NOW $700 - PCI PCMCI Slot Card for EVDO REV A connectivity

kapara · Mar 5, 2008, 10:24 PM

I am hoping other people will find this attractive and join in on the contribution. Being able to failover instead of another DSL or physical line is very helpful. Linksys makes a DSL Firewall\Router that can do this for $249.00 (FYI…I am not comparing a linksys to a pfsense!!!) Just mentioning that the function is available. Is there any chance that the pfsense could support a PCI card for a PCMCI EVDO card like the Sprint Mobile Broadband Card by Sierra Wireless-AirCard 595 or the Sprint Mobile Broadband Card by Novatel Wireless-Merlin S720. It would be great because you could potentially use the wireless as fail over or for locations where there is no DSL/Cable you could use it as your primary connection. Rev A is very fast with average sppeds in good locations of about 1 mbit burstable to 3 Mbit and upload of 400kbit. Even better is that an unlimited data plan with Sprint or Verizon is only $59.00 a month.

billm · Apr 25, 2007, 4:39 PM

I wish…but then I'd want an expresscard one too so I could roam with my mac ;) Oh well...this is certainly a useful feature, but none of the current devs have this gear (or the contracts that go with them). Hopefully someone with the gear will be interested in implementing it, I have no idea what this would entail as I've never seen how these cards come up in FreeBSD.

--Bill

billm · Apr 25, 2007, 4:40 PM

@billm:

I wish…but then I'd want an expresscard one too so I could roam with my mac ;) Oh well...this is certainly a useful feature, but none of the current devs have this gear (or the contracts that go with them). Hopefully someone with the gear will be interested in implementing it, I have no idea what this would entail as I've never seen how these cards come up in FreeBSD.

--Bill

BTW, offering remote access to a box with this equipment might help generate more interest, but note that since we don't have the equipment, ongoing support will be somewhat hampered.

–Bill

kapara · Apr 25, 2007, 4:52 PM

I have a client who has purchased the card and a linksys router for it already. I might be able to delay deploying it and setup a pfsense with a dsl connection and include the card so that someone could work on it remotely. By this I mean a dedicated machine. I would just like to know a time frame…ie 1 month, 2 months because I will have to cover the monthly charges for the card until it gets deployed. $59 a month.

kapara · Apr 25, 2007, 5:22 PM

Found this: http://www.kfu.com/~nsayer/freebsd/

Novatel Merlin
I now own one of the most amazing devices I have yet come across. It's the Novatel Merlin. It's a PCCARD CDPD modem. Using Merlin under FreeBSD is almost painlessly trivial. It looks to the pccard stuff just like an ordinary modem card. You then set up PPP with the script I devised for Sage below, but with the device that the PCCARD daemon assigns, and it magically works. Alas, you don't get the blinking lights like on Sage, but there is a little curses application in the ports called merlinmon (http://www.freebsd.org/ports/net.html#merlinmon-1.1.1) that serves the same purpose as the windows Opcenter stuff.
You can fetch the MSCI protocol spec (http://www.novatelwireless.com/support/support_nrm.html) used by merlinmon from Novatel.

The only trick to getting Merlin (or Sage, the external serial version of merlin) to work is setting an MRU of 576 (which is the MRU that SAGE asks for).

Here is a ppp.conf file fragment that should work:

inet:
set openmode active
set mru 576
set device /dev/cuaa0
set speed 19200
set dial "ABORT ERROR "" AT\\APPP\r\c CONNECT"
dial

With this file in place, just say 'ppp inet' to bring up the link.

Novatel's Merlin page http://www.novatelwireless.com/pcproducts/merlin.html
Novatel's SAGE page http://www.novatelwireless.com/pcproducts/sage.html

cmb · May 7, 2007, 3:39 AM

Bill doesn't realize I have EVDO service. I have a Verizon PC Card that should be supported. But I have a 15 Mb cable modem and 8 Mb DSL line at home, I don't really need EVDO in a firewall. Hence, it's a low priority for me, but I'll probably mess with it eventually.

Upping this bounty will encourage me to start messing with this.

mitcheloc · May 7, 2007, 3:41 AM

I can chip in at least $50 as well. I also have access to a Soekris Net4521 board and a couple of WRAP platforms (though you can't place the card in the WRAP board).

I also also provide any sort of remote access to the board you would like.

I've gotten the EVDO card to work on the Soekris before using Pyramid linux. When you plug the card in, it emulates a USB hub with a generic modem plugged into it…. so I think the major trick is to build in USB support into the pfSense image... I have a Pantech PX-500 EVDO Rev. A. modem.

Thanks guys,
Mitchel

dotdash · May 18, 2007, 4:33 PM

I could get $500 put toward this bounty provided the following conditions:

The EVDO would show up as a regular interface, so would be usable for failover, etc. (Pretty obvious, just re-stating this)
I would need to add this to existing PC hardware without built-in PCMCIA or mini-pcie, so it would have to work with a usb modem or PCMCIA/Express card to USB adapter, or (second choice) a pci card or pci-pcmcia adapter.
I have access to a Verizon EVDO card. If this goes forward I'll work on getting a usb adapter/modem to test with.

mitcheloc · May 18, 2007, 6:13 PM

dotdash, Thanks for adding into the pot.. Seriously, thanks.

Cmb, How much more motivation would you like? o_O

sloan · May 18, 2007, 10:35 PM

I have a new but old for me since I just cancelled the service, Kyocera KPC650 Verizon Wireless Air Card that I would make available if it could be used for this. This is a PCMCIA card.

cmb · May 19, 2007, 2:54 AM

I ran into some issues with my initial test and didn't have time to really look into it due to other commitments.

dotdash, if it is to be implemented, it'll definitely meet #1 of your request. As for supported hardware, I'm not sure how many pieces of hardware we could support, or support well. It's something I'll look into more. Now that this is up to about $600 if it can be done meeting dotdash's requirements, it's definitely a higher priority.

It'll be another week or two before I can really dig into this again, but I'll post back when I get a chance to look into it further.

dotdash · May 24, 2007, 5:02 PM

The USB-PCMCIA adapters like the Elan U111 and U132 look pretty sketchy as far as support on non-Windows and only seem to work with certain models of card.
My thought is that if someone can get a PCMCIA card running, it should work with a PCI-PCMCIA card.
I'm going to get a Quatech PCD-B/UPCI-E to test with and try plugging the Verizon card into it. If this works it would be a pretty good solution as the card could be turned up on a Windows laptop, then plugged into the firewall once activated.

sullrich · May 24, 2007, 6:38 PM

I am interested in this bounty. Just need to find a EVDO card to work with.

cmb · May 24, 2007, 7:42 PM

sullrich and I have agreed to split this as soon as I get a chance to start working on it again (maybe next week).

I also have made contact with someone that can provide some additional hardware for testing purposes.

kapara · May 31, 2007, 5:02 PM

Wow….I thought this one was going to wither away and die. I don't have a need for the PCMCI option anymore but I will still honor my request. About time that I contribute anyway. Definitely something I will be able to push to my clients in the future!!!

Thanks,

Mark

sullrich · May 31, 2007, 9:13 PM

I have a USB version that might be coming available soon. I am going to try and get it working there and hopefully it will work in a similar fashion on the pcmcia version, etc.

dotdash · Jun 5, 2007, 7:25 PM

I got the elan P311. It does it's job and shows up nicely as a cardbus slot. I can plug a 3Com carbus nic in and it comes right up. This particular card (low profile) has major fitament issues with most motherboards I tested it with, but whatever, I found a test box where I can manage to get it into one of the slots.
My test card (Verizon, Sierra Wireless, I think) went out on loan, so I borrowed a Sprint Pantech PX-500 card. No luck. I was thinking it might go something like this: http://www.bsdforums.org/forums/archive/index.php/t-45602.html
But it doesn't seem to find a driver for the modem. Perhaps this card is not supported. I see some errors when booting:
cardbus0: CIS pointer is 0
cardbus0: Resource not specified in CIS: id=10, size=1000
It does detect an NEC uPD 9210 USB controller (ohci0, uhub4, usb5) but no ucom or ugen device.
It seems that it should show up like a usb modem off of the usb controller off of the cardbus…
I will have to get the Verizon card back and try with it...
Tested on a 1.2 beta1 install and on a generic FreeBSD 6.2 install.

sullrich · Jun 5, 2007, 9:36 PM

Joseph Kohan (razor2000 on irc) is sending me a card to test. I will be starting on this bounty as soon as I receive the card.

Sifter · Jun 20, 2007, 7:44 AM

Any update on testing progress?

sullrich · Jun 20, 2007, 11:41 PM

I never received any hardware.