Sprint Sierra 580 EVDO Card & Linux

I have received a few inquiries into my configuration of the Sierra 580 EvDO wireless card under Linux, so here is my tutorial on how to get that done. Enjoy!

I got the card working under Debian Sarge (3.1) with little modification. This method should work with all linux distributions with little or no modification. (Some of the following information was gleaned from other sites as I scanned the net for resources, so you may see bits and pieces of the following information across several sites on the net.)

Follow the steps as shown, and you should be able to connect just fine...

There is an initial assumption that the wireless card has already been activated by sprint (and probably used in windows at some point to verify that it works.)

1. Insert your wireless card and be sure that your computer recognizes it as a USB device. Look in dmesg for it. Once you have verified that it is recognized by your system, proceed to step 2.

2. Issue the following commands (you will need to sudo or su to do this)

# modprobe usbserial vendor=0x1199 product=0x0112

# mknod /dev/ttyUSB0 c 188 0

Next is the configuration of PPPD and the scripts needed.

3. Create a file named '1xevdo' with the following text, and place it in the '/etc/ppp/peers/' directory

lcp-echo-interval 0
-detach
ttyUSB0
115200
debug
noauth
defaultroute
usepeerdns
user 210xxxxxxx@sprintpcs.com
show-password
crtscts
lock
connect '/usr/sbin/chat -v -t3 -f /etc/ppp/peers/1xevdo_chat'

Be sure to replace '210xxxxxxx' with your wireless card's area code and 7 digit phone number.

4. Create another file, named '1xevdo_chat' with the text below and place in the ' /etc/ppp/peers/' directory.

'' 'AT'
'OK' 'ATE0V1&F&D2&C1&C2S0=0'
'OK' 'ATE0V1'
'OK' 'ATS7=60'
'OK' 'ATDT#777'

5. Use your text editor of choice (we all know it's vi) to add the following line to '/etc/ppp/pap-secrets'

210xxxxxxx@sprintpcs.com * zzzz

where '210xxxxxxx' is the phone number assigned to your card, and 'zzzz' is the password for your wireless card account (typically the last 4 digits of the phone number).

6. as root, issue the following command to connect to the internet

# pppd call 1xevdo

--------

That's all the instructions for the process, and hopefully it will work for you. here are some observations I have:

If you get a 'connect script failed' type of error, and you are sure that you followed the instructions, remove the wireless card and reinsert it. This is what I had to do to get my card to work properly.

The modprobe and mknod commands will need to be re issued every time you reboot. You will not need to recreate the files and scripts. You can automate the scripts for modprobe and mknod if you wish. I will post more on the automation later.

You will get two types of output when your attempt to run the script. Either you will get an error (failed connection script), or you will get a long output similar to the following:

serial connection established.
using channel 2
Using interface ppp1
Connect: ppp1 <--> /dev/ttyUSB0
sent [LCP ConfReq id=0x1 ]
rcvd [LCP ConfReq id=0x0 ]
sent [LCP ConfAck id=0x0 ]
rcvd [LCP ConfReq id=0x1 ]
sent [LCP ConfAck id=0x1 ]
sent [LCP ConfReq id=0x1 ]
rcvd [LCP ConfAck id=0x1 ]
sent [LCP EchoReq id=0x0 magic=0xeda0c264]
sent [CCP ConfReq id=0x1 ]
sent [IPCP ConfReq id=0x1 < ms-dns3 0.0.0.0>]
rcvd [LCP DiscReq id=0x2 magic=0xee74136c]
rcvd [LCP EchoRep id=0x0 magic=0xee74136c ed a0 c2 64]
rcvd [IPCP ConfReq id=0x3 ]
sent [IPCP ConfAck id=0x3 ]
rcvd [LCP ProtRej id=0x4 80 fd 01 01 00 0f 1a 04 78 00 18 04 78 00 15 03 2f]
Protocol-Reject for 'Compression Control Protocol' (0x80fd) received
rcvd [IPCP ConfRej id=0x1 ]
sent [IPCP ConfReq id=0x2 ]
rcvd [IPCP ConfNak id=0x2 ]
sent [IPCP ConfReq id=0x3 ]
rcvd [IPCP ConfAck id=0x3 ]
not replacing default route to ppp0 [10.5.250.5]
Cannot determine ethernet address for proxy ARP
local IP address xx.x.xx.xx
remote IP address xx.xx.xxx.xx
primary DNS address xx.xx.xxx.xx
secondary DNS address xx.xx.xxx.xx
Script /etc/ppp/ip-up started (pid 4273)
Script /etc/ppp/ip-up finished (pid 4273), status = 0x0



Once you are connected, by seeing the above information in your terminal window, open a web browser and try to view some pages. If your browser cannot serve pages, you may need to edit your resolve.conf file manually and add the DNS servers that you see in the above output. This should get you on the road to full connectivity in linux!

If you have any questions, feel free to e-mail me at dryicezero [a-t] gmail.com.

//Ernest