The PGW's router advertisement on the ims netdev offers a default
router, and on IPv4-only wifi that is the phone's only IPv6 default
route. Every AAAA-first client (apk, browsers) then sends its SYN into
the IMS walled garden, which drops it: apk sat in SYN-SENT for nine
minutes on the dev phone, and a field user's remedy was to stop imsd
before package work.
Set accept_ra_defrtr=0 on the muxed netdev before link-up (the router
solicitation goes out once the link-local address passes DAD), flush a
default route an earlier RA installed (an imsd restart), and give the
P-CSCF a host route over the netdev instead. imsd talks to the P-CSCF
only and already installs a host route per media peer; the RA's prefix
and MTU still apply. The host route makes the P-CSCF reachable before
the RA has been processed, so the PDN MTU ModemManager reports is set
on the link as well, the way NetworkManager does for its bearers. A
failed host route, or a P-CSCF that is not an IPv6 address (the PDN is
brought up IPv6-only), fails the unit with a clear message.
Dev phone (KPN, 0.3.8-r0): restart path drops the RA default and
registers over the host route, apk update in 6 s where it hung; MO and
MT calls with audio both ways; cold boot never installs the default
route, the link carries the 1280 MTU before the host route exists,
fresh registration in 1 s.
On a cold boot the profile-list query can succeed while ModemManager is
still enabling the modem and return no profiles at all; the lookup then
read "no ims profile" and fell back to the APN-string request, the one a
walled carrier refuses (Fairphone 6, index 2 present a minute later).
Treat a list without any profile entry like a failed lookup and retry it
after the registration wait; a list with entries but no ims APN still
falls back to the APN string.
The ims profile lookup ran the moment ModemManager listed the modem, which
on a cold boot can be while it is still enabling; qmicli's error was
discarded, so a failed lookup read as "no profile" and the script fell back
to the APN-string request, which is the one the modem refuses under an
IPv4 attach. Every refused attempt left a disconnected apn=ims bearer
object behind, and the next restart's "reuse a stale disconnected bearer"
step matched it by APN and reconnected it: ten refusals again, no way out
but a reboot that happens to win the race (O2 UK field report; the same
lost race seen on a KPN unit, where the fallback merely connects).
Log qmicli's error and retry the lookup after the registration wait, fall
back to the APN string only when the list has no such APN, reuse a
disconnected bearer only when it has this run's shape and delete leftover
APN-string ims bearers when connecting by profile index, match the APN
case-insensitively, and on call-already-present adopt the connected bearer
instead of asking the modem again.
Ten field shapes replayed against a mock ModemManager (shipped script
5/10, this one 10/10); on the FP6 a warm restart adopts the live PDN and
a cold boot connects by profile index and registers.
On carriers whose attach PDN is granted IPv4-only (Odido, Swisscom, O2 UK
so far) the modem refuses every AP-side IPv6 bearer request made by APN
string with pdn-ipv6-call-disallowed before it reaches the air, so the
ims PDN never came up and imsd looped. A request made by 3GPP profile
index is treated as the IMS-class call the modem's own engine makes and
is exempt: it goes on the air as IPv6 and the network grants it. That is
the path 81voltd uses.
Look the ims profile up by APN in the modem's profile list and create the
bearer with profile-id=<index>,ip-type=<type>; fall back to the APN string
when no such profile exists. A profile-indexed bearer reports no APN, so
the reuse match accepts the profile id too. New knobs in /etc/imsd.env:
IMS_APN (default ims) and IMS_PROFILE_ID (default: looked up; "none"
forces the APN-string path).
Verified on KPN with the wall induced by a forced IPv4 attach: the
APN-string request is refused, the profile-indexed request connects, a
second run reuses the bearer, imsd registers over it; attach and mobile
data untouched.
Three hardenings, each of which cost a field-debugging round-trip:
- Every mmcli failure now lands in the journal verbatim (create-bearer
and connect stderr were swallowed, making 'connect attempt N failed'
undecodable — no-service and interface-in-use looked identical).
- Connect attempts are gated on network registration (up to
IMS_REG_TIMEOUT, default 300 s): the 10x10 s window is shorter than
some carriers' post-boot attach (~2 min measured), so every attempt
could burn out before the network was even attached. The settled
modem/packet-service state is logged either way.
- Bearer ip-type is configurable via IMS_IP_TYPE in /etc/imsd.env
(default ipv6); the bearer find/reuse now matches ip-type too, so a
config change cannot silently reuse a stale bearer of the old type.
TimeoutStartSec grows 600->900 to cover the registration gate.
Tested on the FP6 dev phone (KPN): clean-state bring-up in 4 s;
gate + timeout path with modem disabled; per-attempt error lines on a
real contested-PDN failure (second ims PDN while one is connected);
idempotent reuse + REGISTERED (fresh) via systemd.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Userspace VoLTE/IMS daemon for mainline Linux phones (developed on the
Fairphone 6): a GLib-free core (SIP, SDP, USIM AKA, IPsec SA setup, RTP
media, call engine) behind a GDBus control daemon, a standalone AMR-WB
media leg, and a Plasma Dialer backend. C++26 modules built with Crafter
Build; the tree is clean under the project's house-style linter
(crafter-build lint) across all three build products.
Assisted-by: Claude:claude-fable-5
Signed-off-by: Jorijn van der Graaf <jorijnvdgraaf@catcrafts.net>
