[luci] Add-on: NCM protocol support and dongle status view application

[Oskari Rauta]

> Hi.
> 
> NCM is used by some 3G/LTE dongles. In some cases, it is also sometimes called as HiLink, but HiLink is a system by Huawei that is not the same as NCM.
> But it does have some similarities. In my opinion, it's a hybrid of branches..
> Here's some information about how different dongles work:
> 
> 
> - initialized by usb modeswitch
> - commanded with set of AT commands
> - interfaced with PPP through serial port
> - provides amount of serial ports (usually 3, control, statistics and connection)
> 
> HiLink:
> - possibly not initialized at all
> - not commanded at all, connection is available after plugging in to USB port
> - controlling: with web interface by setting specific ip address range for computer
> - interfaced like any usb rj45 adapter (physically doesn't have rj45 at all and might need a driver)
> - provides network device
> 
> NCM:
> - Initialized by usb modeswitch
> - command with set of AT commands
> - provides one or more serial ports and a network devices
> - after connection is initiated with AT commands through serial port, network device reports a link
> - interfaced through network device and connection details are acquired by DHCP (device possibly emulates PPP for a network device???)
> 
> Anyway, openwrt has all the basic requirements for NCM dongles to be used, but it requires some scripting and designed connection methods
> are more or less useless with manual scripts. I wrote a protocol support named NCM for OpenWrt which allows OpenWrt to gain support for NCM
> connection. Another way is to use r00ter firmware which is a fork of OpenWrt, but I'll rather stick with the stock one and install few packages, so
> that motivated me.. Also I think, r00ter was doing a lot of things all the time which I think was pretty unnecessary and scripts used by r00ter were
> a mess to me..
> 
> I made the system modular, it also detects used dongle, but currently provides only support for this one device, but it is easy to create more
> AT-command set scripts to support other dongles as well, AT-command sets are provided in different brand/model specific packages so actual
> protocol doesn't need to be touched at all when providing support for another device.
> 
> I also wrote a protocol support for Luci, so one can easily set up connection details with web interface.
> While at it, why not write a status display that shows connection status details. Done..
> 
> I would had liked to put this to trac ticket at luci.subsignal.org - but it seemed to be a bit problematic as captcha seems to be broken there.
> I hope this get's included in Luci, these NCM dongles are popular in Finland and it would greatly ease installing them to openwrt if
> packages would be available from authorized sites distributing openwrt packages..
> 
> At this URL you'll find screenshots and more information about my work:
> https://forum.openwrt.org/viewtopic.php?pid=218745#p218745
> 
> And patch agains luci's git is included as an attachment:

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