Re: [gentoo-user] rfcomm0 interface missing

[Mick <michaelkintzios@gmail.com>]

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On Saturday 23 Nov 2013 12:35:35 Mick wrote:
> On Saturday 23 Nov 2013 11:44:58 Robin Atwood wrote:
> > On Monday 18 November 2013, Mick wrote:
> > > After more than a year I tried to tether my mobile to my laptop to
> > > connect to GPRS using kppp.  I noticed that kppp hangs and I have to
> > > kill it, while it hangs with "Modem Ready".  I can query the modem
> > > successfully using kppp, and it responds to ATI initialisation
> > > commands, so now I am trying to understand what is wrong with it and
> > > why the connection does not complete.
> > > 
> > > ifconfig -a does not show rfcomm0, but this may be because it never
> > > completes the connection to my mobile phone provider's network, so the
> > > ppp link is not established.
> > > 
> > > I can see that the rfcomm device is being created:
> > > 
> > > # ls -la /dev/rfcomm*
> > > crw-rw---- 1 root uucp 216, 0 Nov 17 15:51 /dev/rfcomm0
> > > 
> > > and it does try to connect until it freezes showing "Modem Ready", but
> > > I am getting no more errors to know what to do next.
> > > 
> > > I was thinking that this may be related to the udev NIC renaming change
> > > that happened within the last year.  However, I never had any udev
> > > rules to manage rfcomm and from what I recall vaguely when the udev
> > > update came, I had no problem connecting  (but memory may be failing
> > > me after all this time).  It could of course be related to my mobile
> > > phone providers settings - I haven't changed these for a long time and
> > > looking on the Internet I can't find if they are any different now.
> > > 
> > > How should I troubleshoot this further?
> > > 
> > > Could someone please hold my hand to set up ppp so that I can avoid
> > > kppp and its freezing behaviour?
> > 
> > Have you started the rfcomm service? I remember having trouble until I
> > did that.
> 
> Thanks Robin, yes I started bluetooth and rfcomm as I used to do.  I wonder
> if this is an ISP problem, i.e. they are no longer offering GPRS on this
> mobile phone account, or if I need a different login.  I'll try again
> later to see if this is a temporary fault when I get a minute.

I set up ppp but wasn't able to get anywhere:

Dec  4 16:42:30 pppd[5167]: pppd 2.4.5 started by michael, uid 0
Dec  4 16:42:31 pppd[5167]: Serial connection established.
Dec  4 16:42:31 pppd[5167]: Using interface ppp0
Dec  4 16:42:31 pppd[5167]: Connect: ppp0 <--> /dev/rfcomm0
Dec  4 16:42:32 pppd[5167]: Serial line is looped back.
Dec  4 16:42:32 pppd[5167]: Connection terminated.

The connection bails out.  I don't understand what the message "Serial line is 
looped back." means.  Any ideas?


Anyway, after all that effort, I discovered that the ISP has decided to block 
tethering, because they are now peddling 4G services and want people to buy 
separate data accounts for tablets.  Those of us who only occasionally need to 
use our mobile phone as a modem to get on the Internet are left without a 
service.  :-(

Would you know how the ISP's network equipment knows if the phone is 
connecting and sending GPRS packets on its own, or due to a PC initiating the 
connection? 
-- 
Regards,
Mick

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