
AT%PDNSET=1,"10569.mcs","IP"
If you activated a NimbeLink T-Mobile SIM on go.nimbelink.com, your APN is
c2.korem2m.com and you would enter:
AT%PDNSET=1,"c1.korem2m.com","IP"
Reboot your BeagleBone Black.
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2.3 Verify and Test The Connection
Once the BeagleBone Black has rebooted, log in. The CDC_ETHER connection will
automatically come up as eth1 . Below is a partial response to ifconfig . Your
response should be similar:
# ifconfig
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr ec:11:27:cf:db:5e
UP BROADCAST MULTICAST DYNAMIC MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:0 (0.0 B) TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)
Interrupt:173
eth1 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:11:22:33:44:56
inet addr:10.144.23.15 Bcast:10.144.23.31
Mask:255.255.255.224
inet6 addr: fe80::211:22ff:fe33:4456/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST DYNAMIC MTU:1500
Metric:1
RX packets:57 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:155 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:5977 (5.8 KiB) TX bytes:26728 (26.1 KiB)
You can now test the connection:
# ping google.com
PING google.com (172.217.4.238) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from ord30s31-in-f14.1e100.net (172.217.4.238):
icmp_seq=1 ttl=46 time=148 ms
64 bytes from ord30s31-in-f14.1e100.net (172.217.4.238):
icmp_seq=2 ttl=46 time=187 ms
64 bytes from ord30s31-in-f14.1e100.net (172.217.4.238):
icmp_seq=3 ttl=46 time=136 ms
64 bytes from ord30s31-in-f14.1e100.net (172.217.4.238):
icmp_seq=4 ttl=46 time=133 ms
^C
--- google.com ping statistics ---
4 packets transmitted, 4 received, 0% packet loss, time 3004ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 133.884/151.565/187.424/21.462 ms
Your CDC_ETHER connection is now setup.
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3 Troubleshooting
3.1 No connection in Section 2.3
The most common reason for this is the APN is not correct. Verify that your APN is
correct and re-enter it.
If you signed up for service through NimbeLink, please consult the following APNs:
AT&T Network: 10569.mcs
T-Mobile Network: c1.korem2m.com
Vodafone Network: vfd1.korem2m.com
If the above options do not work and you signed up for service through NimbeLink,
please contact us at:
[email protected]
to get your APN information. Please include your SIM ID and IMEI of your Skywire.
If you signed up for service directly through a carrier, please contact your carrier to get
your APN information.
3.2 Connection Stops After a Short Time
If your connection is failing consistently after a few minutes after starting, check if you
have ModemManager installed on your system. If you do, there is a bug in
ModemManager that closes the connection. Disabling or removing ModemManager
fixes the issue.
To disable ModemManager, issue:
# killall -STOP ModemManager
Note: This will need to be issued each time you reboot your system.
To uninstall ModemManger, use your distribution's package manager. For example, on
Debian and Ubuntu, issue:
# apt-get remove ModemManager
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