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Chapter 13. USB Port
The FB2700 features a USB port that supports a wide variety of dongles providing backup data connection
via a 3G mobile network.
USB hubs are supported, so that you can connect multiple USB devices to the FB2700. In the web user interface
and CLI, specific USB devices are identified by a "Socket" value, which shows the hierarchy of USB hubs and
physical socket used on each until you get to the device itself.
The Socket value is a sequence of one or more numbers separated by full stops. The numbers indicate the
number of each port along the chain from FB through any hubs to the final device. The USB port on the FB2700
itself is always shown as port 1, so if the dongle is attached directly to the FB2700 the Socket value will just
be
1
. Otherwise, if, for example, there was a hub connected to the FB2700, and the dongle was connected to
USB port 3 on that hub, then it would be
1.3
.
Note
A USB hub's ports are not necessarily numbered from left to right, and indeed, may not even be
numbered in any sensible order. This is entirely down to the hardware design of the hub, and is nothing
to do with the FB2700.
13.1. USB configuration
The USB subsystem of the FB2700 does not require any configuration itself as such, however you can enable
logging which may be useful for diagnostic purposes. The top-level
usb
object provides this 'configuration',
but is also a container for child objects that configure specific USB devices, such as a 3G dongle.
In the web user interface, the
usb
object is found in the "Interface" category, under the heading "USB and
3G/dongle settings".
13.1.1. 3G dongle configuration
You configure a 3G dongle by creating a
dongle
child object of the
usb
object. In most cases, the
configuration needed to get the dongle working is trivial, and doesn't actually need to specify any 'technical'
parameters, and possibly no parameters at all.
Assuming you have only one dongle connected, simply creating a
dongle
object will allow the dongle to
start working automatically. It will then 'dial' a connection (since the dongle emulates a modem), and once
successful, the FB2700 will try to setup a PPP connection via the dongle. When the PPP connection comes up,
a new default route will be dynamically created.
If you have more than one dongle, then you will need to create a separate
dongle
object for each dongle,
identifying the specific dongle via the
socket
attribute, using the "socket" value syntax described above.