failover: add van-modem-usb-kick — recover EC25 modem when it never enumerates at boot

Seen after moving the modem onto the new powered UGreen hub: the port
sometimes never signals a connect during boot (no descriptor-read attempt at
all in dmesg), so the hub never rescans it. Unbind/rebinding the inner hub
chip reproduces the same connect edge a physical unplug/replug does.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

deploy.sh

@@ -143,6 +143,10 @@ echo "== cellular modem (GSM/LTE) =="
 # need an explicit gsm.apn set by hand regardless.
 dpkg -s mobile-broadband-provider-info >/dev/null 2>&1 \
     || warn "mobile-broadband-provider-info missing (apt install mobile-broadband-provider-info) — GSM APN auto-config will fail"
+# Backstop for the modem sometimes never enumerating at boot on the new
+# powered hub (see the script's docstring).
+install -D -m0755 failover/van-modem-usb-kick         /usr/local/sbin/van-modem-usb-kick
+install_rendered failover/van-modem-usb-kick.service   /etc/systemd/system/van-modem-usb-kick.service
 
 echo "== cockpit plugin =="
 install -d /usr/share/cockpit/vanrouter
@@ -226,7 +230,7 @@ systemctl restart systemd-resolved
 # its wait-online would just stall network-online.target. NM-wait-online covers WANs.
 systemctl mask systemd-networkd-wait-online.service >/dev/null 2>&1 || true
 systemctl unmask hostapd >/dev/null 2>&1 || true
-systemctl enable regdomain.service hostapd hostapd-2g van-ap-dnsmasq nftables systemd-networkd van-failover van-thermal van-nvme-watch van-ap-watchdog van-ap-watchdog-2g van-wlan-watchdog van-gps-owntracks >/dev/null 2>&1 || true
+systemctl enable regdomain.service hostapd hostapd-2g van-ap-dnsmasq nftables systemd-networkd van-failover van-thermal van-nvme-watch van-ap-watchdog van-ap-watchdog-2g van-wlan-watchdog van-modem-usb-kick van-gps-owntracks >/dev/null 2>&1 || true
 # bluetooth: host BlueZ serves the onboard hci0 to the HA container over D-Bus
 systemctl enable --now bluetooth >/dev/null 2>&1 || true
 systemctl start homeassistant || warn "homeassistant failed to start (podman/quadlet — check journalctl -u homeassistant)"

failover/van-modem-usb-kick

@@ -0,0 +1,119 @@
+#!/usr/bin/env python3
+"""van-modem-usb-kick — recover the EC25 modem when it's missing after boot.
+
+Seen on 2026-08-04, right after moving the modem onto the new powered UGreen
+hub: the 5GHz AP (rtw89, on the hub's outer USB chip) and the hub's built-in
+Ethernet (AX88179, on its inner cascaded USB2.1 hub chip) both enumerate
+cleanly at boot, but the EC25 modem — plugged into a port on that same inner
+hub chip — sometimes never does, even though it has power (LED on). dmesg
+shows no connect attempt at all for the modem's port during boot (contrast
+the Ethernet's clean enumeration, or the AP's one-shot retry after a
+descriptor-read error) — the port just never signalled a connect in time, and
+a hub only rescans a port on an actual connect/disconnect edge, so it stays
+invisible until something produces one. Physically unplugging/replugging
+either the whole hub or just the modem fixes it immediately, because both
+produce that edge. This script produces the same edge in software: unbind
+then rebind the inner hub chip's kernel driver, which forces it to redo
+enumeration of everything on it (the modem, and briefly the Starlink
+Ethernet — the AP is on the outer chip and is undisturbed).
+
+The inner hub is found by walking up from STARLINK_IFACE's sysfs device (it's
+the Ethernet's parent hub) rather than hardcoding a bus/port path, since that
+identifies "the hub carrying the modem" without assuming a specific topology.
+
+Bounded to a few minutes after boot, then exits — this is a boot-race
+backstop, not a permanent watcher (a modem physically removed later should
+just stay gone, not get fought).
+
+Usage: van-modem-usb-kick [modem-usb-vendor] [starlink-iface]
+Defaults to 2c7c (Quectel) and enx6c1ff7d210a5 — see deploy.conf.
+"""
+
+import sys
+import time
+from pathlib import Path
+
+MODEM_VENDOR = sys.argv[1] if len(sys.argv) > 1 else "2c7c"
+STARLINK_IFACE = sys.argv[2] if len(sys.argv) > 2 else "enx6c1ff7d210a5"
+INTERVAL = 20            # seconds between checks
+BUDGET_S = 6 * INTERVAL  # ~2 minutes of retries after boot, then give up quietly
+USB_DEVICES = Path("/sys/bus/usb/devices")
+HUB_DRIVER = Path("/sys/bus/usb/drivers/hub")
+
+
+def log(msg, level="info"):
+    # systemd journal severity prefixes (sd-daemon), same convention as van-ap-watchdog.
+    pri = {"info": "<6>", "warn": "<4>", "crit": "<2>"}.get(level, "<6>")
+    print(pri + msg, flush=True)
+
+
+def modem_present(vendor):
+    for f in USB_DEVICES.glob("*/idVendor"):
+        try:
+            if f.read_text().strip() == vendor:
+                return True
+        except OSError:
+            continue
+    return False
+
+
+def inner_hub_name(starlink_iface):
+    """sysfs driver-name (e.g. '2-1.4') of the USB hub carrying starlink_iface —
+    that's the same hub chip the modem's port is on. None if the Ethernet
+    itself hasn't enumerated (nothing to walk up from)."""
+    dev = Path(f"/sys/class/net/{starlink_iface}/device")
+    if not dev.exists():
+        return None
+    # dev resolves to .../<hub>/<hub>.<port>/<hub>.<port>:<config>.<iface>
+    # (e.g. .../2-1.4/2-1.4.2/2-1.4.2:2.0) — two levels up is the hub itself.
+    hub = dev.resolve().parent.parent
+    if not (hub / "bDeviceClass").exists():
+        return None
+    try:
+        if hub.joinpath("bDeviceClass").read_text().strip() != "09":  # 09 = hub
+            return None
+    except OSError:
+        return None
+    return hub.name
+
+
+def kick(hub_name):
+    log(f"modem (vendor {MODEM_VENDOR}) absent — rebinding hub {hub_name} to force "
+        f"re-enumeration (same effect as unplug/replug; briefly bounces {STARLINK_IFACE})",
+        "warn")
+    try:
+        (HUB_DRIVER / "unbind").write_text(hub_name)
+        time.sleep(2)
+        (HUB_DRIVER / "bind").write_text(hub_name)
+    except OSError as e:
+        log(f"hub rebind failed: {e}", "warn")
+
+
+def main():
+    log(f"van-modem-usb-kick up: watching for USB vendor {MODEM_VENDOR} for up to "
+        f"{BUDGET_S}s after boot")
+    elapsed = 0
+    kicked = False
+    while elapsed < BUDGET_S:
+        if modem_present(MODEM_VENDOR):
+            log("modem present — exiting" + (" (recovered)" if kicked else ""))
+            return
+        if not kicked:
+            hub_name = inner_hub_name(STARLINK_IFACE)
+            if hub_name:
+                kick(hub_name)
+                kicked = True
+            # else: Ethernet itself isn't up yet — give the system more time
+            # before assuming anything is wrong.
+        time.sleep(INTERVAL)
+        elapsed += INTERVAL
+    if not modem_present(MODEM_VENDOR):
+        log(f"modem still absent after {BUDGET_S}s — giving up "
+            f"(leaving it for manual unplug/replug from here on)", "warn")
+
+
+if __name__ == "__main__":
+    try:
+        main()
+    except KeyboardInterrupt:
+        sys.exit(0)

failover/van-modem-usb-kick.service

@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+[Unit]
+Description=EC25 modem boot-recovery backstop (kicks its USB hub if the modem never enumerated)
+After=systemd-udev-settle.service
+Wants=systemd-udev-settle.service
+
+[Service]
+Type=simple
+ExecStart=/usr/local/sbin/van-modem-usb-kick @MODEM_USB_VENDOR@ @STARLINK_IFACE@
+
+[Install]
+WantedBy=multi-user.target