Mailinglist Archive: opensuse (1691 mails)

[C <smaug42@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Thu, Dec 8, 2011 at 16:32, Roger Oberholtzer <roger@xxxxxx> wrote:
> I think the basic connection will be from a telephone that supports
> tethering. We expect that to be supplied by the local user. It would be
> connected to the USB port of the openSUSE computer.

I do something like this all the time while traveling.  You don't need
to use USB cables... it's easier than that.

My basic setup is:
 - An Android phone
 - My openSUSE laptop or my Android Tablet (OS is irrelevant, it'll
work with Windows and OSX too))

Steps to do what you want.

Do the initial setup
 - On the Android phone go to Settings > Wireless & Networks >
Portable WiFi hotspot settings and set up your SSID and Security the
same as you do for a typical WiFi router.

 - On the Laptop/tablet, go to the usual place you go in your
preferred desktop manager to add a WiFi router, and set it up to
connect to the SSID you just defined... same as you do for any WiFi
router.

On the road/in the field
 - On the Android phone, go to Settings > Wireless & Networks and
enable Portable WiFi hotspot
 - If the laptop or tablet has been previously configured correctly it
will automatically find the activated WiFi hotspot and connect.


> Once connected, openSUSE needs to get on the network. I would imagine
> that a telephone that supports tethering handles the IP address assigned
> to the computer? How it gets the address is of no concern. The computer
> will get an address. Right?

Yes.  This works the same as a WiFi router - the device is given a
local IP by the phone.


> Once it has the address, should it be possible, knowing the IP address,
> to access the computer from the outside world? The whole discussion here
> assumes that this is possible. Perhaps that is controlled by the
> telephone? Or the local phone company?
>
> If the IP address could be accessed, I guess the next step might be to
> register it with a dynamic DNS service so it can be know to us. Any
> suggestions on a DNS service? This will be used rather seldom. Mainly in
> times of difficulty or support. I could even consider a stupid solution
> where the system copies a file to a known IP address that we could look
> at.

Run ddclient on the laptop... use DynDNS to manage the dynamically
assigned IP address from the phone company.  After connecting, it
shouldn't take more than a couple of minutes for the device to be
remotely accessible via URL... you can ssh to the remote device etc
the same as if it was connected to a wired network.

This of course assumes that the phone company doesn't put limitations
on the phone contract in use... for me this all worked, and I can
connect to tethered devices.. there is no drama.

I tried this about 18 months ago with an iPhone and it was nothing but
trouble - that may have changed with the iOS updates... I don't know,
but on Android, it's very very simple and straight forward.

I would highly recommend of course that you test drive it yourself,
because your mobile provider is different than mine, and your config
is different etc etc..  Some providers get grumpy if you start
shuffling huge amounts of data, or have "unlimited" data for the first
2GB and then drop your access speeds to a crawl after you hit the cap.

It should be a real simple process using Android phones though.

C.
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