Hi All,
At this point, I'm just brainstorming, and would like some input. (I hope this thread is in the right place)
I'm trying to find a setup to connect to free wifi hotspots that are far away, and share that connection to a group of devices locally. For example, this solution may be useful in a boat or an RV, when you're not particularly close to a free access point.
There are commercial solutions like the Rogue Wave however, this doesn't do anything to authenticate through the Terms of Service (TOS) pages that are frequently used at free access points.
This is what brings me to using Android. There are Android apps which automate the process of accepting the terms of service. My favorite right now is WebWifiLogin (I'm familiar with the security risks involved in using public wifi; and may also have the Android device to also establish a VPN connection when doing this.) (I can't find an equivalent macro-authentication solution that will run on a PC, which would make this much easier.)
So here's my proposed solution:
1. Start with a powerful omnidirectional wifi antenna (Possibly add an in-line amp if needed. Also perhaps a directional antenna may be better for non-mobile use.)
2. Connect the antenna to any Android device that supports an external Wifi antenna. I found several Android TV devices which should work. Like This, or possibly this.
3. Set up some kind of local access point/bridge. One option may be to use fqrouter2 which supposedly uses the same Wifi radio for the local WLAN, while it also connects to the remote one. Another option may be to USB or Ethernet tether to a DD-WRT Router.
Result:
The Android device has a range to connect to a free hotspot up to a mile or two away, then automatically accepts the TOS using the WebWifiLogin app, and shares that connection locally to a handful of devices.
So am I crazy? Is this too complex to work correctly? Is there a simpler solution that I'm missing?
Can anyone confirm whether I've posted this in the correct sub-forum?
Thanks.
I use a slightly different method which yields the same results.
I have a Linksys WRT54GL router (with high gain antennas) which runs DD-WRT and a script called AutoAP. The script scans for unencrypted WIFI access points, makes sure they're live, and automatically connects to the strongest one in range.
I set up a second WPA2 encrypted WIFI SSID in the router which I connect to with my Android tablet. Once WebWifiLogin on the tablet handles the TOS login, the remote access point allows web access for any device that connects to the WRT54GL router (either by WIFI to the secondary SSID or through one of the ports)! This happens because the remote access point usually checks/remembers TOS acceptance by the MAC address of the connected device. Since it only sees the MAC address of my router, anything behind the router now gets access.
ssenemosewa said:
Once WebWifiLogin on the tablet handles the TOS login, the remote access point allows web access for any device that connects to the WRT54GL router
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This is great information; thanks!
I would not have thought WebWifiLogin would work when connecting through another router. When WebWifiLogin is running, its status says "Listening for WiFi events" (Or something similar) so I was under the impression that WebWifiLogin would only work if the connection to the AP is made directly by the Android WiFi interface, and not through a intermediary router.
This makes things much easier.
Related
Hey everyone! Back home, I use Touchpad from Nullar (works fantastically) to control my PC and media players when I'm in bed or on my couch. However, I am now at school, and I cannot use WiFi in my room; I can't use Touchpad anymore. Has anyone attempted PC HID control via bluetooth or USB? I tried searching with several different keywords, but I was unsuccessful.
I don't think anybody has managed direct control over the USB connection yet, although we can manipulate it into a few known and pre-installed states (HID not being one of them, sorry). Bluetooth may be possible; we do have at least some access to the BT stack, although since it doesn't support HID natively either it would be quite a hack to get that working.
Are you disallowed WiFi for some reason, or do you just not have a WiFi network set up (and wow, are there really schools that still don't have WiFi in the dorms??)? A WiFi router is pretty cheap these days. Alternatively, it's possible to configure a PC's WiFi adapter to act like a WiFi access point, allowing the phoen to connect to it. I don't know for sure if Touchpad would work over that, but probably.
In theory, Touchpad should be possible over the Internet, though you'd need to open the firewall ports (whcih, depending on your school's network, might not be possible). Ot would lag, too.
GoodDayToDie said:
I don't think anybody has managed direct control over the USB connection yet, although we can manipulate it into a few known and pre-installed states (HID not being one of them, sorry). Bluetooth may be possible; we do have at least some access to the BT stack, although since it doesn't support HID natively either it would be quite a hack to get that working.
Are you disallowed WiFi for some reason, or do you just not have a WiFi network set up (and wow, are there really schools that still don't have WiFi in the dorms??)? A WiFi router is pretty cheap these days. Alternatively, it's possible to configure a PC's WiFi adapter to act like a WiFi access point, allowing the phoen to connect to it. I don't know for sure if Touchpad would work over that, but probably.
In theory, Touchpad should be possible over the Internet, though you'd need to open the firewall ports (whcih, depending on your school's network, might not be possible). Ot would lag, too.
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Touchpad over WiFi/internet already works. We do have WiFi in the dorms, but the routers are in the lounges (no signal in my room). The rooms have ethernet ports, which is what I use, however we aren't allowed to use a router/hotspot in our rooms because of throttling issues.
Making your PC use the built-in WiFi interface as an access point is probably your best bet. Obviously, lock the network down so it's not going to have other people connecting and getting you in trouble. Do a little searching and you should find the software that does this (there are a few different ones). It was actually supposed to be a Win7 feature, but at the end it shipped half-finished. A few other developers finished it up for Microsoft.
GoodDayToDie said:
Making your PC use the built-in WiFi interface as an access point is probably your best bet. Obviously, lock the network down so it's not going to have other people connecting and getting you in trouble. Do a little searching and you should find the software that does this (there are a few different ones). It was actually supposed to be a Win7 feature, but at the end it shipped half-finished. A few other developers finished it up for Microsoft.
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I tried doing this with my friend's laptop (I'll buy a dongle if this works), however my phone (SparkW) doesn't see the network, and when I type in the name manually it doesn't connect. The network was visible to another laptop though.
Did you make it appear as an access point ("Infrastructure" network), or merely cause the PC to create its own peer-to-peer ("ad-hoc") network? WP7 doesn't support that latter kind, but will happily connect to the former. Also, what software did you use? If it was anything that came with Windows, or with any Windows PC, it was almost certainly ad-hoc.
GoodDayToDie said:
Did you make it appear as an access point ("Infrastructure" network), or merely cause the PC to create its own peer-to-peer ("ad-hoc") network? WP7 doesn't support that latter kind, but will happily connect to the former. Also, what software did you use? If it was anything that came with Windows, or with any Windows PC, it was almost certainly ad-hoc.
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It was ad-hoc with the built in services. I'll try out connectify this weekend and post my results here.
OK, my wife and I each have Sprint Samsung Galaxy S3's. We both have Wifi Tether TrevE mod installed and working and we also have a linksys router running DD-WRT.
I have wanted for a long time to create a stable home network with the router using our phones for internet. Reason being, We both have laptops that need access to our WiFi networked printer. And I also wanted to create a networked storage.
I started out trying to use the Router as a repeater bridge. The problem here is that in that mode there is no DHCP server in the router, so when you turn off WiFi Tether in the phone, there is no IP assignment taking place since it is handled by the phone. This is ok for the printer because we can set a static IP, but not ok for the laptops because they need to have auto ip assignment for all the other networks they might encounter. Plus I'd like to be able to have a friend come over and use the printer if need be without having to change his IP address. So this setup is unstable.
Then I tried the Router in Repeater mode. In this mode IP addresses are being assigned and everyone can see everyone else on the network. The problem here though, is that the Router and all connecting devices have to be in a separate subnet than the WiFi Tethering phone, i.e, Tethered Phone on 192.168.1.x and Router on 192.168.2.x (as far as I can tell anyway, I've tried putting them on the same subnet but fail to get internet access.) It's a problem because I have Samba Filesharing installed on the phones and the tethered phone is in a different subnet and not visible on the network. I want all devices visible.
So that's kind of where I am now, Wifi Tether on both phones (each setup with same settings so either phone can be used as our internet gateway) but they are on a separate subnet from the rest of the network while tethering.
How do I get all of my devices to be visible on the network?
Do I need a different setup in DD-WRT?
Currently it is setup in Gateway mode with DHCP server and wireless is in repeater mode with a VLAN setup with a different SSID from the WiFi tethered phone.
Do I need to usb tether the phone to the router? I have a usb port on the router but I've not found good instructions for getting the phones internet through to the router that way and I'm not sure that I would want it that way since I wouldn't be able to walk around with my phone.
Is there a way to make devices in different subnets visible to each other? Some kind of bridging or static routing or something?
Is it possible to have the phone connect to the router in a normal manner and for the router to then share the phones internet connection with the rest of the network? Then at least the router could run DHCP and be stable even without the phones.
Again, just to clarify, I want a home network with devices connecting to my WiFi router running DD-WRT and internet being provided by one of our phones, but with the network remaining intact when the internet provided phone is removed. Thanks for your help.
Bonus questions:
Is it possible to harness the power of both of our phones internet connections into one network by any means possible?
Are there any other wifi/tethering apps or another version of WiFi Tether that offer more features or the functionality of DD-WRT?
did you see this?
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1548844
pbmurdoc said:
did you see this?
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1548844
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Click to collapse
Thanks. Not much new there other than Barnacle. Didn't know about it, tried it, doesn't work on my phone. I would like to see a version of WiFi Tether with some more options though, why couldn't we have one with the same options as DD-WRT?
I did some more reading and I think what I need to do is link the subnet created by the router to the primary router (the phone serving Wifi Tether) through static routing. Unfortunately the static route needs to be done through the primary router and WiFi Tether doesn't include features like that.
I'll do some more experimenting and see what happens.
[A] Cellular Phone/USB Modem As WAN Connection
Answer is in the DD-WRT Wiki, here (http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Cellular_Phone/USB_Modem_as_WAN_connection).
Or just google "DD-WRT Cellular Phone/USB Modem As WAN Connection", it should be the #1 result.
Their WIKI is a great resource.
Good luck!
EDIT:
In retrospect, I am unsure about linking to the DD-WRT site... external and all. If this is a no-no just let me know and I will delete the link.
DD-WRT Client Bridge worked for me
I was able to do what you're trying to do by configuring my DD-WRT router as a Client Bridge.
I can't post the link, but there are directions I followed exactly on the DD-WRT wiki in the section:
DD-WRT wiki mainpage / Linking Routers / Client Bridged
I'm connecting my router to the tether via wifi, and connecting my wired devices to the router. I haven't had it working long, but so far it has been great.
Got it, sort of
Just to update this thread. The client bridge is a great way to connect a wired network to the bridge but loses out on creating a stable wi-fi network when the phone tether is turned off.
Anyway, the final setup I managed was having the DD-WRT router set as a wireless repeater with a computer connected to it running a DHCP server. The computer takes care of the IP addreses so that we have a stable wired/wi-fi intranet when the phone is not sharing it's internet connection.
Update: I founde another solution/project based on OpenWRT
http://ofmodemsandmen.com/
my exploits using a Linksys E3000 have been documented here:
http://tweakedrom.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=7
I kind of like the USB tether thing. The E3000 Router USB power charges and maintains my SCH-i605 (Verizon Samsung GN2) running CM12.1. I use this as a backup connection or in the event of main cable modem service disruption at the house. It is also great for traveling (hotels) or camping (car 12v adapter for router, or power inverter)
I just bought a used Asus RT-N66U router. Out of the box it supports USB tethering with android phones and dual WANs for failover/load balancing. ROOter also works, tested the x86 build on an old PC. I'm looking to cut out my ISP completely and just use 4G from the phone for internet. The issue I have run into is that I can't appear to do DDNS or port forwarding. My wireless carrier (verizon) appears to be employing a double NAT. If I perform a speedtest on the ookla app, I get 2 IP addresses in the results, an "internal" and an "external". Both are in the public range but I can't DDNS in with either of the IPs, nor can I get any kind of service working.
Anyone have a solution for this? I'm not 100% sure but I wonder if using the SIM card in a dedicated USB 4G modem (not tethering via the phone) would get me a direct IP? I suppose I could also sign up for a VPN service and run OpenVPN on the router but that'd cut down on speeds I think. I've also heard about punching holes for ports but I'm not 100% sure how that works, I assume I still need some 3rd party public IP for relaying or something.
I want to set my Mum's new tablet so that it can only access the Internet via the SSH server running on her Buffalo router (with Tomato firmware).
I've got the server working and accessible remotely and so far the only app I've found that has a Global Proxy setting to redirect everything via the SSH server is SSHTunnel, although I gather that it's not totally reliable when connections drop/change and I can't expect my Mum to cope with monitoring it and re-enabling it manually. When it's disabled, all traffic will just go over local connection unencrypted so that's a concern.
Ideally there'd be some way to setup the SSH settings at a system level, with no way to disable them and force all the traffic go out like this but I'm not sure if there is any way to achieve this.
The other part is setting a firewall (AFWall+ or Android Firewall seem to be the main ones) to only allow traffic via the SSH server. I'm not sure what whitelist rules would be required for this. For example, SSHTunnel connects to the server at x.x.x.x:x, so I presume I'd need a rule to allow connections to this address and this port (I had a quick play with the Avast firewall, which only allows creating custom rules for IP or port, so I'd need two rules with that and it doesn't allow entering the DynDNS name, only a IP address, so that's no good).
Then SSHTunnel has a Local Port (1984) and remote addressort (127.0.0.1:3128) so I presume I'd need rules to allow all of those as well (I'm not sure which of these need to be incoming/outgoing or both). Then there's the question of whether I need to allow other ports like DNS (53) and so on, or if that all goes over the SSH tunnel and doesn't require setting allow rules specifically.
It might be that a VPN server would be more suitable for what I'm trying to acheive than a SSH server and I think the Tomato firmware on the router has that facility (or if the version currently flashed doesn't, there's probably another version I could flash that does), so if that's the case, I'd appreciate advice on locking it down that way instead. Android has built-in VPN support, so it might be possible to use that but it depends on whether it will auto-connect and stay connected all the time or if it requires user intervention and I'll still need to setup firewall rules to prevent data being sent without the VPN in case it does get disabled.
Another issue is whether these firewall rules will prevent the device even being able to connect to any public Wi-Fi points before redirecting the traffic via the SSH/VPN server, which would obviously be no good.
OK, maybe there's another way
I was thinking of setting up a VPN on a Raspberry Pi installed at my parent's house, as they have reasonable broadband speeds, something like 100/10MB. Is there anyway that I could setup my Mum's tablet so that it passes everything through the VPN whether at home or away, so that she doesn't have to worry about toggling the VPN or firewall?
I can point it to the No-IP domain name I've setup but then I think every request would go out onto the Internet (albeit encrypted) before coming back in to the VPN, which would then have to go out again to retrieve whatever webpage, etc is being requested, which would obviously be stupid. If I point it to the LAN IP of 192.168.1.66, that will avoid doing that when at home but won't work when away.
So, any ideas?
Hello everyone! Here's a nice little guide on how to tether your phone and use that ability to power a home internet network. I have done tons of trial and error to get this working with bits and pieces from numerous forums and google research. This has been working flawlessly for me and it's a "set it and forget it solution".
The reason why I wanted to do this is because I live in a rural area with no high speed ISP. My only option was to use a data capped satellite ISP that is extremely limited in ability and expensive. Without further ado my guide to achieve an unlimited, data cap free, tethered home network.
What you need:
Android phone you're willing to dedicate for full time use
Computer with windows and LAN port you're willing to dedicate for full time use
Wireless Router
A nice USB cord for your phone
A nice CAT cable
1) First thing to do is look around for an unlimited data (4glte preferred, no tethering plan needed) cellular plan. I know there are a few out there but I decided on MetroPCS due to the coverage I get and the price ($60 a month, no contract). I opted for just a sim card as I had an android phone laying around.
2) Make sure your android is unlocked if it's not on the same network you are trying to use. My phone was tied to AT&T and I had to call them to unlock it. Most carrier will do this if the phone in good standing. Meaning paid off. Or root it.
3) We will need to find out where your equipment will sit to receive the best speeds. I recommend putting your phone in "field test mode" and walk around the house. The lower number the better. I also ran a speed test in certain locations to give me a rough idea of what speeds I would be getting. If you are really serious about this set up there is equipment out there to boost cell signal in your house. I like WeBoost.
4) Download your tethering application. I have tried multiple apps but only one worked perfectly but with different hardware you might have other results. Clockworkmod Tether ($4.99) and PDAnet+ ($7.95) worked alright but I had issues with it talking to my router and clients so disconnects where frequent and frustrating. I ultimately went for EasyTether ($9.99) and it has been working fantastic. Mind you when using Clockwork and PDAnet I would be getting a DL speed of 6Mbs when my phone was 13Mbs. I don't know what would cause that but with EasyTether I am getting speeds very similar to my phone with no speed loss.
5) All three tethering applications require you to install a sister program on your computer to work. So install that on your "slave" machine. They are all about the same process, install an .exe and drivers for your phone.
6) Test that everything is working. The tethering application will have instructions on how to USB tether your phone. We need to check that it will give your slave machine an internet connection. Simply open a web browser and see if it is working.
7) Great! Now your are connected and able to surf the web! But wouldn't it be great if you could use this on all your devices? This is where the router comes in play.
8) Now I don't know what router you are using but mine is an ASUS RT-N56U and the principle should be the same. Plug your router into power and reset it with the button on the back (10 seconds). Unplug from power. Connect the CAT cable to the WAN port of the router (the one that usually connects a modem to the router) and the other end to the LAN port of your slave machine. Plug power to the router and allow it to boot up. Now on your slave machine go to Network and Sharing Center, View status on the tether connection, properties, sharing, check Allow other network users to connect through this computer's Internet connection, select the Home networking connection as the router. With everything done correctly you should be getting an internet connection to the router.
9) Now this is all fine and dandy but there are some settings in the router you can configure to make it more reliable. Our cases could be different but this is what has worked for me. I'm no networking genius by any means so my setting could not mean anything. In my experience things would work for a few mins but streaming to chromecast or connecting a mac to wireless mysteriously cut all connection. So here are my settings.
Disable MAC Filter
Disable Wireless Scheduler
Enable IGMP Snooping
Enable DHCP Server
Disable DHCP Routes
Disable Multicast routing (IGMP Proxy)
WAN Connection Type-Automatic IP
Enable UPnP
Connect to DNS Server automatically-NO
DNS Server1 8.8.8.8
DNS Server2 8.8.4.4
Everything else is default
I don't know about the NAT for all you gamers out there but I am sure there is some router configuration you can do. If anyone has ideas on how to achieve this please chime in.
10) Congratulations! You have now set up a home network with your phone and can use it like any other ISP. If you experience any issue with this process let me know and I will get back to you with an answer. I have had to do a lot of trouble shooting to get to this point.
Short version:
When I turn on my phone's hotspot I want to control the IP addresses it uses. It wants itself to be 192.168.43.135 most of the time, and I need to set it to something else more or less permanently. The address it wants to use is causing conflicts. Can you please help me figure out how to do this?
Long version:
My wife and I use our phones as our home's internet source. Till now, we've just been connecting things directly to our own hotspots individually as needed. However, we now have many more devices wanting a stable connection, so I bought several routers (Asus RT-AX92U). I've set two up as bridges, one connects to my hotspot, and the other to my wife's hotspot. These bridges feed into the third router set up as dual-wan, to either aggregate or fail-over. All this seems to work, EXCEPT, both phone's seem to want to dhcp the IP addresses used over their hotspot connection. I suspect this is causing IP conflicts when both phones are setting their own IP addresss on the same subnet, and their gateway addresses also exactly the same. I've tried setting static IP addresses in the bridges, but then even though their wifi connection remains, the access to the internet drops. I think I need to tell the phone what subnet to use to correct the problem.
Someone please help!
Thanks in advance.
-Jason
PS. both our N20u's are bootloader unlocked. So, you know, I can probably control anything that needs to be, if I only knew what and where.
You'd need to root the phone for that - OneUI does not let you finetune the hotspot functionality unfortunately. In fact, Android itself hardcodes the tethering IP and DHCP range. Once rooted, you can use any of the root tether apps, many of which allow setting your own DHCP ranges and IP addresses.
Another, possibly better solution would be if you took a home broadband data line from your provider/carrier, and used a USB 4G dongle with that.
fonix232 said:
You'd need to root the phone for that - OneUI does not let you finetune the hotspot functionality unfortunately. In fact, Android itself hardcodes the tethering IP and DHCP range. Once rooted, you can use any of the root tether apps, many of which allow setting your own DHCP ranges and IP addresses.
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Could you recommend a tethering app with that ability? I am rooted. The tethering apps I've looked at either won't do that, or get bad reviews for not working well.
0reo said:
Could you recommend a tethering app with that ability? I am rooted. The tethering apps I've looked at either won't do that, or get bad reviews for not working well.
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Click to collapse
I can't, unfortunately. To be honest, since Android introduced built-in tethering, the market of tether apps have dropped significantly, especially since rooting hasn't been a mainstream thing for the past ~4 years or so.
Why can't you get a real Internet connection? . Main will be the cable/fiber & failover can be your mobile connection.