N900 Ad-hoc WiFi Hotspot

Contents

[edit] Working solution

See http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=73406

It may be noted, that scanning for networks on the N900 seems to disconnect everything. So starting wlancond seems to be a bad solution, better stop it.

[edit] Old article

This method works but is not usable for more than a proof of concept because it suffers 40% packet loss at close range between the N900 and the laptop.

[edit] On the N900

  1. Enable extras-devel
  2. Install iptables at a terminal with root access:
    apt-get install iptables
  3. Install kernel-power-settings (see the detailed installation instructions):
    apt-get install kernel-power-settings
  4. Connect to the Internet with GPRS
  5. Setup iptables to allow forwarding: 
    echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward
iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -o gprs0 -j MASQUERADE
  6. Bring up te ad hoc wireless network: 
    iwconfig wlan0 mode ad-hoc channel 3
ifconfig wlan0 192.168.4.15 up
iwconfig wlan0 essid N900

[edit] On the Client

Simply connect to the ad hoc wireless network.

In this configuration, a DHCP server is not run by the N900, so addresses will have to be manually assigned to clients.

Note that on Android devices, a patched "wpa_supplicant" file may be necessary to see the network.

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