How to use Huawei mobile broadband moden E3372 on Ubuntu 20.04.3 Server?

Tue Dec 21 12:57:02 UTC 2021

On Sun, 19 Dec 2021 08:55:31 +0000, Chris Green <cl at isbd.net> wrote:

>On Sun, Dec 19, 2021 at 12:07:50AM +0100, Bo Berglund wrote:
>> On Fri, 17 Dec 2021 17:53:18 +0100, Bo Berglund <bo.berglund at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>> >I do not know if I am "using" network manager. I have surely never used a
>> >command nmcli...
>> >And it seems not to exist on my *server* (maybe it is a desktop kind of tool?):
>> 
>> In fact after googling more I found that networkmanager is a Desktop thingie and
>> does not exist on server installations...
>> 
>> So what is then my possibility to get this going?
>> 
>> It seems like the server uses somethiong named "netplan" instead, but I am not
>> the wiser for that.
>> 
>You can use NetworkManager from the command line with nmcli.  It's
>part of Network Manager so just install network-manager and you can
>use the command line to configure it.
>

So I tried that but I did not get to a solution anyway...
Did not know what to do with the command line client.

Then I decided to try the E3372 on another Ubuntu 20, my Linux laptop which runs
20.04.3.

First I plugged it into a USB charger to power it up and see if it would connect
"standalone", but that failed. It just sits there blinking the blue light.

So I just plugged it into the USB3 socket on the laptop and then after a short
period it connected (lamp turned blue).

This time I get these responses from a few commands:

$ dmesg
usb 3-1: new high-speed USB device number 2 using xhci_hcd
usb 3-1: New USB device found, idVendor=12d1, idProduct=1f01, bcdDevice= 1.02
usb 3-1: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
usb 3-1: Product: HUAWEI_MOBILE
usb 3-1: Manufacturer: HUAWEI_MOBILE
usb 3-1: SerialNumber: 0123456789ABCDEF
usb-storage 3-1:1.0: USB Mass Storage device detected
scsi host6: usb-storage 3-1:1.0
usbcore: registered new interface driver usb-storage
usbcore: registered new interface driver uas
usb 3-1: USB disconnect, device number 2
usb 3-1: new high-speed USB device number 3 using xhci_hcd
usb 3-1: New USB device found, idVendor=12d1, idProduct=14db, bcdDevice= 1.02
usb 3-1: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=0
usb 3-1: Product: HUAWEI_MOBILE
usb 3-1: Manufacturer: HUAWEI_MOBILE
cdc_ether 3-1:1.0 eth0: register 'cdc_ether' at usb-0000:26:00.0-1, CDC Ethernet
Device, 00:1e:10:1f:00:00
usbcore: registered new interface driver cdc_ether
cdc_ether 3-1:1.0 enx001e101f0000: renamed from eth0

$ifconfig
#removed unrelated information
enp0s25: flags=4163<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,MULTICAST>  mtu 1500
        inet 192.168.119.241  netmask 255.255.255.0  broadcast 192.168.119.255
        inet6 fe80::5563:40d3:9d8e:2689  prefixlen 64  scopeid 0x20<link>
        ether ec:9a:74:fb:b9:cf  txqueuelen 1000  (Ethernet)
        ...
enx001e101f0000: flags=4163<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,MULTICAST>  mtu 1500
        inet 192.168.8.107  netmask 255.255.255.0  broadcast 192.168.8.255
        inet6 2a02:aa1:1022:ee57:77a2:c1af:7efd:9a78  prefixlen 64  scopeid
0x0<global>
        inet6 2a02:aa1:1022:ee57:10:2030:4050:2  prefixlen 128  scopeid
0x0<global>
        inet6 fe80::5af8:89eb:9702:4ab  prefixlen 64  scopeid 0x20<link>
        inet6 2a02:aa1:1022:ee57:8d6e:bcb4:2019:df47  prefixlen 64  scopeid
0x0<global>
        ether 00:1e:10:1f:00:00  txqueuelen 1000  (Ethernet)
        RX packets 1010  bytes 218837 (218.8 KB)
        RX errors 0  dropped 0  overruns 0  frame 0
        TX packets 1282  bytes 179158 (179.1 KB)
        TX errors 0  dropped 0 overruns 0  carrier 0  collisions 0

wlo1: flags=4163<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,MULTICAST>  mtu 1500
        inet 192.168.119.184  netmask 255.255.255.0  broadcast 192.168.119.255
        inet6 fe80::c164:cdcb:8e7b:ad4c  prefixlen 64  scopeid 0x20<link>
        ether 08:11:96:6f:63:4c  txqueuelen 1000  (Ethernet)
        ...

$ route
Kernel IP routing table
Destination     Gateway         Genmask         Flags Metric Ref    Use Iface
default         router.asus.com 0.0.0.0         UG    100    0        0 enp0s25
default         www.huaweimobil 0.0.0.0         UG    101    0        0
enx001e101f0000
default         router.asus.com 0.0.0.0         UG    600    0        0 wlo1
link-local      0.0.0.0         255.255.0.0     U     1000   0        0 enp0s25
192.168.8.0     0.0.0.0         255.255.255.0   U     101    0        0
enx001e101f0000
192.168.119.0   0.0.0.0         255.255.255.0   U     100    0        0 enp0s25
192.168.119.0   0.0.0.0         255.255.255.0   U     600    0        0 wlo1

So the E3372 now appears as device "enx001e101f0000" which has address
192.168.8.107 (why Ubuntu decided to replace the easy to understand named eth0,
eth1 etc with this junk is beyond me).

So now I need to find a way to check if it is actually operating, how can I do
this?
If I try to check internet connectivity the packets will use enp0s25 most
likely, how do I force the use of a certain device?
FGor example using wget or curl, can a specific interface be forced?

I still do not know if the connection actually works....

If it does, then can I somehow copy some config data from somewhere on this
laptop over to the server I really want it for?
If so, what should I look at to copy?

-- 
Bo Berglund
Developer in Sweden