Dan Williams
d3c2228f7b
Flashing is a technique to break out of the data/PPP stream and re-enter command stream (like +++) and MM uses it in the generic paths in various cases. But devices that don't need it (ie, ones with at least one AT capable port that won't be used for data) now sometimes appear to have side-effects. The Ericsson F5521gw firmware R2A07 resets port attributes like echo and &C and such when the port is flashed, leading to confusion on the part of MM. Since the Ericsson devices will always have at least one free AT port they don't need flashing anyway.
ModemManager. The problem ModemManager tries to solve is to provide a unified high level API for communicating with (mobile broadband) modems. While the basic commands are standardized, the more advanced operations (like signal quality monitoring while connected) varies a lot. Using. ModemManager is a system daemon and is not meant to be used directly from the command line. However, since it provides DBus API, it is possible to use 'dbus-send' command to control it from the terminal. There's an example program (tests/mm-test.py) that demonstrates the basic API usage. Implementation. ModemManager is a DBus system bus activated service (meaning it's started automatically when a request arrives). It is written in C. The devices are queried from HAL and automatically updated based on hardware events. There's a GInterface (MMModem) that defines the modem interface and any device specific implementation must implement it. There are two generic MMModem implementations to support the basic operations (one for GSM, one for CDMA,) which are common for all cards. Plugins. Plugins are loaded on startup, and must implement the MMPlugin interface. It consists of a couple of methods which tell the daemon whether the plugin supports a HAL UDI and to create custom MMModem implementations. It most likely makes sense to derive custom modem implementations from one of the generic classes and just add (or override) operations which are not standard. There's a fully working plugin in the plugins/ directory for Huawei cards that can be used as an example for writing new plugins. Writing new plugins is highly encouraged! API. The API is open for changes, so if you're writing a plugin and need to add or change some public method, feel free to suggest it!