USB Internet
You can enable internet through the USB cable when WiFi doesn't work yet on your device. For this to work you set your host machine as gateway for your phone and let your host machine do network address translation for the phone.
Note: It works in both sides: to share internet from your phone to PC (aka usb tethering), just swap host and phone below and use 172.16.42.1. |
On your phone:
$ sudo route add default gw 172.16.42.2
$ echo nameserver 80.80.80.80 | sudo tee /etc/resolv.conf
Substitute 80.80.80.80 for your own internal DNS server if you want.
To make the configuration persistent after reboot do:
$ echo 'route add default gw 172.16.42.2' | sudo tee /etc/local.d/usb_internet.start
$ sudo chmod +x /etc/local.d/usb_internet.start
$ sudo rc-update add local
$ #disable it if you plug the USB cable out and want to use WiFi, because it can interfere with routing (packets would try to use the USB networking, even though it's disconnected)
On the host machine:
Ubuntu/Arch/Alpine
$ sudo sysctl net.ipv4.ip_forward=1
$ sudo iptables -P FORWARD ACCEPT
$ sudo iptables -A POSTROUTING -t nat -j MASQUERADE -s 172.16.42.0/24
This will enable IPv4 forwarding on your host machine which basically lets it function as a router. The postrouting command will make the kernel on the host translate the packets between the phone network and your normal network on the host machine.
RHEL/CentOS/Fedora
$ sudo sysctl net.ipv4.ip_forward=1
$ sudo firewall-cmd --get-active-zone
$ sudo nmcli connection modify ethX_other connection.zone external
$ sudo nmcli connection modify ethX_to_phone connection.zone internal
$ sudo firewall-cmd --get-active-zone
$ sudo firewall-cmd --zone=external --add-masquerade
$ sudo firewall-cmd --zone=external --list-all
$ sudo firewall-cmd --zone=internal --list-all
Use the --permanent
and --reload
options for a persistent configuration.[1]
You can now verify the internet connection on your phone by pinging something. If this does not work it means you need to compile the kernel with USB_ETH setting enabled in menuconfig.