Use Android phone as Internet gateway (Not WiFi hotspot) - Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

Just wondering if it is possible to setup Android 4 phone as internet gateway without enabling WiFi tethering?
Use case:
Connect the phone to my WiFi home network.
Set phone in gateway mode (ipv4 forwarding?)
On any other PC in my home network set default gateway to phone IP
In theory Android at this stage would handle outgoing connections for that particular PC.
On the grand scale what I'm thinking about is this:
I have multiple phones that have unlimited 4g plans on them, every time I come back home, phone joins the WiFi network and starts acting as a gateway. On my main routing box (pfSense) I setup multiple gateways (for each phone) and a load balancer. So every time phone appears, gateway changes to UP state in pfSense -> Load Balancing is using that phone as well. When I leave my house, pfSense detects that gateway is unreachable -> removes it from list of load balancers.

Did you ever find a solution, this is exactly what I want to do.

Related

Samsung S3 home wifi fix

All,
I just recently got my S3 (T-Mobile) on opening day 21Jun12 however could not get my wifi to work properly at home. It would say "connected" on my S3 but no internet and wifi calling. In addition, when I tried to "enable" my wifi calling, I would get a REG99 error. Tech support narrowed this error to an address update on my profile (911 address info) which was updated but the problem still existed. I troubleshooted with my router and saw no problems on that end due to the fact that 8 other devices connected fine. After looking carefully at IP addresses, I noticed my S3 persistently tried to connect with an IP of 192.168.100.16 where all my other devices had an IP that started with 192.168.1.(xxx). Check to see if your S3 defaults to a conflicting IP or IP that your Router does not accept (My router accepted standard IPs from 192.168.1.1 to 192.168.1.254). Before you do the steps below, reference your Router Configuration and check your starting and ending IP addresses, Gateway IP, DNS and Alternate DNS.
Now for the fix:
If you're S3 is connected to your home wifi but no internet, wifi calling, etc.
1) Simply goto Settings
2) Click on Wifi to get to the your wi-fi networks list
3) Press AND HOLD on the connected network (The one that says connected) and a window will pop up
4) Select modify network config.
5) highlight advanced options
6) Change IP settings (dropdown) to static
7) Enter a new IP address that your router accepts (ex. 192.168.1.10). Like mentioned above, my router takes 1-256 for the last number set. Be careful to not select an IP address that's already being used. You can easily see what IPs are used in your router configuration setup (something like attached devices).
8) Make sure your gateway is similar to your router config (usually 192.168.1.1)
9) Network prefix length - I left this alone at 24
10) DNS 1 and DNS 2 can be also found in your Router Config setup. (DNS 2 is usually your alternate DNS).
11) Click save and voila (You may want to turn wifi on and off on your S3 to recycle)
After 3 tech support calls with no resolution and researching this for the last 2 weeks, I found the answer to my problems. I can understand how annoying this problem could be for some people out there so I decided to register with XDA and post this for you all.
Hope this works for some of you. Enjoy!
~Jay
Sounds like an issue with the phone's DHCP client.
However afaik T-Mobile sells the US Galaxy S3, not thn international i9300 what this forum is about.
Sent from my GT-I9300 using xda premium
Yeeeehhhhaaaaa
JAY! you are amazing... thanks soooooo much - i've been trying to sort this for ages - really appreciate your time and expertise.
Cheers Anna
Jccovert said:
All,
I just recently got my S3 (T-Mobile) on opening day 21Jun12 however could not get my wifi to work properly at home. It would say "connected" on my S3 but no internet and wifi calling. In addition, when I tried to "enable" my wifi calling, I would get a REG99 error. Tech support narrowed this error to an address update on my profile (911 address info) which was updated but the problem still existed. I troubleshooted with my router and saw no problems on that end due to the fact that 8 other devices connected fine. After looking carefully at IP addresses, I noticed my S3 persistently tried to connect with an IP of 192.168.100.16 where all my other devices had an IP that started with 192.168.1.(xxx). Check to see if your S3 defaults to a conflicting IP or IP that your Router does not accept (My router accepted standard IPs from 192.168.1.1 to 192.168.1.254). Before you do the steps below, reference your Router Configuration and check your starting and ending IP addresses, Gateway IP, DNS and Alternate DNS.
Now for the fix:
If you're S3 is connected to your home wifi but no internet, wifi calling, etc.
1) Simply goto Settings
2) Click on Wifi to get to the your wi-fi networks list
3) Press AND HOLD on the connected network (The one that says connected) and a window will pop up
4) Select modify network config.
5) highlight advanced options
6) Change IP settings (dropdown) to static
7) Enter a new IP address that your router accepts (ex. 192.168.1.10). Like mentioned above, my router takes 1-256 for the last number set. Be careful to not select an IP address that's already being used. You can easily see what IPs are used in your router configuration setup (something like attached devices).
8) Make sure your gateway is similar to your router config (usually 192.168.1.1)
9) Network prefix length - I left this alone at 24
10) DNS 1 and DNS 2 can be also found in your Router Config setup. (DNS 2 is usually your alternate DNS).
11) Click save and voila (You may want to turn wifi on and off on your S3 to recycle)
After 3 tech support calls with no resolution and researching this for the last 2 weeks, I found the answer to my problems. I can understand how annoying this problem could be for some people out there so I decided to register with XDA and post this for you all.
Hope this works for some of you. Enjoy!
~Jay
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

All android devices - full wifi signal, no internet - other devices work fine

Hi there,
I have near been driven to madness by this problem so im admitting defeat and opening it up to all and everyone.
Very quick history - I have weak signal on the top floor of my house, so i purchased a TP LINK WR702N mini router. I have set this up as a wireless repeater on the top floor, and for the majority of my devices it works great. On my sisters windows laptop, my girlfriends iPhone and iPad, they all see the network, connect with full strength and receive 54Mbps. On all of these devices, I can enter 192.168.1.254 and reach the repeaters settings page, or enter 192.168.1.1 and reach my main router (downstairs) settings page. This suggests to me that everything works fine.
When i connect with an android device (either my Nexus 10 or my samsung galaxy S2) the moment they pick up the strong repeater signal - they lose internet connection. The are connected with 100% and 54Mbps speed to the repeater - but they cannot access the web. I can bring up 192.168.1.254 for the repeater, but they will not access 192.168.1.1 for the main router - I believe this is the problem.
I have tried changing the settings on my main router - I have changed the whole network from WPA to WEP encryption, to no avail
I have changed the android advanced wifi settings, changing to fixed IP on both of the android devices and setting the default gateway and DNS to be 192.168.1.1
I turned off my devices, reset the main router, then turned on the repeater - this appeared to fix the problem - but when i turned the repeater on last night I couldnt get internet access, so i retried this step and it didnt work
as a note, all of the devices on my network have a fixed IP set from my main router - these correspond to the fixed IPs on my android devices.
I have spoke to Google and TP Link supprt, each blame the other, and now I really dont know what to do.
Thanks
::bump::
Make sure your devices do not send out, nor honour, ICMP redirects. Since your are running both on the same subnet, there's a possibility your repeater sends out an ICMP redirect once your Android device addresses the main router, since it IP topological is a closer way talking directly.
Or, use different subnets.

[Q] WiFi - won't connect to a Netgear Powerline Adapter

I have had a Netgear Powerline Adapter system set up in my Bedroom (XAVNB2001) for the past year and a half, because the signal from my Cisco E4200 doesn't effectively reach up there. It has its own SSID, on the 2.4GHz band. It has been completely solid and reliable, and I use it all the time with my Verizon Samasung Galaxy Nexus (stock ROM 4.2.2), and Asus Infinity Tablet (stock ROM 4.2.1). My wife also used it without problem with her prior Motorola Droid 3.
But for reasons I can't identify, my wife's new Galaxy S4 won't connect to it. Also Stock ROM 4.2.2. Her phone sees the Adapter/SSID, and shows a strong signal when we're up there. I enter the passcode with the same encryption (WPA/WPA2 PSK) as I have on the other working devices, and it quickly goes to "Acquiring IP" but this never completes. It tries a couple of times, and usually ends up saying: "Network Disabled Because Internet Connection Is Slow." But it is not slow - works as fast with the other devices as when I'm connected to the Cisco downstairs near the Router. I have carefully entered the passcode (checking the box to show the characters to make sure I'm not putting in a typo) a dozen times.
There is no problem connecting her S4 to any other WiFi network we've encountered (to the Cisco downstairs directly, at my kids' houses, hotels, etc.).
I can't see any trouble-shooting steps to even identify the problem. Usually this is a no-brainer: you see the SSID, enter the passcode, and you're in. What could possibly be the problem here??
DLCPhoto said:
I have had a Netgear Powerline Adapter system set up in my Bedroom (XAVNB2001) for the past year and a half, because the signal from my Cisco E4200 doesn't effectively reach up there. It has its own SSID, on the 2.4GHz band. It has been completely solid and reliable, and I use it all the time with my Verizon Samasung Galaxy Nexus (stock ROM 4.2.2), and Asus Infinity Tablet (stock ROM 4.2.1). My wife also used it without problem with her prior Motorola Droid 3.
But for reasons I can't identify, my wife's new Galaxy S4 won't connect to it. Also Stock ROM 4.2.2. Her phone sees the Adapter/SSID, and shows a strong signal when we're up there. I enter the passcode with the same encryption (WPA/WPA2 PSK) as I have on the other working devices, and it quickly goes to "Acquiring IP" but this never completes. It tries a couple of times, and usually ends up saying: "Network Disabled Because Internet Connection Is Slow." But it is not slow - works as fast with the other devices as when I'm connected to the Cisco downstairs near the Router. I have carefully entered the passcode (checking the box to show the characters to make sure I'm not putting in a typo) a dozen times.
There is no problem connecting her S4 to any other WiFi network we've encountered (to the Cisco downstairs directly, at my kids' houses, hotels, etc.).
I can't see any trouble-shooting steps to even identify the problem. Usually this is a no-brainer: you see the SSID, enter the passcode, and you're in. What could possibly be the problem here??
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You could try creating a static IP address using the MAC of the GS4 on your Cisco router. It sounds like it's authenticating, but unable to assign an IP for whatever reason.
Disable WiFi Multimedia (WMM) or the equivalent... BOOM! should work fine.
Also, if it's a MAC filter issue turn your MAC filtering off. If that is the issue your GS4 will connect instantly once MAC filtering is off.
Thanks for the replies.
I assigned a Static IP to the GS4 through the Router without difficulty. I then went to the GS4's settings for this SSID, changed it to Static IP, entered the assigned IP, kept the Gateway as 192.168.1.1, and changed the DNS settings to what is shown through IPCONFIG when I check my Desktop.
It now connected, but shows a DNS error when trying to go to a given website. So something funky is going on there. The phone shows a setting for "Network prefix length" and has a value of 24 - I've not encountered this before - should there be a different setting here?
There is no MAC filtering enabled, so that's ok.
"Disable WiFi Multimedia (WMM) or the equivalent" - where is this setting located? I don't see anything along those lines on the Phone, or in the Router's program??
DLCPhoto said:
Thanks for the replies.
I assigned a Static IP to the GS4 through the Router without difficulty. I then went to the GS4's settings for this SSID, changed it to Static IP, entered the assigned IP, kept the Gateway as 192.168.1.1, and changed the DNS settings to what is shown through IPCONFIG when I check my Desktop.
It now connected, but shows a DNS error when trying to go to a given website. So something funky is going on there. The phone shows a setting for "Network prefix length" and has a value of 24 - I've not encountered this before - should there be a different setting here?
There is no MAC filtering enabled, so that's ok.
"Disable WiFi Multimedia (WMM) or the equivalent" - where is this setting located? I don't see anything along those lines on the Phone, or in the Router's program??
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm not sure about Eric214's suggestion, but it sounds like it could help. Regarding the static IP, if you set it on the router, the phone should pick it up automatically without you needing to enter it manually. After you set the static IP on the router, does the phone still hang on Acquiring IP? If you HAD to manually enter, you could plug in the DNS address coming straight from your router, or Google's open-dns of 8.8.4.4 and 8.8.8.8 (I think that still works.)
ttupa said:
I'm not sure about Eric214's suggestion, but it sounds like it could help. Regarding the static IP, if you set it on the router, the phone should pick it up automatically without you needing to enter it manually. After you set the static IP on the router, does the phone still hang on Acquiring IP? If you HAD to manually enter, you could plug in the DNS address coming straight from your router, or Google's open-dns of 8.8.4.4 and 8.8.8.8 (I think that still works.)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I tried it before, but tried it again - with the Static IP set up on the Router (using the "DHCP Reservation" option in the Router's program), and the Connection Settings on the GS4 for this SSID set to DHCP, all advanced settings at their default, it behaves the same way: Shows Acquiring IP, tries it twice, then shows the message I quoted above.
The Router remains set at Automatic Configuration/DHCP overall, with DHCP Reservation used to create a Static IP for this phone's MAC address. If this isn't the proper way to do this, let me know.
And with the Phone Settings for this SSID's WiFi set to Static IP, and the info entered as above, it quickly connects, but doesn't gain internet access.
It shouldn't be this hard. This is usually a no-brainer, as I first indicated. What is so different with this phone's WiFi setup??
I appreciate your input!
DLCPhoto said:
I tried it before, but tried it again - with the Static IP set up on the Router (using the "DHCP Reservation" option in the Router's program), and the Connection Settings on the GS4 for this SSID set to DHCP, all advanced settings at their default, it behaves the same way: Shows Acquiring IP, tries it twice, then shows the message I quoted above.
The Router remains set at Automatic Configuration/DHCP overall, with DHCP Reservation used to create a Static IP for this phone's MAC address. If this isn't the proper way to do this, let me know.
And with the Phone Settings for this SSID's WiFi set to Static IP, and the info entered as above, it quickly connects, but doesn't gain internet access.
It shouldn't be this hard. This is usually a no-brainer, as I first indicated. What is so different with this phone's WiFi setup??
I appreciate your input!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That sounds exactly right to me, and you're right that it shouldn't be that difficult. I've heard others report of miscellaneous routers that don't play nice with our phone. In this case, it's an AP, but that might still be the issue. I haven't personally experienced the problem, so hopefully someone else can chime in who has.
ttupa said:
That sounds exactly right to me, and you're right that it shouldn't be that difficult. I've heard others report of miscellaneous routers that don't play nice with our phone. In this case, it's an AP, but that might still be the issue. I haven't personally experienced the problem, so hopefully someone else can chime in who has.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Does anybody else have any ideas here?
I have also posted on Netgear and Verizon's forums, but am not expecting too much from either of these. I'm putting my money on the expertise here at XDA!
WMM is listed under the advanced settings of your router, it's not phone based but in your router. Disable it and return your other settings to normal and it should fix your problem.
Eric214 said:
WMM is listed under the advanced settings of your router, it's not phone based but in your router. Disable it and return your other settings to normal and it should fix your problem.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'll have another look in the morning but earlier today I looked through every page of settings and didn't see anything that looked or sounded like this.
What section or function might you expect it to be found? What else might it be called?
Thanks.
Advanced settings in your router.
Basically, the 802.11n spec requires devices to support 802.11e (Quality of Service [QoS] enhancements for wireless LAN) in order to use HT (High Throughput) link rates, i.e. higher than 54 Mbps. (WMM is a subset of 802.11e that was created by the Wi-Fi Alliance as a stop-gap measure while 802.11e made its way slowly through the IEEE review process.)
The point is this is an issue for the GS4 as it's either firmware related or a Samsung issue they didn't realize they caused. Point being, if you have constant disconnects to your router, disabling WMM should make your connection "stick". At this point its what you may have to do until a firmware update for the router is released or Samsung releases an OTA update fix. Unless you're rolling 3+ devices at the same time streaming content you shouldn't have an issue running 54mbps. I stream full HD content to 2 devices at the same time with no lags or decompression issues at 54mbps.
As long as your phone has a static IP from the router there is no reason to set the DNS on the S4...the router does all the DNS routing for your devices. Hopefully that'll fix your DNS error issue.
Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk 2
OK - had another look at the Router settings, and found the WMM option in the QoS section. I somehow overlooked that yesterday. I'll try this out later today when I'm at home.
Eric214 - with respect to this WMM setting, I have a Panasonic SmartTV, and stream Netflix, Amazon Video, Vudu, etc. and can get the highest quality (1080p) through these. Is changing this setting going to impair throughput for this purpose?
chrishoyt2012 - after changing to Static IP, if I did nothing on the phone (that is, kept it at DHCP), it didn't fix the problem. I then selected Static IP on the phone, which necessitated inputting DNS. There were DNS server entries there by default, and these didn't work, so I manually changed them to my ISP's DNS that are used on my Desktop.
What should I be doing in this regard, other than what I have tried above?
Thanks!
Well, I disabled WMM Support, but nothing changed. It still failed to get an IP Address, same as I described in my original post.
No replies in the other forums either.
I'd really like to get this going - I'm also considering getting the S4, but this may cause some second thoughts...
I went into the Netgear Adapter's setup program, but couldn't fix the problem there either.
I tried different Channels, and a few other settings changes, but no joy.
There was a WMM setting there, but it was checked, and greyed out, so I couldn't try unchecking it even if I wanted to. I disabled WMM on the Router again, but this option remained unavailable on the Adapter's setup program.
I went into my Router, and deleted the IP address for the S4, to try and 'reset' it, but still no change. The S4 shows 'failed to acquire IP' every time.
Any other ideas?? I also tried my daughter's Razr HD, and it connected fine, just like the others. What is so different about the S4's WiFi connectivity??

[Q] Android unable to connect to my Wi-Fi network - Windows can

I am in university halls of residence. I have setup a Wi-Fi hotspot in my room using a generic router by connecting from the ethernet out port in the wall to a ethernet LAN port and disabling DHCP on the router.
This works perfectly for my Windows 7 laptop. It connects to the router and then to the uni internet without issues. However, although my Samsung Galaxy S3 (International i9300) can detect the network, if I just try to connect to the network as I would any other it gets stuck when obtaining an IP address. After messing around with it for a bit i found that I could get the phone to connect by going into the advanced settings and choosing "static" instead of "DCHP". I don't know what I was really meant to enter for IP Address, gateway, subnet, DNS 1 and DNS 2.
The router has the IP of 192.168.1.1 when i connect it directly to my laptop via ethernet so I tried that as the gateway, I set the IP address to something like 192.168.1.14 (So that it was similar but different), I set the subnet to 255.255.255.0 and the DNS servers I used google's (8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4). This got me connected to the router but there doesn't appear to be any internet connection.
I therefore thought that I had entered wrong information for the network (I was only guessing after all). Therefore I went into ipconfig in Windows and copied the default gateway and DNS servers and used a similar IP address (Last number different). I had the same issue.
Does anyone have any suggestions?
I only want Wi-Fi in my room for mobile.

How to set static IP without specifying gateway

I'm trying to set up a Wifi with a static IP but NO gateway or DNS but until I enter a gateway and DNS the save button remains greyed out.
From a networking perspective, you should be able to have a Wifi connection without a gateway (This is true for all devices with multiple network connections) so that it uses an alternative connection (Mobile data in this case) but for some reason the Android devs seem to think otherwise.
The network I'm connecting to has no internet connection (Used for local connectivity only) so I need the phone to still use my mobile connection whilst connected. As Android turns off mobile data when connected to Wifi I was hoping I could leave the gateway blank to force it to use it's mobile connection when connected to this network but I can't
How can I either have mobile data on for just 1 SSID or save a connection with no gateway so it does use mobile (I tried 0.0.0.0 to no avail)?
Phone is a rooted HTC One M8 running Android 4.4.4

Categories

Resources