USB Tethering on Android

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15 comments

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    Firewalla

    What I know is, one of our developers is really excited about this.  He is currently looking and see if there is a way to integrate this into the system.  There are a few hurdles needs to go through, which including managing the newly created interface, which is very dynamic ... 

    If anyone interested in this, please comment, it will for sure speed up the process. 

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    Firewalla

    @james, yes you inspired our guys to look into this :)

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    Sukumar Patel

    @james Your IOS post motivated me to try it out on Android.

    In an ideal scenario, I would like to
    1. Internet goes down
    2. Plug in phone to Firewalla
    3. Automatic failover happens.

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    Chris Dillard

    Definitely interested.

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    Alex

    I'm also interessted in this feature.  I have another idea .. what about 4G usb sticks for failover wan connection? I have several huawei sticks on different raspberrys .. they create a new interface and assign a ip via dhcp. Config is done via a webinterface (I config them with my pc, save and replug to the raspberry).

    Also one interessting solution .. My neighbor in my house also owns a firewalla gold. Usually we don't share our internet connection, we are connected to different ISPs. But if one of ours would failed, a failover over wifi would be perfect. Maybe with a wifi usb stick?

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    James Willhoite

    @Firewalla would have to say if this is possible but one thing that comes to mind is a Bridge between the USB connection and one of the Ethernet Ports. Then you could set up that Port as a WAN in the App? Never tried it though, and not sure if the Firewalla app would see that the connection is up for that port.

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    Sukumar Patel

    The idea is to be able to tether my phone as a backup/failover when the primary WAN is down. Hence, this needs to be a quick setup..

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    James Willhoite

    It would be, you would have to script it on reboot since all changes made outside of the home "pi" directory are lost.

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    James Willhoite

    I would like to have this option. I posted about the issue right now with iPhone and iOS 14 in this post

     

    https://help.firewalla.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/360051416554-Any-way-to-tether-an-iPhone-to-a-Firewalla-Gold-router-?page=1#community_comment_360015014813

     

    I think it would be a great addition to the Firewalla.

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    James Willhoite

    Glad I could. I think this firewall is one of the best!

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    Sukumar Patel

    Hey @firewalla Any further updates on this?

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    David Kittell

    Very interested in this as well.

    I’d love to have my Firewalla Blue allow for USB failover to my phone or allow for another WAN like Firewalla Gold

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    Joseph Huber

    I just purchased a Firewalla Gold for a non-profit I work with, and am considering one of the Firewall models for my home.  The USB tether option for a backup WAN connection would be a wonderful addition.  I personally don't need it to be WiFi if WiFi tether would add significant cost.  I am also looking at building an OpenWRT or pfSense appliance for home to get the tether capability.

    I saw elsewhere that there is an Ubuntu 20 version of the Firewalla Gold.  I run Ubuntu 20.04 LTS at home.  When the Internet goes down, I connect my android phone to my PC, turn USB Tethering on in the phone, and in about 10 seconds Ubuntu has figured out that a new network interface is available, handles the connection change seamlessly, and I'm back on the Internet.  No configuration needs to be done.  As far as I have noticed, the connection will not switch back automatically once the main internet comes back, but it will switch back once I unplug the phone, and no configuration or settings change is required.

    All to say that Ubuntu seems to handle a good part of the connection switching, so perhaps a USB tether would be more easily doable in the Ubuntu Firewalla Gold.

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    James Willhoite

    I've been able to get the current version of the Gold to get a IP address from Verizon via USB tether. I can see ARP requests going through, but I haven't been able to get anything else to go out. I know it is because of the complex routing tables and I've haven't had a lot of time to debug it and get it to work. This would all be done via terminal and not through the UI (which Firewalla would have to develop). It would be interesting to try the Ubuntu 20 and see how that works .... Maybe put that on my Pi and see how it goes.

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