ModemManager speaks MBIM

(C) tasayu @ Flickr – CC by-nc-nd

MBIM!

Winter is over, Spring is here, and along with the heat, rains and insects, ModemManager arrives with support for modems using the new MBIM protocol, available through the new cdc-mbim kernel driver in Linux >= 3.8 and a preliminary version of libmbim.

The current implementation provides:

• PIN unlock/change/enable/disable capabilities
• 3GPP modem support (GSM, HSPA, LTE…)
• Basic connectivity support

It doesn’t provide yet most of the side-features available in other modems (e.g. SMS messaging, location…), but it is a good start. If you don’t want to use MBIM just yet, check Bjørn’s list of issues and alternatives.

 

Where do I get it?

The ‘libmbim’ library can be found in the following Lanedo-maintained gitorious repository:

• git: https://gitorious.org/lanedo/libmbim

 
We also released a tarball in libqmi’s release place:
http://www.freedesktop.org/software/libqmi/libmbim-0.0.1.tar.xz

If you’re part of the freedesktop.org sitewranglers group, please check the still open libmbim project request.

The support is already in ModemManager git master, and will be enabled if libmbim is found during configure. You can also explicitly request to use MBIM support with the new –with-mbim configure switch.

 

Thanks

Special thanks go to Lanedo for sponsoring the initial libmbim development, Bjørn Mork for his suggestions and tests with multiple MBIM-capable modems, and Huawei for sending me a E367 with MBIM firmware.