I have a ZTE-MF823 USB 4G dongle which I was hoping to use as a dial-up backup to my broadband connection. It is detected by the O/S & the ttyUSB devices are created but I don’t have the Dialup option in my System menu, it goes from Home to Mail Service, so I have no way to configure it.
It is showing as working in the Network Adapter Hardware Compatibility List and It works fine on a Linux laptop. Have I missed a step somewhere?
Hi @mikew
Welcome to the IPFire community.
The dialup backup option using a 4G connection is only available when your main connection is a DSL connection.
You can’t do it with an ethernet main connection.
Thanks Adolf, that would explain it. I was hoping to be able to have an automatic backup solution, looks like I’ll just stick with my current manual one.
Although it won’t auto failover, all might not be lost. I do use an Ethernet main connection to my DSL router and was using a ZTE-MF823 as a manual reserve, for a while. I was using an SBC for IPFire and had two SD cards setup:
- the main one having DSL router at RED
- reserve having ZTE-MF823 at RED
It looks like your ZTE-MF823 is set to “automatically connect when plugged in”, which would be a prerequisite.
The other essential is to specify the base address of the router/ZTE-MF823 as your Gateway. This is easier if RED is configured to a STATIC address, with which ZTE-MF823 would probably work.
A downside is the need to shutdown and exchange SD cards every month or so, in order to do core upgrade