View Full Version : WWAN Stops working in 2022.x
Howdy,
I have installed Kali over and over many times trying to track down this issue..
My LTE card, internal Sierra Wireless MC7355, does not connect if I install Kali 2022.1 and forward. If I install 2021.x and earlier, it does work, until I upgrade.. This most recent install I used 2021.3.
apt update
apt dist-upgrade
After I reboot, it does the same thing when I did a fresh install of 2022.x, as soon as I select the Mobile Broadband connection, the network disconnection notification appears. So Network Manager does 'see' it, I can setup the APN, it just won't connect. ip addr does show the wwan0 interface as down.
Where do I need to look to figure this out?
Fred Sheehan
2022-09-01, 01:27
If its a mobile broadband 'dongle' then they normally have a virtual CD with drivers (blame winblows) and that cd gets auto mounted and so adapter needs to be 'switched' to just USB
Try;
https://github.com/morrownr/USB-WiFi/blob/main/home/How_to_Modeswitch.md
to get the 'correct' vendor/ID values to use for the modeswitch, you can view your adapter itself;
https://www.linux.com/training-tutorials/find-usb-device-details-linuxunix-using-lsusb-command/
No, as I said, it is an internal MC7355.
It doesn't have a CD drivers mode.
Install from any of the 2022.x ISOs and it doesn't work. Install using 2021. or previous it works great, until I apt update & apt dist-upgrade, then it doesn't work after rebooting.
Fred Sheehan
2022-09-01, 16:20
I expect that suppoort for that 10+ year old chipset was dropped from the latest kernel versions, hence updating stops it working. (And that is not directly a kali issue, that is a Linux kernel maintainers choice, you can always compile your own kernel)
Your adapter, Sierra Internal MC7355 is a 'brand make' not the actual chipset. The actual device (the chipset) inside that is a Qualcomm MDM 9615;
https://www.4gltemall.com/sierra-wireless-airprime-mc7355.html
Stick with your older ISO install, or install it and find out what you need to compile into your own kernel to make it work, or of course, update the card..
I expect that suppoort for that 10+ year old chipset was dropped from the latest kernel versions, hence updating stops it working. (And that is not directly a kali issue, that is a Linux kernel maintainers choice, you can always compile your own kernel)
Stick with your older ISO install, or install it and find out what you need to compile into your own kernel to make it work, or of course, update the card..
How can I confirm it has been dropped from kernel support? My web searches haven't come up with it being dropped.
Looking at updating the card, as far as I can tell, the MC7455 is a *little* newer, and I had one until it died on me, but there haven't been any more mPCIe cards after that era.
Everything I can find says for the MDM9615 that kernel 3.17.0 or later is needed, not that it has been dropped.
Fred Sheehan
2022-09-02, 22:41
exactly, that chipset has had support for many years and is now probably considered 'end of life' the fact that earlier ISO's work with it, i.e kernel 5.16 probably, and the latest doesn't, kernel 5.18 would suggest this.
There were a lot of 'legacy' devices dropped after kernel 5.16
doing a search finds very little, only WiFi chipsets and SoC which is basically andoid devices;
apt search qualcomm
You casn try copying across the non free firmware to your system and see if its picked up;
https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/unofficial/non-free/firmware/bookworm/current/
Fred Sheehan
2022-09-03, 00:08
This might help, was about a USB Sierra adapter, but the steps should be same for modem;
on Debian/Ubuntu you can install libqmi-utils: sudo apt install libmbim-utils
which installs the command mbim-network. To connect you will need your APN for your 4G LTE provider. For the Sprint connection you get from Calyx this is r.ispsn. Edit /etc/mbim-network.conf (create it if it doesn't exist) and make sure a line says "APN=<your_apn>" so for Calyx Sprint it would be "APN=r.ispsn". Also ensure that the file has a line that says "PROXY=yes". If you don't use a proxy then you can't query the active connection while it is being used. If you have a username and password see man mbim-network.
You might want to stop network-manager before you run this test:
sudo service network-manager stop
Check that you can use mbimcli to talk to the device at all:
sudo mbimcli --device=/dev/cdc-wdm0 --query-device-caps
Start the network connection:
sudo mbim-network /dev/cdc-wdm0 start
If it works you should see a new network interface probably called wwan0 when you run ip link.
Now to figure out which IP, gateway and DNS to use you can run:
sudo mbimcli -d /dev/cdc-wdm0 -p --query-ip-configuration
I got the IPv4 IP and subnet 184.250.142.38/30 so to set it I did:
sudo ip link set dev wwan0 up
sudo ip addr add 184.250.142.38/30 dev wwan0
and then to set the gateway (in my case 184.250.142.37):
sudo ip route add default via 184.250.142.37 dev wwan0
You should now be able to ping 8.8.8.8.
If you want to configure a nameserver then you can edit /etc/resolv.conf but remember to put it back the way it was before re-starting network-manager.
From here;
https://gist.github.com/Juul/e42c5b6ec71ce11923526b36d3f1cb2c
This might help, was about a USB Sierra adapter, but the steps should be same for modem;
on Debian/Ubuntu you can install libqmi-utils: sudo apt install libmbim-utils
which installs the command mbim-network. To connect you will need your APN for your 4G LTE provider. For the Sprint connection you get from Calyx this is r.ispsn. Edit /etc/mbim-network.conf (create it if it doesn't exist) and make sure a line s
Kali has those by default and it works simply using NetworkManager until I update...
I just re-installed using the 2021.3 ISO and it shows MBIM.. I'm pretty sure it was QMI when it wasn't working, apt dist-upgrade is running right now so I'll know more in a little bit..
I also noticed, before I reinstalled again, that lsusb is showing EM7305, not the MC7355 that it actually is.. Have a couple ideas for why this might be but I have messed with every component of my laptop many times over the years, it wouldn't surprise me if I changed something I shouldn't have, or if it is just cosmetic..
So right now, I'm testing if it tries to change to QMI after upgrading, which I am pretty sure this card doesn't support..
Before my previous reinstall I was getting "Invalid Transition" errors in ModemManager, which led me here https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=274698, which took me to https://modemmanager.org/docs/modemmanager/fcc-unlock/
My card isn't branded to a laptop OEM so it shouldn't have been an "fcc lock", still, I held ModemManager, libmbim, libqrtr*, and libqmi*, which as expected, had no effect.
Alright, I did have the wrong PID set for the LTE card.. Corrected it, lsusb now shows the correct model, but otherwise no changes.
It lsusb -t is showing mbim as well, before and after updating, so that isn't the issue, when starting, ModemManager also has a few messages that the card does support QMI..
On a side note, I did find a newer mPCIe LTE card, the MC7411 is a generation newer than the MC7455, useless right now, but it was interesting to find.
Fred Sheehan
2022-09-07, 23:49
Then it looks like you may need to compile your own support, it does look like it should be supported even in latest 5.19 kernels;
https://cateee.net/lkddb/web-lkddb/USB_SERIAL_SIERRAWIRELESS.html
Then it looks like you may need to compile your own support, it does look like it should be supported even in latest 5.19 kernels;
https://cateee.net/lkddb/web-lkddb/USB_SERIAL_SIERRAWIRELESS.html
Help text Say M here if you want to use Sierra Wireless devices.
This was not in 5.10.0-kali9-amd64, yet the modem worked,
Is not in 5.18.0-kali5-amd64 either.
Is there a *good* guide on how to compile my own support? Every time I have tried in the past, all I did was waste a bunch of time.
-On the plus side, I think I may be able to finally post without needing to wait 24 hours for them to appear..
Nope, I was wrong.
Well.. It's fixed with the linux-image-5.18.0-kali7-amd64 update...
Tried IRC briefly before here, both support methods have their own challenges, regardless, it is fixed..
Guessing that someone made an oops that has been fixed. Really glad I don't have to build my own kernel.. That never goes well for me.. ;)