Nicola Inchingolo's Blog

In this post i will describe my installation of Vodafone Mobile Connect with Huawei k3765 on Ubuntu 10.04.
A version of Vodafone Mobile Connect software is available for linux on betavine.net. The project url is: https://forge.betavine.net/projects/vodafonemobilec/
First of all download the latest version from svn. So install svn with apt-get:

sudo apt-get install subversion

and then

svn checkout https://forge.betavine.net/svn/vodafonemobilec/trunk/src/vodafone-mobile-connect/

that will create the folder vodafone-mobile-connect in the current directory. Cd to this folder. You will see a file INSTALL. Install all the dependencies listed in this INSTALL file with apt-get and run the commands chmod and chown in the extra steps. Replaced :dialout with :dip.
Add your user to the group dip

sudo usermod -a -G dip nicola

Then install the package usb-modeswitch and other dependencies:

sudo apt-get install usb-modeswitch hal python-tz python-twisted-conch wvdial

Restart the computer if hal was not installed.
Then install the VMC. In the vodafone-mobile-connect dir issue the command:

sudo python setup.py install

Next connect the Huawei k3765 and run the command:

hal-find-by-capability –capability modem –verbose

If the modem is not listed, it will not be detected automatically. If not listed there is a missing file. You have to copy the file resources/platform/ubuntu/usr/share/hal/fdi/information/20thirdparty in the vodafone-mobile-connect folder in /usr/share….:

sudo cp resources/platform/ubuntu/usr/share/hal/fdi/information/20thirdparty/05-vmc-devices.fdi  /usr/share/hal/fdi/information/20thirdparty

Next you have to restart hal, so reboot your computer. After reboot rerun the command:

hal-find-by-capability –capability modem –verbose

you should see you Huawei listed.
Open the terminal and add executable flag to VMC:

sudo chmod +x /usr/bin/vodafone-mobile-connect-card*

Change some permissions:

sudo chmod 0660 /etc/ppp/pap-secrets
sudo chmod 0660 /etc/ppp/chap-secrets

Now open a terminal and start VMC with the command:

vodafone-mobile-connect-card-driver-for-linux

use the command vodafone-mobile-connect-card-driver-for-linux-debug to see debug messages.
You can add a link to Applications/Internet menu copying this file:

sudo cp resources/platform/ubuntu/usr/share/applications/vmc.desktop  /usr/share/applications

TROUBLESHOOTING
If you get an os not supported error check you installed all dependecies. I missed to install wvdial and i got os not supported.
If you have some permission errors on /etc/ppp/peers, and you cannot get out from them, run this command:

chmod 777 /etc/ppp/peers

I want to write something encountered while creating and using scheduled tasks on Windows Vista. I had to make a pppoe dial up connection automatic at windows startup. I need to make that connection before any account login.
First off all we need to use a command line command to manage dialup connections or RAS connections. This command is rasdial. Rasdial can be used to connect or disconnect any configured dialup connection.
After configuring a pppoe dialup connection and named it “My Dial Up Connection”, you can connect it using this command:
rasdial “My Dial Up Connection” username password
So i created a scheduled task that at windows startup runs this command. I configured it to use an administrative account, running without the need of an user connection, saving the password when prompted by the task scheduler. All ok, but, rebooting the computer this did not work.
The task returned an error
logon failure: unknown user name or bad password (0x8007052E)
then i changed something in the task config, but occured another error:
There are currently no logon servers available to service the logon request (0x8007051F)
I noticed that if the task is repeated every 1 minute for example and any of the users is logged in in the meanwhile, the task works correctly.
Then i found the solution. The secret is using the user SYSTEM as the user that run the task. This user works correctly even if there are no one logged in. The scheduled task condition “At Startup” in fact means that the task in executed before any user login.

I finally configured an adhoc connection at windows startup.
I’ve done it on Windows Vista Home Premium. I used a scheduled task. After creating an ad hoc wlan connection with the software included in the wlan usb key, make it active is done with this command:
netsh wlan connect name=”My-Adhoc-Connection-Name”
So i configured a scheduled task activated at windows startup and executed by the user SYSTEM that runs this command.