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Install Modem Manager

The ModemManager snap is currently available from the Ubuntu Store. It can be installed on any system that supports snaps but is only recommended on Ubuntu Core at the moment.

You can install the snap with the following command:

$ snap install modem-manager modem-manager (1.10/stable) 1.10.0-4 from Canonical✓ installed

All necessary plugs and slots will be automatically connected within the installation process. You can verify this with:

$ snap connections modem-manager Interface Plug Slot Notes modem-manager modem-manager:mmcli modem-manager:service - modem-manager network-manager:modem-manager modem-manager:service -

We see here that the mmcli command line utility can use the ModemManager service and that network-manager can do the same (we will see that if the network-manager snap is already installed in the system).

Once the installation has successfully finished the ModemManager service is running in the background. You can check its current status with

$ systemctl status snap.modem-manager.modemmanager.service 
● snap.modem-manager.modemmanager.service - Service for snap application modem-manager.modemmanager Loaded: loaded (/etc/systemd/system/snap.modem-manager.modemmanager.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled) 
Active: active (running) since Fri 2020-07-10 08:34:43 UTC; 2min 20s ago Main PID: 2047 (ModemManager) 
Tasks: 3 (limit: 569) 
CGroup: /system.slice/snap.modem-manager.modemmanager.service └─2047 /snap/modem-manager/414/usr/sbin/ModemManager --filter-policy=STRICT --log-level=INFO

Now you have ModemManager successfully installed. In the next sections we will briefly explain how to use part of ModemManager’s features, using mmcli command line interface to interact with the service. For a complete reference on what can be done with ModemManager, take a look at mmcli man page and to ModemManager’s DBus interface. It is also possible to use dbus-send to directly access the DBus interface if desired.

Finally, note that to run both mmcli and dbus-send we need root permissions, so we use sudo with them.

modem-manager tracks and channels

The modem-manager snap has currently five tracks, and with the exception of the ‘latest’ and ‘1.10’ track, the track will refer to the version of the base used.

  • 24 : Contains upstream version 1.23.4 and has a core24 base.
  • 22 : Contains upstream version 1.20.0 and has a core22 base. Nowadays, this is the one installed by default if the channel is not specified when running snap install.
  • 20 : Contains upstream version 1.18.6 and has a core20 base.
  • 1.10 : Contains upstream version 1.10.0 and has a core18 base. The track name refers to the upstream version. More modern releases have changed the convention so the track now refers to the base snap.
  • latest : Contains upstream version 1.8.0 and has a core16 base. Despite the unfortunate name (there are historical reasons for that) it is the oldest version.

Next Steps

Previous Modem Manager Next How-to guides: Gather Modem Information

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