usb-modem

usb-modem-drivers extension

Installation

Add the extension to your machine config and enable the modules, your modem might not require all of them, so feel free to remove the ones that are not needed:

machine:
  install:
    extensions:
      - image: ghcr.io/siderolabs/usb-modem-drivers:<VERSION>
  kernel:
    modules:
      - name: usbserial
      - name: option
      - name: cdc_mbim
      - name: qmi_wwan
      - name: usb_wwan
      - name: usbnet
      - name: ax88796b
      - name: asix
      - name: ax88179_178a
      - name: cdc_ether
      - name: cdc_ncm
      - name: net1080
      - name: cdc_subset
      - name: zaurus
      - name: cdc_wdm
      - name: r8153_ecm

Verifiying

You can verify the modules are enabled by reading the /proc/modules where it should show the module is live.

For example:

❯ talosctl -n 192.168.32.5  read /proc/modules
usbnet 20480 - - Live 0xffffffffc01c9000 (O)
cdc_wdm 94208 - - Live 0xffffffffc01aa000 (O)
...
...

In addition, if your USB module is installed and you have a USB modem connected to the system, you should be able to verify it's presence at /dev/cdc-wdm1 or see a new network interface at wwan1.

For example:

❯ talosctl -n 192.168.32.5  ls -l /dev/cdc-wdm1
NODE           MODE          UID   GID   SIZE(B)   LASTMOD           NAME
192.168.32.5   Dcrw-rw----   0     44    0         Sep 10 18:15:52   /dev/cdc-wdm1

or

❯ talosctl -n 192.168.32.5 dmesg
# look for lines like these:
 kern:    info: [2023-06-07T16:40:10.189868521Z]: usbcore: registered new interface driver usbhid                                                                                                  
 kern:    info: [2023-06-07T16:40:10.190066521Z]: option 6-1.2:1.3: GSM modem (1-port) converter detected  
 kern:    info: [2023-06-07T16:40:10.265654521Z]: usb 6-1.2: GSM modem (1-port) converter now attached to ttyUSB7    
 kern:    info: [2023-06-07T16:40:10.280291521Z]: qmi_wwan 6-1.2:1.4: cdc-wdm1: USB WDM device  

Configurtion

Talos currently does not have an OS level method of dialing up cellular modems, such as ModemManager or uqmi, so you will probably want to ignore it on the system level, pass the modems /dev/ devices to a pod, and dial it up there using a tool such as ModemManager or uqmi.

First, ignore the interface on the Talos level, so Talos doesn't try to bring it up:

machine:
  network:
    interfaces:
      - interface: wwan1 # The modem interface name, if you have several modems, you can optionally use deviceSelector instead.
        ignore: true # ignore the interface.

Next, you can create a pod that might contain something like this:

apiVersion: v1
kind: Pod
metadata:
  name: ModemManager
  namespace: modems # you might have to adjust your security settings for this namespace
spec:
  hostNetwork: true
  nodeName: modems-server
  containers:
  - name: ubuntu-container
    image: ubuntu:latest
    command: ["/bin/bash", "-c", "--"]
    args: ["while true; do sleep 30; done;"]
    securityContext:
      privileged: true
    volumeMounts:
    - name: dev
      mountPath: /dev/
  volumes:
  - name: dev
    hostPath:
      path: /dev/ttyUSB1 # you might want to mount all of the /dev/ttyUSB* and /dev/cdc-wdm* devices
      type: Directory

Now the modem should be available to you normally on the pod.