ubuntu-phone team mailing list archive

[Tony Espy <espy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 04/28/2014 03:30 PM, Chris Wayne wrote:
> Hi guys,
>
> One bit of customization that we have yet to implement is allowing
> carriers to have custom APNs setup on the device.  I understand that
> we're moving towards using the Android DB for this, which would allow
> for OEM customization, but there's no easy way for a carrier to add
> their own APNs this way.

The provisioning code you're referring to will land in the next upload 
of ofono, probably later this week if all goes well.

The new provisioning logic actually uses both apns-conf.xml ( which is 
included in the device tarball ) and mbpi ( which is included as part of 
the Ubuntu filesystem ).

> The use case for a carrier wanting their own APN database could be
> having a special app that they want to allow zero-tariff data usage for
> (e.g. their usage app, or maybe they have a deal with some site/app that
> all data used is free for their customers).

I'm not sure I understand your example.  We automatically provision GPRS 
contexts for network connnectivity and MMS support.  This provisioning 
is SIM-specific, and the result is a number of gprs contexts created 
ofono's gprs settings file:

in /var/lib/ofono/<ISMI>/gprs

NetworkManger and Nutium both examine these contexts via ofono's 
ConnectionManager DBus interface.  Eventually, we'll have a settings UI 
that will allow direct manipulation of these APNs/gprs contexts.

The only reason I see a carrier replacing our version of apns-conf.xml 
is if they've rolled out new APNs and/or have signed deals with MVNOs 
and want to ensure that the MVNO APNs are distributed.  Another reason 
would be to fix incorrect settings in our db.

> The one restriction we would have is that any file/db would have to live
> in /custom.  Is this doable?

Why wouldn't you just update the db in the device tarball? 
apns-conf.xml currently lives in /system/etc.

Also re: /custom, from what currently documented on the wiki, it can 
only install things in /home/<user>.  IMHOP, that's not really the right 
place to be installing a system-specific db file.

Note, for testing purposes ofono looks for an env var called 
OFONO_APNDB_PATH which is used to override the default location of 
apns-conf.xml.  This doesn't solve your problem directly, but something 
similar could be made to work if direct device tarball customization 
isn't sufficient.

Regards,
/tony