Using mobile phone for Red? like USB tethering

Networking
1

So I was thinking of setting up a second IPFire machine with GREEN on the ethernet port but I would like to connect a mobile phone as RED interface (USB tethering). In case the internet connection is interrupted, I could turn on the second machine and connect my LAN to this one in the hope that most of the internet services would run again. At least some Email stuff etc.

Is it possible us use a mobile phone connected to an IPFire Machine through USB as a bidge to the internet? I have some spare phones (Andoid, iPhones, Windows Phones) lying around that I could use for that.

Or would it be better to buy an LTE router with ethernet port for those rare situations?

2

A year ago I had tried with an iPhone but I didn’t get very far (mostly because I wasn’t sure how to make it all work).

There is a driver call “IPHETH” for iPhones that I started to read about. (for droids it is “URNDIS”).

I also found something called “https://libimobiledevice.org”. But again, a bit over my head.

So an LTE router might be best for now unless someone knows the right path.

3

Could you have a wifi connection for red
And connect to hot spot that way?

4

Like this?!? Yes!

https://wiki.ipfire.org/hardware/arm/rpi/rpi-scenario

This was my experiment with a raspberry pi

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5

Thanks a lot for your suggestions. Sound like lots of work and headache to get a mobile phone connected to the IPFire machine for tethering.

I’ll buy a cheap LTE-router with a LAN-Port. So I can use my existing IPFire machine and simply replace the cable modem with the LTE-router. As it probably cannot bridge and bring the public IP address to my RED interface, stuff like Open-VPN etc. won’t work. But that’s not a deal breaker, as it will be a backup for emergencies only. I don’t expect my ISP to be offline for multiple days.

And once IPFire 3 is available, maybe it’ll support multiple WAN-ports. That will be even better.

I wish you all a nice and peaceful day.

6

usb tethering works with most android phones out of the box, but only once.(dhcp client)
This is because the emulated nic has a random mac address so you will have to reassign the nic at every connect or change the red config manually.

After setting it up first time via setup run
echo RED_DEV=usb0 >> /var/ipfire/ethernet/settings
to rename the used interface from red0 to usb0 (which is the autodetected name after reconnect)

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