LTE mPCIe module hardware solution (cellular failover)
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Should be receiving my antenna's today for LTE. Have yet to order GPS Antenna.
Question with regards to GPS. I am not concerned about millisecond accuracy. I am concerned with accuracy in the 30 second to 1 minute range. I have fixtures with no real time clock and their programming needs to know what time it is. If power goes out and internet does not come back I need to make sure they get accurate time but not millisecond timing.
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So not working as expected. Will post logs. Funny thing is AT commands look to show it working when using the USB device. I am even able to send a txt message and get IP.
AT+CGDCONT?
+CGDCONT: 1,"IP","fast.t-mobile.com","0.0.0.0",0,0
OK
Following connection profiles are available,
CID-> 1
PDP Type->IP
APN->fast.t-mobile.com
PDP Address->0.0.0.0
Data Compression->0
Header Compression->0–-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Checking registration status...AT+CREG?
+CREG: 0,1
OK
The device is registered in home network.
Checking SMS Mode...
AT+CMGF?
+CMGF: 0
OK
SMS message for is configured for PDU mode
Checking SMS Mode...SMS Service center entry is empty.Not including this field in the PDU
AT+CMGS=18
0011000A8114251631030000aa05C8329BFD06
+CMGS: 1
OK
SMS Send successful
AT+CREG?
+CREG: 0,1
OK
The device is registered in home network.Checking if device is already connected...
AT+CGACT?
+CGACT: 1,1
OK
Device is already connected
AT+CGACT?+CGACT: 1,1
OK
Device is connected.
AT+CGPADDR= 1+CGPADDR: 1,22.162.97.39
OK
IP Address of the connected profile is 22.162.97.39 -
my notes are really sketchy on this, Ive been meaning to find time to go back and verify. This is for my EM7455 which I converted from a Dell 5811 module to native Sierra Wireless device - but like I said, without finding time to go back and verify I can be certain this is a full set of instructions.
AT!ENTERCND="A710" AT!USBPID=9071,9070 AT!USBVID=1199 AT!USBPRODUCT="EM7455" AT!PRIID="9904802","001.001","Generic-Laptop" AT!RESET -
ok finally got it working. My interface was 04 and not 03. Trial and error!
No how do I set it as the default gateway?
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https://www.diafaan.com/sms-tutorials/gsm-modem-tutorial/at-cmgs-text-mode/
Now if we could only take advantage of SMS alerting!
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Having issues getting multiwan set up with dynamic WAN and PPP. Any suggestions? Not the same as Static IP as I am used to for businesses. Never dealt with dynamic multi-wan
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You can do SMS messaging with Ubuntu ModemManager GUI and Windows Sierra Watcher.
I am concerned with accuracy in the 30 second to 1 minute range. I have fixtures with no real time clock and their programming needs to know what time it is. If power goes out and internet does not come back I need to make sure they get accurate time but not millisecond timing.
You will be fine with the GPS time for this accuracy. Even with minimal coverage.
For LAGG failover I have used WAN Ethernet as Primary and OPT1/PPP as Secondary. I had to setup something to ping out on the modem to keep the connection active or they release the IP.
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Not sure what LAGG failover is I set up the firewall with wan group and did broadband as Tier1 and LTE as Tier2. IS LAGG a different way of doing multiWan failover?
You mentioned changing the GPS output to the Aux port. The MC7700 comes with 3 antenna connection options. Primary, GPS and AUX. What would be the purpose of changing the GPS output?
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I had gpsd working with my MC7700. On pfSense packages are limited so only some features from it work(no perl). xgps does work.
No PPS so as a time server it is limited. Found it good for Arm with RTC modules keeping poor time.
With AT commands you can set which antenna jack to use for GPS signal. So instead of using the dedicated GPS antenna jack you can set it to ANT2 and use the data antenna built into a laptop to receive GPS signal. The AT command is in the Extended AT Command Guide.
Does this mean I cannot use the built in NTP Server with GPS option?
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NTP should work fine with it. You just need to figure out which cuaU0.x port the GPS is streaming to after enabling it with AT commands.
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ok seems I have more work to do. It looks like I have to enable GPS? Or is it enabled by default and is it a simple AT command or do I have to run some special software?
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More digging. When connected to windows I do have a NMEA port which just spit something out. Not sure if that is the com port I need to use or another…
Found commands to enable and will try. Gps antenna to arrive Thirsday.
Thank you for all the help!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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So I unscrewed m antenna's to see what would happen and then connect them back. ppp0 went down and would not come back up even after restart. I had to shutdown completely and disconnect power. Is this common or a separate issue?
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So I got GPS enabled ans set to autostart but either I I am doing something wrong in pfsense because I cannot get it to work. connected proper GPS antenna to the MC7700. When looking on windows at NMEA port it is spitting out tons of data.
Another oddity is the location it is showing seems to be hard coded to China!
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If the location continuously appears as China I suspect it hasn't locked on and initialised to your location.
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Yes got that fixed. Now it shows correct location :-) Problem is now none of the interfaces of the MC7700 seem to show the GPS data which I understand is the NMEA interface yet in windows I am able to access it and get data.
cuau0.3 is the LTE but not sure about the others. Not sure which is NMEA which I assume is what the GPS interface with pfSense uses.
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When I perform a AT!GPSLOC? from 2 different devices I get same LAT/LONG but different GPS Time. Whu would I get 2 different times. The one from the PC is closer to my actual time.
From PC:
AT!GPSLOC?
Lat: 38 Deg 0 Min 40.56 Sec N (0x006C1EF6)
Lon: 1XX Deg 33 Min 3.22 Sec W (0xFEA36929)
Time: 2017 06 15 3 21:11:50 (GPS)
LocUncAngle: 0.0 deg LocUncA: 3.0 m LocUncP: 3.0 m HEPE: 4.242 m
2D Fix
Altitude: -23 m LocUncVe: 3.0 m
Heading: 0.0 deg VelHoriz: 0.0 m/s VelVert: 0 m/sFrom FreeBSD Computer connecting via cu -l /dev/cuaU0.3
AT!GPSLOC?
Lat: 38 Deg 0 Min 40.66 Sec N (0x006C1EFB)
Lon: 1XX Deg 33 Min 3.07 Sec W (0xFEA36931)
Time: 2017 06 16 4 03:48:41 (GPS)
LocUncAngle: 0.0 deg LocUncA: 3.0 m LocUncP: 3.0 m HEPE: 4.242 m
2D Fix
Altitude: -32 m LocUncVe: 6.0 m
Heading: 0.0 deg VelHoriz: 0.0 m/s VelVert: 0 m/sAlso no matter what I try I cannot get any activity when I connect to any of the ports under pfsense/Freebsd. When I connect to the COM port in Windows associated with NMEA I get the GGA GPS info.
I read in another post the Phishfry was able to get the GPS data but not sure how. I have burned incredible amounts of hours on this. Maybe I am better off buying a USB GPS device for NTP? Or is there another card that would work for sure?
Not looking for millisecond results. withing a couple of minutes is fine!
Saw this post and wondering if this is related but gpsd is not a package I can install.
https://forum.pfsense.org/index.php?topic=103613.msg727306#msg727306
For GPS from your device you could try this:
pkg install gpsd
setup modem:
cu -l /dev/cuaU0.2
at
atz
AT!ENTERCND="A710"
AT!CUSTOM="GPSENABLE",4Switch on GPS Stream on USB Port <needs doing="" every="" boot="" unless="" automated="">echo $GPS_START >/dev/cuaU0.1
Start gpsd in forground to ensure its proper operation
gpsd -n -N -D 4 /dev/cuaU0.1
This will show status. Hit CTL-C to exit. If good reboot and proceed on.Start the daemon in background mode after $GPS_START command has been issued.
gpsd -n /dev/cuaU0.1Should now be working. Checkout raw stream with gpscat /dev/cuaU0.1
You should see streams of text on screen.
gpsd ships with several clients and cgps is a command line based tool used to check location.I have not tried this yet on pfSense. Only on FreeBSD.</needs>
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USB devices suck imho for timing purposes. Your better off with a dedicated timing device running on serial with PPS support.
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Well you found the relevant bits:
setup modem:
cu -l /dev/cuaU0.2
at
atz
AT!ENTERCND="A710"
AT!CUSTOM="GPSENABLE",4Switch on GPS Stream on USB Port <needs doing="" every="" boot="" unless="" automated="">echo $GPS_START >/dev/cuaU0.1</needs>
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So finally got it to work! I was not able to run:
setup modem:
cu -l /dev/cuaU0.2
at
atz
AT!ENTERCND="A710"
AT!CUSTOM="GPSENABLE",4just locked up. Possibly because I already enabled it prior to inserting into pfsense.
So running Switch on GPS Stream on USB Port <needs doing="" every="" boot="" unless="" automated="">echo $GPS_START >/dev/cuaU0.1 did not work but when I did it on cuaU0.2 it did. Now I have GPS but no PPS.
Not sure if I need to do something else for PPS but I was under the impression that the MC7700 could do PPS.
I went over my 2GB limit with T-Mobile so I am not sure if it is them or pfsense but when on the T-Mobile card I am not eble to get DNS resolution but when I hard code the dns for my PC to 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 I get full dns resolution and can access all sites. Could it be that when you go over your data limit they just block DNS resolution to their DNS? Possibly I did something funky. Under general I tried changing the DNS entries around and nothing changes this. When I connect ethernet wan using pfsense as DNS works. Not just on T-Mobile. Guess I will have to wait till next month to try :-)</needs>