Desktop PC to Android Mobile Hotspot - What do you use for the Gateway?
1. My Windows 10 desktop has no Wi-Fi card.
2. So I Ethernet out to an old router acting as a wireless client bridge.
3. This has been working for many years.
For whatever reason, the Internet went out.
So I set up the phone as a
Mobile Hotspot which works for the laptop.
But I wanted the desktop to be connected also.
1. So I figured I'd set up the bridge, temporarily to the Mobile Hotspot.
2. The Mobile Hotspot has an SSID with the same passphrase as all my APs.
There's also a question in the DD-WRT wireless client bridge setup of:
Local IP Address = 192.168.1.whatever/24
Gateway = 192.168.1.1
Local DNS = 192.168.1.1
Desktop PC to Android Mobile Hotspot - What do you use for the Gateway?
1. My Windows 10 desktop has no Wi-Fi card.
2. So I Ethernet out to an old router acting as a wireless client bridge.
3. This has been working for many years.
Desktop PC to Android Mobile Hotspot - What do you use for the Gateway?
1. My Windows 10 desktop has no Wi-Fi card.
2. So I Ethernet out to an old router acting as a wireless client bridge.
3. This has been working for many years.
For whatever reason, the Internet went out. So I set up the phone as a
Mobile Hotspot which works for the laptop.
But I wanted the desktop to be connected also.
1. So I figured I'd set up the bridge, temporarily to the Mobile Hotspot.
2. The Mobile Hotspot has an SSID with the same passphrase as all my APs.
3. The Mobile Hotspot, by default, is set to 10 clients.
So I saved the old router configuration to the AP.
And I changed the SSID for the wireless client bridge to connect to.
Since the passphrase is the same, only the SSID needed to be changed.
Or so I had thought.
Booted many times but the router (as a wireless client bridge) won't
connect to the mobile phone (set up as a mobile hotspot).
Why not?
Patrick wrote:
Desktop PC to Android Mobile Hotspot - What do you use for the Gateway?
1. My Windows 10 desktop has no Wi-Fi card.
2. So I Ethernet out to an old router acting as a wireless client bridge.
I'm confused by the terminology. I would expect "wireless client" to be sufficient.
3. This has been working for many years.
OK so what is the internet router it normally connects to? And what LAN
IP address does it have?
For whatever reason, the Internet went out.
To avoid confusion, power off this router while the internet is dead.
So I set up the phone as a Mobile Hotspot which works for the laptop.
What LAN IP address does this laptop report when connected to the hotspot?
But I wanted the desktop to be connected also.
1. So I figured I'd set up the bridge, temporarily to the Mobile Hotspot.
2. The Mobile Hotspot has an SSID with the same passphrase as all my APs.
I think this is very confusing. I think you should change its SSID to
be obviously different - "Hotspot" - and specify a different passphrase.
Then change the old router's wireless credentials to the values required
for the hotspot.
[snip]
There's also a question in the DD-WRT wireless client bridge setup of:
Local IP Address = 192.168.1.whatever/24
Gateway = 192.168.1.1
Local DNS = 192.168.1.1
The LAN IP address for the wireless client can only be used for
communication with the client itself. The DHCP service should be off, which means that to communicate with the wireless client your computer
needs a static address of the form 192.168.1.another. The "gateway"
value is meaningless in this context.
Andy Burns wrote:
Patrick wrote:
Desktop PC to Android Mobile Hotspot - What do you use for the Gateway?
Short answer: leave the desktop using DHCP and it'll Just Work
Maybe your intervening router needs a DHCP helper?
As long as the desktop PC was previously set to accept a
DHCP IP & DNS from the main router, nothing should need to change;
however, if it was using a fixed IP, then obviously that would need to
change because x in the settings above is now going to be different.
Patrick wrote:
Desktop PC to Android Mobile Hotspot - What do you use for the Gateway?
1. My Windows 10 desktop has no Wi-Fi card.
2. So I Ethernet out to an old router acting as a wireless client bridge.
I'm confused by the terminology. I would expect "wireless client" to be sufficient.
3. This has been working for many years.
OK so what is the internet router it normally connects to?
And what LAN IP address does it have?
For whatever reason, the Internet went out.
To avoid confusion, power off this router while the internet is dead.
So I set up the phone as a
Mobile Hotspot which works for the laptop.
What LAN IP address does this laptop report when connected to the hotspot?
But I wanted the desktop to be connected also.
1. So I figured I'd set up the bridge, temporarily to the Mobile Hotspot.
2. The Mobile Hotspot has an SSID with the same passphrase as all my APs.
I think this is very confusing. I think you should change its SSID to
be obviously different - "Hotspot" - and specify a different passphrase.
Then change the old router's wireless credentials to the values required
for the hotspot.
There's also a question in the DD-WRT wireless client bridge setup of:
Local IP Address = 192.168.1.whatever/24
Gateway = 192.168.1.1
Local DNS = 192.168.1.1
The LAN IP address for the wireless client can only be used for
communication with the client itself. The DHCP service should be off,
which means that to communicate with the wireless client your computer
needs a static address of the form 192.168.1.another. The "gateway"
value is meaningless in this context.
Once you have the wireless client connected to the hotspot, reconfigure
your computer to "automatic IP addressing" then it will get its IP
address, DNS, and Gateway information directly from the hotspot.
On Wed, 21 Feb 2024 21:37:44 +0000, Andy Burns wrote:
Andy Burns wrote:
Patrick wrote:
Desktop PC to Android Mobile Hotspot - What do you use for the Gateway? >>>Short answer: leave the desktop using DHCP and it'll Just Work
Maybe your intervening router needs a DHCP helper?
I do not understand your suggestion.
The desktop has a static IP address (but it could have been assigned by the gateway for all that it matters). Coming out of the desktop is Ethernet.
The Ethernet goes into the DD-WRT wireless client bridge which DD-WRT calls
a "Repeater Bridge", the other of the 6 choices being "AP", "Station", "Station Bridge", "Repeater" & "Ad Hoc" for the "Radio Mode".
There is no obvious setting in the DD-WRT "Repeater Bridge" setup that has anything to do with DHCP, perhaps because bridges operate at the level of
the MAC address, and as such, are simply pass-through for IP addresses.
The router is bridged wirelessly to an access point which itself is wired
via a switch into the main router which itself connects to the modem.
The strange thing is this has been working for years, so I don't think
there is anything wrong with the DD-WRT setup.
But I do wonder what
"gateway" the phone uses since the gateway of 192.168.1.1 wouldn't exist on the phone's network when used as an access point mobile hotspot.
I do not understand your suggestion.
The desktop has a static IP address (but it could have been assigned by the >> gateway for all that it matters). Coming out of the desktop is Ethernet.
Understood. It should also therefore have a compatible subnet mask, and
a default gateway. These will enable it to communicate with the
internet router. Conventionally it will have its DNS pointing at the internet router which will forward requests to the ISP's DNS server. Aternatively it may explicitly use an independent DNS server such as
8.8.8.8 from Google.
Please tell us these parameters.
You may have a good reason for configuring the desktop PC with a static
IP. Please tell us why.
I know nothing of DD-WRT but in the context of its "Repeater Bridge"
mode it should not have a DHCP server. Neither should it have a DNS
server. As you say it passes all such traffic through as if it were a
piece of wire.
But in order for you to communicate with the DD-WRT it needs an IP address/mask. This must be consistent with the IP address of the
desktop PC, and it must not be the same as the IP address of anything
else in your system. It does not need anything for DNS or default
gateway unless it needs to get information from the internet.
We need to understand how the DD-WRT gets its IP address.
Did you put it there? Is it automatically established by the "Repeater Bridge"
mode? Does it get it by DHCP from the router on the other end of the wireless link?
The router is bridged wirelessly to an access point which itself is wired
via a switch into the main router which itself connects to the modem.
The strange thing is this has been working for years, so I don't think
there is anything wrong with the DD-WRT setup.
OK so far. What is the IP address of the main router?
But I do wonder what
"gateway" the phone uses since the gateway of 192.168.1.1 wouldn't exist on >> the phone's network when used as an access point mobile hotspot.
You can find this out.
Connect a laptop to the phone hotspot via WiFi. To avoid confusion first power off everything except the laptop and phone. Use the command line IPCONFIG /ALL to discover the network address, and specifically the
default gateway address allocated to the laptop. The laptop should be configured to "Obtain an IP address automatically" and "Obtain DNS
server address automatically". These parameters are generated by the
hotspot in the phone.
I expect you to discover that the network address is different from the
one established by the internet router.
Now disconnect the laptop from the phone, by disabling its wireless
facility.
Power up the desktop PC and the DD-WRT only. Establish whether you can
still communicate with the DD-WRT. If it expects to get its IP address
from the internet router then this will fail, and you won't be able to communicate with it. If its IP address is static (regardless of how
this was achieved) then communication should be possible.
At this stage you should be able to change the wireless parameters to
suit those required by the phone. The DD-WRT should then show it is connected to the phone, possibly via a status page of some sort.
Now connect the laptop BY WIRE to the DD-WRT. What should happen is
that the laptop sends its DHCP request and receives replies from the
phone hotspot. The network parameters should look much the same as when
the laptop was connected directly to the phone hotspot earlier in this test.
You should then be able to browse the internet.
Now for the desktop PC. Connect this by wire to the DD-WRT. The PC is statically configured to communicate with the DD-WRT, but the I expect network address generated by the phone hotspot to be different. So
change the desktop PC to "Obtain an IP address automatically" and
"Obtain DNS server address automatically". It will now no longer
communicate with the management page in the DD-WRT but it should
communicate THROUGH the DD-WRT to the phone hotspot, and should be able
to browse the internet.
Configuration for interface "eth0"
DHCP enabled: No
IP Address: 192.168.1.123
Subnet Prefix: 192.168.1.0/24 (mask
255.255.255.0)
Default Gateway: 192.168.1.1
Gateway Metric: 1
InterfaceMetric: 35
Statically Configured DNS Servers: 1.1.1.1
8.8.8.8
Register with which suffix: Primary only
Statically Configured WINS Servers: None
On Wed, 21 Feb 2024 13:40:06 +0000, Java Jive wrote:
As long as the desktop PC was previously set to accept a DHCP IP & DNS
from the main router, nothing should need to change; however, if it
was using a fixed IP, then obviously that would need to change because
x in the settings above is now going to be different.
Maybe the problem is the PC has a static IP address, but I don't see
anywhere in the DD-WRT setup as a "Repeater Bridge" where it cares.
The PC's IP address, as far as I can figure out, is set on the PC.
The DD-WRT "Repeater Bridge" doesn't seem to care what IP address it is.
[snip]
I guess what you're suggesting I think about is that the phone, when put in hotspot mode, is on a DIFFERENT subnet - which I'm sure it is.
I am looking at the suggestion from Andy about DNSmasq to maybe fix that. https://wiki.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/DNSMasq_as_DHCP_server
Desktop PC to Android Mobile Hotspot - What do you use for the Gateway?
1. My Windows 10 desktop has no Wi-Fi card.
2. So I Ethernet out to an old router acting as a wireless client bridge.
3. This has been working for many years.
C:\Windows\system32>tracert 192.168.1.1
Tracing route to 192.168.1.1 over a maximum of 30 hops
1 1 ms 1 ms 1 ms 192.168.1.1
Trace complete.
Surprisingly, the PC doesn't even see the DD-WRT nor the AP as it only
sees the gateway in a single hop (interestingly so).
At this stage you should be able to change the wireless parameters to
suit those required by the phone. The DD-WRT should then show it is >connected to the phone, possibly via a status page of some sort.
Now connect the laptop BY WIRE to the DD-WRT. What should happen is
that the laptop sends its DHCP request and receives replies from the
phone hotspot. The network parameters should look much the same as when
the laptop was connected directly to the phone hotspot earlier in this test.
You should then be able to browse the internet.
Now for the desktop PC. Connect this by wire to the DD-WRT. The PC is >statically configured to communicate with the DD-WRT, but the I expect >network address generated by the phone hotspot to be different.
So
change the desktop PC to "Obtain an IP address automatically" and
"Obtain DNS server address automatically". It will now no longer
communicate with the management page in the DD-WRT but it should
communicate THROUGH the DD-WRT to the phone hotspot, and should be able
to browse the internet.
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