Using my Linux PC's internet connection

Dear all,

the firmware seems to support reverse USB tethering, which would allow the phone to use my PC’s internet connection. I am having trouble getting this to work. It seems to officially support only Windows Internet Connection Sharing, but I suppose that the underlying technology is simply that the fairphone sends a DHCP requests over the USB connection and then tries to obtain and IP address.

So I have tried with Linux and NetworkManager’s built-in connection sharing features, which rely on dnsmasq to manage and assign local IP addresses. On the PC side, things seem fine, the connection is up and running and so is the DHCP server. But the fairphone doesn’t seem to send a DHCP request, at least dnsmasq does not report that it has received a request.

Is there anything special about Windows Internet Connection Sharing, which is distinct from how NetworkManager handles it? Has anyone else managed to hook up their phone to their PC’s internet connection on Linux?

Hi Johannes,

being a Linux user myself I’m very familiar with the generic kind of challenge - even if I do not really need a certain feature or application, I can spend a lot of time finding a way, simply because it ought to work.
However, communicating with external hardware is the weak point of Linux, and in some cases I have given in (scanners, for instance, are much easier to deal with under Windows). Nor have I cared about reverse tethering. So my (not very helpful) comment is: is it important?
The only reason I can think of is where you have access to a wired network connection but no wifi. But even under those circumstances, why is it necessary to connect your phone to the internet? Your PC is up and running, so why not use it? If you want to transfer files (apps included) to your phone, it’s easy using a usb cable.

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Weil, right now I would like to my podcast client (BeyondPod) to update the podcast list and download new episodes, and I am in a place without wifi but with wired broadband. Yes such places do exist.

I also tried to use internet connection sharing via Wifi. However, I am under the impression that the fairphone rom does not support ad-hoc wireless networking either. So I am stuck.
Third, well, for me as a long time linux enthusiast I just want to be able to use the capabilities my device has…
Generally, btw, I disagree that “communicating with external hardware is the weak point of Linux”. Actually most everyday use cases my experience is reverse: Windows always goes on a quest for drivers as soon as a new device is plugged in and often enough fails to properly install them. On Linux, it is mostly just a matter of plugging in the device and let udev do the rest for you (identify and load the needed kernel module etc). E.g, USB tethering (not reverse) just works like a charm without and driver installation on Linux, while on Windows I had to download literally hundreds of megs of drivers to make it work.

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Doesn’t this depend on your Linux distribution and version? :wink:

If you open up a wifi hotspot with your Linux computer, it’s not ad-hoc anymore, is it? On Windows, I know there is Connectify to share the wired internet connection…

Sounds like a path worth trying… GitHub - prahladyeri/hotspotd: Simple daemon to create a wifi hotspot on Linux (plus dependencies) might be worth testing (haven’t done it myself).

You probably don’t even need any extra software for this. Here’s for example the relevant setting when using Gnome 3:
Settings > Network > Wi-Fi > Use as Hotspot

Hi, I am using the AOSP-variant, I assume it’s the same process for the Fairphone OS-flavour of Android: You should configure your PC to be usable as router using the IP-adress 192.168.0.1 on the usb-connection, it also has to act as a nameserver on this IP (so using dnsmasq this probably just works). I already used my fairphone to provide an wifi access point using reverse tethering.

Some wifi chips can’t be put into master/access point mode, so you can only share in adhoc mode. run:

iw list

and look for the “Supported interface modes:” section. If you don’t see ‘AP’ then you can’t make an access point that android will connect to.

A solution has been provided:

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