Maddler's Rants 'n' Raves

As many already noticed the Dummy IAP is not working on N800. This basically means that you cannot use browser, chat, calls and so on if you use a bluetooth or USB connection.
But, as maybe someone said already, I had a dream! What if I define a not-so-dummy ad-hoc wlan connection and use same usb0/BT subnet? Want to know more?

[More:]

I had already defined usb0 config, both on N800 and laptop:

/etc/networki/interfaces on N800


auto usb0
iface usb0 inet static
address 192.168.2.15
netmask 255.255.255.0
gateway 192.168.2.1


and on laptop


auto usb0
iface usb0 inet static
address 192.168.2.1
netmask 255.255.255.0
up echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward
up iptables -P FORWARD ACCEPT
up iptables -I POSTROUTING 1 -t nat -j MASQUERADE -s 192.168.2.0/24
down echo 0 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward
down iptables -t nat -F POSTROUTING


(both come from www.maemo.org wiki)

Then on N800 you need to define a new "Dummy" ad-hoc WLAN network connection. Using 0.0.0.0/0.0.0.0 address/netmask and 0.0.0.0 as gateway, no address will be assigned to wlan0, preventing other from being able to connect to your device. At this point your applications will automagically make use of already established USB0 (or bluetooth connection) since no new route will be added.


Nokia-N800-51:~# route -n
Kernel IP routing table
Destination Gateway Genmask Flags Metric Ref Use Iface
192.168.2.0 0.0.0.0 255.255.255.0 U 0 0 0 usb0
0.0.0.0 192.168.2.1 0.0.0.0 UG 0 0 0 usb


Launching DNSmsaq on your PC will make thing easier to configure, since it will read your PC's /etc/resolv.conf and will proxy N800 requests to those nameserver.

At this point you only need to create a new nameserver entry on N800 /etc/resolv.conf

echo "nameserver 192.168.2.1" >> /etc/resolv.conf

At this point, if I didn't missed anything, everything should be working! :)

I know this is not the "perfect" solution, especially where you are not allowed to have wi-fi enabled. But, as of now, better than nothing!

Optionally, once the connection is established you can use

ifconfig wlan0 down

to switch wi-fi off. The change won't affect "dummy" connection.

More to come!
Stay tuned!

Maddler • Maemo, Nokia N800