Wader tutorial

Author:Pablo Martí Date:2009/01/14 Version:1.0

Introduction

What is Wader?

Wader provides a DBus interface to manage mobile broadband devices. It implements a loadable plugin architecture to add workarounds for non-standard cards. Wader is the first project, apart from ModemManager itself, that implements the ModemManager API making it an excellent choice to base your application on.

Wader history

Wader started off as a fork of Vodafone Mobile Connect Card driver for Linux (you might know this application from our previous how to). Wader took its most juicy bits and exports them over DBus. Wader 0.1 and 0.2.X releases were funded by Elonex and orchestrated by the The Open Learning Centre. Wader provided dialup capabilities on the Webbook for some of the main mobile broadband providers in the UK: Orange, T-Mobile, O2 and 3.

The 0.3.X series have been entirely funded by Warp Networks.

Wader features

• Easy to use UI in GTK+ decoupled from core
  • Brandeable (OEMs)
• Data call handling (Connect/Disconnect from Internet)
• Manage your SMS and Contacts
• Profile management
• Usage statistics with a configurable threshold
• Preliminary multiplatform support (Linux, OSX...)
• Extendable architecture via plugins, just drop a plugin in a well known location and:
  • Add support for a new device
  • Add support for a new OS/distro
• Dialup on heterogeneous environments:
  • No NetworkManager or NetworkManager <= 0.6.X (via wvdial)
  • NetworkManager 0.7.X (via NetworkManager itself)
• Implements 100% of the ModemManager API

How does Wader stack against its competitors

One of the main advantages of using free software is the overwhelming amount of choice that users have. The field of mobile broadband is not by any means different. We hope that the following table will help you to make an informed choice whether you are a prospective user, developer or OEM representative.

Feature	NM0.7+	VMC2beta3	Wader 0.3.1
Multiplatform	No	No	Yes (Linux, OSX)
Extendable arch. via plugins	Yes (C/Glib)	Yes (Python)	Yes (Python)
Default branding	No	Yes (VF)	No
Brandeable UI	No	No	Yes
SMS/Contacts support	No	Yes	Yes
Graphic Toolkit Agnostic	Yes	No	Yes
UI decoupled from core	Yes	No	Yes
Desktop integration with NM	N/A	No	Yes

Supported devices

Wader has been thoroughly tested on the following devices:

• Huawei: E169, E170, E172, E220, E270, E272, E870, EM730V
• Option: Nozomi, Etna, Icon 225, Icon 401
• Novatel: MC950D

In addition, the community contributed the following plugins:

• Huawei: E660, E660a
• Option: Colt [1] , GlobeSurfer Icon, GT Fusion, GT Fusion Quad Lite, GT M 378, GT Max 3.6
• Novatel: U630, U740, EU740, XU870
• SierraWireless: 850, 875
• ZTE: MF620, K3520, K3565

Installing Wader

Wader 0.3.1 includes support for Ubuntu, OpenSUSE and Fedora by default.

Installing Wader on Ubuntu

If you want to add the Wader PPA to your /etc/apt/sources.list append the following lines at the end of it:

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/wader/ubuntu jaunty main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/wader/ubuntu jaunty main

Now run:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install wader-gtk

Installing Wader on OpenSUSE

On OpenSUSE, installing Wader is really easy thanks to their “1-click” install infrastructure. It is recommended to upgrade OpenSUSE 11.1 before installing Wader, as Wader depends on a more recent version of NetworkManager-gnome for running.

We’ll need to manually delete first a conflicting file:

sudo rpm -e --nodeps ModemManager

To install Wader on OpenSUSE 11.1+ click here.

In order to use Wader, your user must be member of the uucp group:

sudo /usr/sbin/usermod username -G uucp

And reboot the machine:

sudo reboot

Installing Wader on Fedora 10

To install Wader on Fedora 10, run as root:

wget http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/pablomarti/Fedora_10/home:pablomarti.repo \
    -O /etc/yum.repos.d/home:pablomarti.repo
yum update
yum install wader-gtk

In order to use Wader, your user must be member of the uucp group:

sudo /usr/sbin/usermod username -G uucp

and you will also need to disable SELinux while we write a SELinux policy for Wader. To do so, go to System ‣ Administration ‣ SELinux Management and set the System Default Enforcing Mode to Disabled. Check the Relabel on next reboot and reboot the machine:

sudo reboot

Getting started

To start the application, go to Applications ‣ Internet and launch “Mobile Broadband” from there. Alternatively, you can also start the application from the console with:

wader-gtk

Initial device configuration

Once you device is detected its authentication status will be checked and you may need to enter your PIN number if its enabled.

Once the authentication is completed, the device will be initialized and you will be presented with a window to create a connection profile. In Wader, you need a connection profile if you want to connect to the Internet.

Wader itself comes with a small database with tested settings contributed by users. If your operator happens to be present in that database, you will only need to select a connection mode (and optionally) a band mode. If your operator is not present in the database, the profile creation window will be empty and you will need to fill in the relevant details. If you have doubts about what you should fill in, you can contact your customer support service and they will provide you the details.

Connecting to Internet

Once you have an active connection profile, you are set to connect to Internet. You just need to press the big “Connect” button in the main window. A small popup window will appear showing the progress of the connection. Once its established, the popup will disappear and the big button will read “Disconnect”.

Press it again and you will be disconnected from Internet.

Messages

Wader provides a CRUD [2] interface for managing your SMS. Click on View -> Manage SMS/Contacts to show its window. By default, it starts on SMS mode.

Sending a SMS

Start by clicking on the “New” button or by pressing “Ctrl+N”. In the bottom entry you will type the text to send, and in the middle one the destination numbers. There is a “To” button to the left of the contacts entry and by clicking it you will be presented with a list showing all the contacts in the SIM card. Double-clicking on a contact will add it to the list of recipients unless is already there. You can of course directly type a number.

When you start typing the text, a status bar in the bottom will show you the number of characters left. There are two main SMS encodings: 7-bit and UCS2. While the former allows to send texts of up to 140 characters, with the latter is only 70 characters.

Once your text is ready, you just need to press the “Send” button.

Receiving SMS

When a SMS is received, a notification window will be shown displaying the sender’s name (if known), and the SMS text.

Deleting SMS

Deleting a SMS its as easy as selecting it from the list and clicking on the delete button. Alternatively you can press the “Del” key or right clicking on a selection and selecting “Delete” from the popup menu.

Contacts

Wader provides a CRUD [2] interface for managing your contacts. Once you have started the application, click on the contacts row in the left treeview to switch to contacts mode.

Adding a contact

New contacts can be added by clicking on the “New” button or pressing “Ctrl + N” while in contacts mode. You just need to provide a name, a valid number and press the “Add” button.

Deleting a contact

Contacts can be deleted by clicking on the “Delete” button or pressing the “Del” key while in contacts mode. You can also select an arbitrary number of contacts, right click in the selection and clicking on “Delete”.

Editing a contact

Any contact details can be changed by clicking on its row and directly start editing its name or number. Once you are done, press “Enter” and that is it.

Search for contact name

You can search for contacts using the search entry in the top left corner of the contacts application. It will provide suggestions for what you are typing if it matches with any contact name.

Troubleshooting

When something goes wrong or does not work, you might have found a bug in Wader. There are two main log files that will yield clues about what went wrong:

/var/log/wader.log

This is wader-core log file and if an AT command has failed, or an exception has occurred while executing a core process -i.e. network registration- it will be reflected here. A quick way to access this file is clicking on “View -> Log”.

/tmp/wader-gtk-username.log

This is wader-gtk log file and if a GUI-related operation has failed, it will be shown here.

Armed with this information, you can contact the developers by:

Asking a question in the Wader forums.

Perhaps your question was already answered here, or perhaps is a new bug. Either way feel free to contact us with whatever bug, suggestion or crazy idea you might have about Wader.

Sending a mail to the devel list:

This is a developer-oriented list, and depending on the question it might be more appropriate to ask it in the forums. If you want to add a new device, OS/distro, or a new feature to Wader, we will happily answer any question you might have.

[1]	It has a rather buggy firmware, disable PIN authentication

[2]	(1, 2) CRUD.