SG-2100 and 4g/LTE

stephenw10

I have tested with Sierra devices in that and the SG-3100. em7305 and em7455 work if you get the vanilla model. If it's a branded device from some laptop you might have to play around to change the usb composition. That is a Linux or Windows only job in some cases. Once it's changed you swap it back in and you're good.

The speeds you will see through it are not that exciting though dues to FreeBSDs current lack of support for MBIM or QMI. I have seen ~42Mbps but usually get something closer to 20Mbps in the SG-3100.

And, yes, the SIM slot is wired to the m.2 card slot only. The mPCIe slot is not wired for USB so cannot be used for this.

Steve

tipstrade

@stephenw10, thanks for that. I've found what is purported to be a vanilla EM7305 on ebay so I'll give that a go and hopefully what applies to the SG-3100 applies to the SG-2100 too.

I can deal with ~20Mps and it'll be interesting to compare it to the speeds when using a Huawei E3372h-153 in HILINK mode (I've got 36Mb/s before). Anything beats the 8Mbps I was getting over the copper pair into my flat!

On a side note, if anyone would like a Huawei ME909s-120 donated to them (preferebly for OSS work, but I'm not picky) in the EU, send me a PM.

keyser

@tipstrade HI. Did you ever get this to work with the Sierra card you purchased?
I'm looking to make a backup/failover connection to 4G for a very remote location.

stephenw10

It will work with a Sierra device that has default settings. Or with a rebranded device plus some shenanigans!

Steve

keyser

@stephenw10 said in SG-2100 and 4g/LTE:

It will work with a Sierra device that has default settings. Or with a rebranded device plus some shenanigans!

Steve

So Dell/Lenovo/xxx branded versions of the sierra cards has a non-default sierra firmware and will not work without a firmware flash or configuration run in another device?
But a default device will work in the SG-2100?

Is there antenna wiring in the box, or will I have to get some small plug antennas for it as well?

stephenw10

You need to change the mode and the device IDs on one of the Dell or Lenovo modems. Something like this:
https://github.com/danielewood/sierra-wireless-modems#change-modem-identity-sierra-wireless--lenovo--dell

The case has cut-outs for antennas but there are none included so you need to pig-tails.

Steve

tipstrade

@keyser Unfortunately I didn't as the EM7305 I bought wasn't detected by pfSense (so I presume the mode needed to be changed). Unfortunately I didn't have a machine with a spare M.2 slot that I could use to change the mode. I had tried to use a USB M.2 enclosure, but it only supported SSDs, so that was another dead-end.

In the end I gave up and stuck with the HUAWEI E3372, and add a delay in the boot sequence after doing the mode-switch on startup Cellular Wireless - Mode Switching

I might have another look, but we finally have a FTTP ISP in the area so I'm looking forward not relying on a cellular network anymore.

r0bb10

@tipstrade you dont have to use usbmodeswitch on the e3372h, a better way to use that stick is to reflash it in non-hilink mode and disable the mass storage, it will work as rndis and be detected by pfsense as an interface without any issue, without using qmi or ncm, and no ppp involved.

setting up the dhcp on that interface to pass the AT command for the apn you will have the ip address directly on the interface on pfsense without nat.

that is how i use it :)

keyser

@r0bb10 said in SG-2100 and 4g/LTE:

@tipstrade you dont have to use usbmodeswitch on the e3372h, a better way to use that stick is to reflash it in non-hilink mode and disable the mass storage, it will work as rndis and be detected by pfsense as an interface without any issue, without using qmi or ncm, and no ppp involved.

setting up the dhcp on that interface to pass the AT command for the apn you will have the ip address directly on the interface on pfsense without nat.

that is how i use it :)

That sounds rather nice :-) Do you have any guides on how to reflash the e3372h to your specific setup?

r0bb10

@keyser mm i made a post some time ago on reddit i guess, but basically you can go here to get a nice updated unbranded firmware to flash (the "stick mode" or "non-hilink mode" have firmware 21.xx), E3372h-153_Update_21.315.01.00.143_M_U_01.01 is probably a good one.. no need to flash a webui, in stick mode is not used.

if you cant downgrade your current firmware because you are on a newer hilink one (22.x if you are in hilink mode) there is a special procedure to do it, here you can find the tool and here the pinout.

it's easy to do and you probably wont need this unless you really are on a very updated firmware in not-the-mode you want (as said, 22.x is hilink, 21.x is stickmode), huawei locked the stock downgrade procedure but with this you can rollback safetly.

once your stick is ready, you can use a setport AT command to disable cd-rom emulation and ppp (that is waaaay slower than ncm), and put the stick in the default rndis mode AT^SETPORT="FF;12,16", only has to be done once and will persist to reboots/unplugs.

then simply put the stick on your pfsense box, it will show up as a network interface (/dev/cuaU0), set it as wwan and you are good to go.

you probably wont get any public ip because you probably have to set an apn, it depends on the carrier / simcard you use.. you can do this via the AT command AT^NDISDUP=1,1,"<APN>", once done you will get the ip directly on the interface without nat.

to make it auto set the apn automagically you can add that AT command in the /etc/dhclient-enter-hooks, nothing else is needed, profit.

case $reason in
PREINIT)
    echo 'AT^NDISDUP=1,1,"<APN>"' > /dev/cuaU0
    ;;
esac

https://www.speedtest.net/it/result/12741979814 approx 45~55Mbps on a e3372h-153 on a usb2 port, just tested.

keyser

@r0bb10 Thank you very much for your guide.

I'll see if I can locate a e3372h stick and give your procedure a spin :-)