GPRS FSO

Revision as of 20:39, 8 August 2008

This page documents the GSM networking solutions (commonly known as GPRS) using the FreeSmartphone.Org framework (FSO).

There are other ways to enable wireless communications on the smartphone, including Bluetooth and WLAN.

Current state

Since milestone 2 the system dbus has been extended with methods that enables connectivity using GPRS. The functionality is available under org.freesmartphone.frameworkd at /org/freesmartphone/GSM/Device.

The implementation should not interfer with other phone functionality, such as placing calls. In other words: you can use GPRS while talking on the phone without hanging up.

Currently, there's no GUI available but it's fairly easy to use the methods available using any dbus tool.

The methods available:

 [METHOD]    org.freesmartphone.GSM.PDP.ActivateContext( s:apn, s:user, s:password )
 [METHOD]    org.freesmartphone.GSM.PDP.DeactivateContext()
 [METHOD]    org.freesmartphone.GSM.PDP.GetCurrentGprsClass()
 [METHOD]    org.freesmartphone.GSM.PDP.ListAvailableGprsClasses()
 [METHOD]    org.freesmartphone.GSM.PDP.SetCurrentGprsClass( s:class_ )
 [SIGNAL]    org.freesmartphone.GSM.PDP.ContextStatus( i:index, s:status, a{sv}:properties )

Signals will look like this:

ActivateContext( s:apn, s:user, s:password )

 [SIGNAL]    org.freesmartphone.GSM.PDP.ContextStatus    from :1.3 /org/freesmartphone/GSM/Device
 (dbus.Int32(1), dbus.String(u'outgoing'), dbus.Dictionary({}, signature=dbus.Signature('sv')))</code>

once the connection is established (takes 3-4 seconds for me) a new signal is emited

 [SIGNAL]    org.freesmartphone.GSM.PDP.ContextStatus    from :1.3 /org/freesmartphone/GSM/Device
 (dbus.Int32(1), dbus.String(u'active'), dbus.Dictionary({}, signature=dbus.Signature('sv')))

DeactivateContext

 [SIGNAL]    org.freesmartphone.GSM.PDP.ContextStatus    from :1.3 /org/freesmartphone/GSM/Device
 (dbus.Int32(1), dbus.String(u'release'), dbus.Dictionary({}, signature=dbus.Signature('sv')))

Until there's a GUI

While we wait for the preferences part of FSO to be completed (and a GUI), we can use two shell scripts. You need to know three things to successfully connect via GPRS (your carrier should provide this information to you):

• the APN to use,
• the username, and
• the password.

If your APN has no username or password, you must still provide a string to satisfy the framework's input requirements. Entering bogus data, such as the "x" above, will suffice.

To connect, put the following in a file and make it executable (chmod +x gprs-on.sh):

 #!/bin/sh
 APN="internet.parlino.se"
 USERNAME="x"
 PASSWORD="x"
 BUSNAME="org.freesmartphone.frameworkd"
 OBJECTPATH="/org/freesmartphone/GSM/Device"
 METHODNAME="org.freesmartphone.GSM.PDP.ActivateContext"
 mdbus -s $BUSNAME $OBJECTPATH $METHODNAME $APN $USERNAME $PASSWORD

To disconnect, use the following method instead (chmod +x gprs-off.sh):

 #!/bin/sh
 BUSNAME="org.freesmartphone.frameworkd"
 OBJECTPATH="/org/freesmartphone/GSM/Device"
 METHODNAME="org.freesmartphone.GSM.PDP.DeactivateContext"
 mdbus -s $BUSNAME $OBJECTPATH $METHODNAME

The on script, using the ActivateContext method, will:

• setup a ppp interface (normally ppp0) (and assign IP address)
• setup (replace) the default route
• setup DNS

with settings received from the ISP.

For a list of known APN:s, see the main GPRS page.