PfSense won't recognise Huawei / Vodafone K5150 4G USB modem

[mabboud123]

Hi, I'm new to pfSense, having used Smoothwall for a long time previously

I love the product!  I'm running the latest version:

===
2.1.5-RELEASE (amd64)
built on Mon Aug 25 07:44:45 EDT 2014
FreeBSD 8.3-RELEASE-p16

You are on the latest version.

I am trying to set up broadband failover to a Huawei / Vodafone K5150 4G USB modem.  When I plug it to pfSense, dmesg shows:

usb_alloc_device: Found possible auto-install disk (trying next config)
ugen7.2: <vodafone huawei="">at usbus7
umass0: <vodafone 0="" 2="" huawei="" k5150,="" class="" 0,="" rev="" 2.00="" 1.02,="" addr="">on usbus7
umass0:  SCSI over Bulk-Only; quirks = 0x0000
umass0:0:0 Attached to scbus0
(probe0:umass-sim0:0:0:0): TEST UNIT READY. CDB: 0 0 0 0 0 0
(probe0:umass-sim0:0:0:0): CAM status: SCSI Status Error
(probe0:umass-sim0:0:0:0): SCSI status: Check Condition
(probe0:umass-sim0:0:0:0): SCSI sense: NOT READY asc:3a,0 (Medium not present)
da0 at umass-sim0 bus 0 scbus0 target 0 lun 0
da0: <vodafone storage(huawei)="" 2.31="">Removable Direct Access SCSI-2 device
da0: 40.000MB/s transfers
da0: Attempt to query device size failed: NOT READY, Medium not present

…so the device is picked up as storage first, which I understand is normal.  However, pfSense does not recognise the device as a network interface

Plugging into an Ubuntu 14.04.1 laptop shows:

[14534.792229] usb 1-2: new high-speed USB device number 3 using ehci-pci
[14535.077388] usb 1-2: New USB device found, idVendor=12d1, idProduct=1f16
[14535.077410] usb 1-2: New USB device strings: Mfr=5, Product=4, SerialNumber=7
[14535.077423] usb 1-2: Product: K5150
[14535.077435] usb 1-2: Manufacturer: Vodafone (Huawei)
[14535.077446] usb 1-2: SerialNumber: FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF
[14535.171306] usb-storage 1-2:1.0: USB Mass Storage device detected
[14535.173181] scsi6 : usb-storage 1-2:1.0
[14535.173527] usbcore: registered new interface driver usb-storage
[14536.191153] scsi 6:0:0:0: CD-ROM            Vodafone Storage(Huawei)  2.31 PQ: 0 ANSI: 2
[14536.218882] sr0: scsi-1 drive
[14536.218902] cdrom: Uniform CD-ROM driver Revision: 3.20
[14536.219439] sr 6:0:0:0: Attached scsi CD-ROM sr0
[14536.219806] sr 6:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg1 type 5
[14536.323459] systemd-udevd[3004]: Failed to apply ACL on /dev/sr0: No such file or directory
[14536.323493] systemd-udevd[3004]: Failed to apply ACL on /dev/sr0: No such file or directory
[14537.339996] usb 1-2: USB disconnect, device number 3
[14537.347829] systemd-udevd[2991]: Failed to apply ACL on /dev/sr0: No such file or directory
[14537.347891] systemd-udevd[2991]: Failed to apply ACL on /dev/sr0: No such file or directory
[14537.712217] usb 1-2: new high-speed USB device number 4 using ehci-pci
[14537.845396] usb 1-2: New USB device found, idVendor=12d1, idProduct=1575
[14537.845417] usb 1-2: New USB device strings: Mfr=5, Product=4, SerialNumber=0
[14537.845430] usb 1-2: Product: K5150
[14537.845442] usb 1-2: Manufacturer: Vodafone (Huawei)
[14537.916080] cdc_ether 1-2:1.0 eth1: register 'cdc_ether' at usb-0000:00:1d.7-2, CDC Ethernet Device, 58:2c:80:13:92:63
[14537.916532] usbcore: registered new interface driver cdc_ether
[14540.436138] usbcore: registered new interface driver usbserial
[14540.436203] usbcore: registered new interface driver usbserial_generic
[14540.436269] usbserial: USB Serial support registered for generic
[14540.485458] usbcore: registered new interface driver option
[14540.485538] usbserial: USB Serial support registered for GSM modem (1-port)

…which now shows me the device is picked up as storage first, and then as a network interface eth1 by the cdc_ether driver

I'm pretty sure the equivalent driver is loaded in pfSense:

[2.1.5-RELEASE][admin@pfSense.theabbouds.lan]/root(50): kldstat -v|grep cdc
                322 uhub/cdce

…but it fails to recognise the network interface

What are my chances at customising pfSense with the K5150 VendorID and ProductID so that the 4G modem is recognised?

Is this possible?

Any pointers would be greatly appreciated

Michael Abboud</vodafone></vodafone></vodafone>

[stephenw10]

It is possible but your chances are not great.  :-\ Unless of course you're actually a 1337 bsd dev.  ;)
There are some instructions somewhere on forum for doing it  and I think I remember reading a blog post about it.
You may be able to permanently mode switch it using a Huawei utility or by sending it the correct code in Linux which might negate the issue.
There is a further issue with using devices that appear as cdce interfaces. If they go down for whatever reason (power saving, network issue etc) pfSense does not handle it well. It doesn't expect to have interfaces removed at any random time.

Steve