Tethering for network connection through Fairphone: linux and windows 7

[agabrown]

Hello,

Before travelling to a place with only the mobile phone network as an option to connect to the internet, I figured out how to do this through my Fairphone by “tethering” it to my notebook. It works for me within Linux and windows 7 and I thought it might be useful information to share.

I have an FP1 running Cherry 1.6.

Windows 7

Here I simply went to Settings --> Wireless & Networks --> More… --> Tethering and portable hotspot --> USB tethering

I switched the latter option on while the phone was connected to my notebook. After a search for drivers by the win7 operating system everything “just worked”. I could connect to internet as if on wireless (of course after activating the “Data Connection” in Settings).

Linux

On the same notebook I run a Gentoo Linux operating system, kernel 3.14.14-gentoo. Before trying to connect the phone make sure the following options are activated in your kernel configuration:

Device Drivers  --->
  [*] Network device support  --->
      USB Network Adapters  --->
         {M} Multi-purpose USB Networking Framework
         -M-   Host for RNDIS and ActiveSync devices
         <M>   Simple USB Network Links (CDC Ethernet subset)
         [*]     Embedded ARM Linux links (iPaq, ...)
 [*]   Wireless LAN  --->
    <M>   Wireless RNDIS USB support

Then recompile and reboot. Once rebooted connect the phone to the notebook through a USB cable and activate the USB tethering and data connection (as above). When executing “dmesg” you should see the following lines or similar:

usb 1-1.2: USB disconnect, device number 3
usb 1-1.2: new high-speed USB device number 6 using ehci-pci
usb 1-1.2: New USB device found, idVendor=0bb4, idProduct=0004
usb 1-1.2: New USB device strings: Mfr=2, Product=3, SerialNumber=4
usb 1-1.2: Product: MT65xx Android Phone
usb 1-1.2: Manufacturer: MediaTek
usb 1-1.2: SerialNumber: 0123456789ABCDEF
usbcore: registered new interface driver cdc_ether
rndis_host 1-1.2:1.0 usb0: register 'rndis_host' at usb-0000:00:1a.0-1.2, RNDIS device, 06:1a:08:79:89:c4
usbcore: registered new interface driver rndis_host
systemd-udevd[2495]: renamed network interface usb0 to enp0s26u1u2

The last line indicates the presence of an “ethernet” device from which a connection can be obtained through:

dhcp enp0s26u1u2

You are now set up to connect to internet as if connected to a LAN.

Note that if you want to save on data traffic while connected to your — probably expensive — mobile data connection, you can go to Data Usage (also to monitor how much you’ve already used) and then tap on the button left of the “home” button to activate “Restrict background data”. That way apps that normally collect or send data in the background won’t do so.

Cheers,
Anthony

[kgha]

Setting up tethering on a Linux PC can of course be much easer, depending on your configuration.
I’m running an old slackware-based distro (Linux kernel 2.6.32) and Wicd. I haven’t had to do anything except opening the Wicd GUI and set wired connection to usb0 (instead of default eth0), and it connects flawlessly. I guess it can be done in a similar way in NetworkManager if you have it installed.

[Robin]

And for Mac users: http://www.mactip.net/usb-tethering-a-mac-to-an-android-phone/

[PackElend]

Is there any tutorial for Win XP (I run it in a VM)?
I miss the RNDIS driver
That link is not working this one either

[jftr]

Thanks, @agabrown, for sharing.

@kgha

I guess it can be done in a similar way in NetworkManager if you have it installed.

Yes, with NetworkManager (at least under Ubuntu) you don’t have to do anything. As soon as you turn on tethering on the phone and have a USB connection, your phone shows up as a possible connection in the NetworkManager applet.

An equally easy way which works with every WiFi enabled device is to share the phones internet via WiFi. Next to USB-tethering settings in Android you can turn on the WiFi hotspot. Then just connect to that wireless network.

@agabrown

Note that if you want to save on data traffic while connected to your — probably expensive — mobile data connection, you can go to Data Usage (also to monitor how much you’ve already used) and then tap on the button left of the “home” button to activate “Restrict background data”. That way apps that normally collect or send data in the background won’t do so.

I doubt that restricting background data on the phone helps much. The applications which you use with your Laptop usually incur much more traffic than that little background data on your phone. But it is a good option if you want to minimize usage.