ubuntu-phone team mailing list archive

[Chris Wayne <chris.wayne@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Mon, Apr 28, 2014 at 4:16 PM, Tony Espy <espy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> 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.


I think the MVNO use case is an important one for us to look out for.


>
>
>  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.
>

The device tarball is supposed to be for device-specific files, not carrier
customizations.


> 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.
>
The custom tarball installs files directly to /custom.  It *can* copy stuff
to $HOME, but it certainly would not for this example (I would expect the
db file would be just /custom/apns-conf.xml)


>
> 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
>
>