This project provides a small utility (dlinkcontrol) to control your D-Link "DWM-222 4G LTE USB Adapter" from the command line. It works by sending HTTP command to the DWM-222's embedded WEB Server.

NOTE: This tool was developed and tested on the FreeBSD OS and the instruction provided here are meant for the FreeBSD OS. On other Operating Systems, this tool may even fail to compile.

A FreeBSD port is available at the sibling dlinkcontrol-port repository.

D-Link Control provides the following features:

• read the ICCID (SIM unique identification number)
• unlock the SIM
• reset SIM's PIN (WARNING: This feature is UNTESTED!)
• retrieve ISP's provided DNS servers
• read, write and delete Short Messages (SMS)
• start and stop 3G/4G connection
• keep count of the transferred bytes

To keep count of the transferred bytes, the name of two files must be provided (when the connection is started):

• an "account file", to store the amount of transferred bytes (both received and trasmitted)
• a "PID file", to store the Process ID of a daemon process that will periodically update the account file

The daemon will be killed when the connection is stopped.

Run dlinkcontrol without options for a detailed list of available commands and options.

To build from a clone of the repository, you need the following tools:

• autoconf 2.71
• automake 1.16.5
• gnulib (install a recent version or clone it from git:https://git.sv.gnu.org/gnulib.git)

From the root directories of the D-Link Control cloned repository, run:

gnulib-tool --update
autoreconf -i

This will build the configure script.

To actually build and install the executable, run:

./configure
make
make install

See also ./configure --help.

If available, the configure script will try to link against libcurl. If not found, it will fall-back to the native libfetch.

libcurl is the best option, as it allow to time-out the HTTP requests, should the embedded WEB Server freeze or the whole DWM-222 crash / reboot (which seems to happen regularly).

NOTE: libfetch also has a time-out knob, but it does not work.

The "DWM-222 4G LTE USB Adapter" provide several protocols to interact with:

• QMI (Qualcomm MSM Interface)
• RNDIS
• CDC-ECM

For the FreeBSD lacks a QMI driver, we can only interact with the DWM-222 through the RNDIS or CDC-ECM protocols. However, when the DWM-222 is plugged in the USB port, it will activate, by default, the QMI protocol interface.

Alongside the QMI protocol interface there will be also a Mass Storage iterface, providing two units:

1. a micro-SD unit (e.g., /dev/da0)
2. a CD-ROM unit (e.g., /dev/cd0)

To activate the RNDIS protocol interface, you have to "eject" the CD-ROM unit:

camcontrol eject /dev/cd0

If for some reason you prefer the CDC-ECM protocol interface, in addition to the previous command, also run:

usbconfig -d X.Y set_config 1

Where X.Y are the USB bus number and device address assigned to DWM-222 (run usbconfig without options to list all the attached USB devices).

Once the RNDIS (or the CDC-ECM) protocol interface is up, the urndis (or cdce) driver will be loaded and a new network interface, e.g., ue0, will be created. To activate tethering through this interface, you may need to add the following to your /etc/rc.conf:

if_config_ue0="SYNCDHCP"

By default, the gateway address is set to 192.168.0.1. The embedded WEB Server is reachable at the same IP address, port 80. It provides a WEB interface to configure and manage the device.

Configuration must be done through the WEB interface, for the dlinkcontrol utility provides no such feature.

As of now (november 2022) there are two firmware revisions available for the DWM-222 device: A1 and A2.

Revision A1 does not work with FreeBSD (tested on release 13.1), that is, it gives you no CD-ROM unit, so there is no means to activate the RNDIS / CDC-ECM protocol interface.

You can download revision A2 from D-Link's product support web page, but you'll need Windows to run the upgrade utility. It is possible to run it from VirtualBox (as I did, from Linux), you'll need to:

1. install Windows 10
2. install the VirtualBox Extension Pack to enable USB 2.0 support (VirtualBox 7 should not need this)
3. add an "USB Device Filter", but do not specify any vendor id / product id: use the USB icon on the right side of the lower status bar to select the DWM-222 device
4. run the upgrade utility and follow the instructions
5. keep selecting all the USB vendor id / product id the DWM-222 will cicle through during the upgrade process

WARNING: Firmware upgrade is always a risky process, especially if done from a Virtual Machine. Don't blame me if you brick your brand new DWM-222!