Re: N900 as a Wifi Hotspot, part 2
 

Using 2.6.28.10power37 kernel and with mobilehotspot from the app manager, I am able to start mobilehotspot (with error, see below) and see the ad-hoc network over the air. However, despite dnsmasq being configured, no dhcp offer is received from connecting clients. Even worse, nothing is reachable when the connecting computer is configured with static IP in the same subnet as the n900. The n900's IP is 10.23.213.1 as per the mobilehotspot scripts.

One thing, I noticed that there's no gateway in the n900's routing table. That doesn't seem right, how can gprs work without a gateway? If dhcp was working correctly, would it autoconfigure dns servers to the connecting clients? If not, what am I supposed to enter for dns servers on the connecting devices?

The error when starting mobilehotspot_backend:
The error when stopping mobilehotspot_backend or calling mobilehotspot from the shell:
Both of those seem minor to me, and they do not halt the further execution of the script.

Re: N900 as a Wifi Hotspot, part 2
 

@ifreeman,

Just to let you know about the gateway issue, it does work, i don't know where the gateway record is configured, but you should see something like : How does that translate into an IP address for a next hop, I don't know, but on the N900, that works.

So just saying, your problem is somewhere else, not in the gateway part.

Re: N900 as a Wifi Hotspot, part 2
 

Yes, it's very interesting. route -n does not show the G flag on the gprs route. I don't know what that's all about, however it's the least of my worries, I just mentioned it as an aside.

Re: N900 as a Wifi Hotspot, part 2
 

Just found that the introspect message is not important here:
http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p...&postcount=256

So, the only issue that remains for me is why does the client network not seem routed to the n900's wifi wireless network?

My network before starting mobilehotspot:
And after starting it:

Re: N900 as a Wifi Hotspot, part 2
 

Can you ping the N900 IP-address if you set your client machine to use static IP ? What IP does your N900 get from GPRS side (the possibility for IP-range clash is very small but exists).

Re: N900 as a Wifi Hotspot, part 2
 

whenever i try to press start, i always get "hotspot failed to start"...

any idea how i can fix this?

Re: N900 as a Wifi Hotspot, part 2
 

You need to start the backend from terminal to see debug output, see earlier this thread for details (like for example the DBUS introspection error that is not a problem for us) and instructions.

Re: N900 as a Wifi Hotspot, part 2
 

No, I cannot ping the n900, either with the private ip (10.23.213.1) or the gprs ip (25.161.93.130).

The client ip I'm pinging from is the first in the range when configured dhcp, and is 10.23.213.2 when configured static.

Re: N900 as a Wifi Hotspot, part 2
 

i also have an issue.

mobile hotspot works fine for me, but once every so often (1/2 hour ? 45 minutes ? or more?) the internet access "disappears" in that my laptop is still connected to the n900 but there is no internet access (i.e. my laptop running windows 7 says "no internet access" on my wlan connection). Meanwhile, there is no explicit error on the n900 GUI (i.e. mobile hotspot seems to be still running on the n900 when the internet disappears).

To fix this, I have to turn off mobile hotspot (as in exit hte app) and restart it again. That seems to fix it until the internet connection dies again. And after a few restarts a mobile hotspot restart will actually trigger a reboot of the maemo OS (this is much less often though).

Any idea what causes this ? How would I go about getting debug info for an error that appears at random AFTER the mobile hotspot starts and works OK? (instructions here seem to be for getting error text for when mobile hotspot starts).

Note that the n900 isnt hot when this happens and I have not OCed my N900 in anyway or done any weird apps. I do have the IP address widget though but I thought the widget would not cause this ?

Re: N900 as a Wifi Hotspot, part 2
 

I have ip-address widget installed too, no problems with that.

I'd guess you windows has some way to "detect" internet connection, probably "phone home". Please check the IP address you windows has when it shows this message, also see if you can still ping the N900. With ad-hoc networks "connected" has a different meaning, since you machine might still keep the ad-hoc network available even if the other peer(s) disappear.

Also check on the N900 itself that it can still reach sites on the internet and check with iwconfig/ifconfig the status of the wlan0 adapter (it might be that some other process took it down for some reason [this is for example why mobilehotspot disables wifi scanning while it's running, the scan will tear down the ad-hoc connection).

Debugging errors while the "hotspot" is running is basically debugging linux networking, the hotspot software itself does nothing at that point (it's just a handy way to automate the steps needed to setup/teardown the required processes & firewall rules).

Re: N900 as a Wifi Hotspot, part 2
 

Hi all and thanks to all those involved for an excellent app.

My one issue is with a shortcut. Did anyone managed to work out how to fix the desktop icon problem - I can't add a shortcut and have checked beneath widgets and icons on all four screens and can't see a Hotspot icon hiding anywhere.

I did have a problem a while back when I was having a tid up and when I did try to uninstall it, the n900 wouldn't restart, so I had to re-flash.

Apart from that it all works very well.

Re: N900 as a Wifi Hotspot, part 2
 

I have also the dbus error, is there any solution yet?

Re: N900 as a Wifi Hotspot, part 2
 

the dbus error is not a problem (as stated many times in this thread) on a very quick reading of the pasted output you quoted looks good to me (unless there's more and for example the dnsmasq part (it's the last thing to done by tghe backend) fails.

Re: N900 as a Wifi Hotspot, part 2
 

I see, though I wasn't able yet to make a successful connect. A while ago I was able to connect sometimes but the DNS didn't work and the application crashed quite fast. Afterwards the internet stopped working on the phone too so I had to restart it.

Well now I have quite the same situation but I can't even connect most of the time :(

Re: N900 as a Wifi Hotspot, part 2
 

successfully installed it... but when i connect my laptop... win7 os... it says "no internet access"... what should I do???

Re: N900 as a Wifi Hotspot, part 2
 

Same here, then for some odd reason, I can't connect to my home Wi-Fi. I think it has something to do with the DHCP Lease time, because then the Wi-Fi works then next day, regardless if my computer was re-booted or not.

Re: N900 as a Wifi Hotspot, part 2
 

please look more into infrastructure mode as its the only way to connect the ps3 and psp online.........

Re: N900 as a Wifi Hotspot, part 2
 

http://andrewbrobinson.com/android-w...structure-mode

would this work with nitdroid?

Re: N900 as a Wifi Hotspot, part 2
 

I really hope to get it working sometime :/

Re: N900 as a Wifi Hotspot, part 2
 

As I wrote here[1], simply put the firmware biary blob that's loaded to the wifi chipset (necessary for this to be binary due to FCC regulations in the US, other regulations in other countries) does not support the needed functionality for AP mode. The Broadcom that's in the EVO obviously supports it (since they sell the capability, it's latent in the firmware and exposed from SW, normally once you've paid Sprint, in this case the undocumented backdoor has been exposed).

As such, at the fundamental SW-to-firmware level, this won't work. I had the opportunity to ask TI reps about the firmware, to which they responded that for the 1251 (what's in our devices) there are two firmwares: a wifi "station" version (used on our devices) and a Access Point firmware.

[1] Note that the comments in my previous post were made by Kalle Valo, the Nokia employee who implemented the drivers in the Linux kernel, as noted by the comments in the kernel source itself

Re: N900 as a Wifi Hotspot, part 2
 

ok can someone help me here...I just don't have it to read all 30 pages.

I want to use my new toshiba nb305 netbook with my n900. I am in the usa using tmobile...

If I pay for this joikuspot, am I good to go? will tmobile somhow start charging me? I just want it for basic web browsing when I am not at a wireless such as home or a starbuck. so a few questions...

1) can I keep my custom kernel settings? I am using lv with 850/250 and am very happy with this configuration

2) will it work over 2.5 as I really hate killing my n900 with 3g

3) does it work well? I just want to have the option to use some basic browsing through my toshiba which does not have bluetooth, so it seems I need to use the n900 as an access point.

thanks and again I am sorry but I just hate when there is no wiki and a dissussion runs into the 100's of posts...

Re: N900 as a Wifi Hotspot, part 2
 

Has anyone reported the bug with this that if you have fMMS and fAPN has configured another internet point(MMS), and you have your normal net conencted, then MH will disconnect it and connect the MMS AP instead ?

Steps to repro:

Have an existing data AP
Use fAPN to make an MMS AP
Configure MH to use the data AP
Use the clock menu to connect the data AP, or have it already connected
Press the Start button in MH
MH disconnects the data AP, conencts MMS ap, and nothing works

Solution:
Have 2 buttons (or 3): one to start the wifi hotspot and one to connect the chosen connection (or one to do both), that way I can choose what to do

Re: N900 as a Wifi Hotspot, part 2
 

Yep. You can always complain to them if youre not

I can't see how they'd realise, perhaps by looking at the user agent headers of your http requests and see that it's not a mobile browser

There's a free version of joiku that does web only, but it may not be available for n900

MH requires a custom kernel, but doesnt care about the lv/clock

yes

Ummm... Not as well as I'd expected. Few bugs, conencts up the wrong APN, sometimes doesnt wait long enough for the GSM net to establish, I have to go into my ipod settings and renew the dhcp lease each time I reboot MH otherwise it doesnt work and after some period of inactivity on the N900 it knocks the wifi off, and I have to faff about getting it started again, quit MH, disconnect net, start MH, start the AP, renew the lease..

Me too

Re: N900 as a Wifi Hotspot, part 2
 

hmm thanks for the not so glowing review. I assume MH means maemo?

I am still a little confused...I have to take a different custom kernel then I assume? but I can still overclock and use lv? Or do I lose that functionality?

If the kernel required for wifi does not allow the undervolt, overclock of the one I am using (titan's???) then I would not want to mess with the n900.



thanks.

Re: N900 as a Wifi Hotspot, part 2
 

= Mobile Hotspot; available from extras repo

Re: N900 as a Wifi Hotspot, part 2
 

Hey,

I used to have mobilehotspot working perfectly, however a couple of months ago I stopped being able to connect. I don't think I'm getting an ip address, but I'm not certain.
I have tried reflashing my phone and using only the stable repositories (previously used testing and devel), but the situation seems to be the same.

Any tips?

P.s. The backend seems to start fine.

Re: N900 as a Wifi Hotspot, part 2
 

I'm back from incommunicado (training trip to Japan; zero time for anything else there) will try to answer people tomorrow when I have gotten better over jetlag.

Re: N900 as a Wifi Hotspot, part 2
 

"Does it work well": For many extremely (some have never had any issues at all), for others less so (see for example fMMS causing trouble), YMMV. Trying is free though (unlike with Joiku, which also is rather YMMV from what I have heard)

The custom kernel required is titans kernel (though the dependencies are specified in such way that any other properly packaged kernel with correct modules can fulfill them), if you're rolling your own (kernel) then you already should know enough to 1. compile it with correct modules 2. package it properly or install/run MH (MobileHotspot) without using the package.

fMMS issues is something I cannot comment on, AFAIUnderstand it messes about with the packet data settings somehow: if that causes you trouble with MH then you need to figure out how to solve it and preferably make a patch I can include in the official packages (I do not have the time or interest to debug this issue).

Wiki page: it would be nice if someone else (tm) could make one.

"I don't have the time...": I will be very disinclined to reply to the same questions over and over and over again, a little self-help goes a long way.

"No connection for laptop/whatever but backend starts fine": I have seen this sometimes but not in a while (which makes investigation kinda hard), debugging this is same as debugging networking in general (since MH really doesn't do anything special it just automates a bunch of things you could do from the UI/terminal yourself), as for network debugging aside from the first checks (pings with manual IPs, arp resolution test) there isn't much someone who doesn't know how to debug networks already can do (because next steps involve using packet sniffers, network scanners, low-level wifi sniffing tools etc and I will not be holding anyones hand through those procedures).

"Device X needs dhcp refresh": This is a problem in device Xs end (it probably treats Ad-Hoc connections as special).

"Does not wait long enough": Known issue (the wait time is hard-coded due to various complexities in receiving the actual "connection is now up" -signals), unlikely to be fixed by me though (it's a minor annoyance easily worked around and fixing it in a clean way is complex)

"Mobile provider vs tethering": There are ways to detect that someone doing NAT and sharing the connection (on TCP/IP level, no need to reconstruct the HTTP [or other protocol level] request and analyze that), doing this on a large scale is expensive though so it's quite unlikely that you will get detected (supposing your provider forbids tethering and/or connection sharing). This has nothing to do with how much you pay for your traffic in general (for example some "flat rate" subscriptions only include for example 3GB of traffic and after that it's billed per megabyte [not quite "unlimited"]).

Infrastructure mode: not going to happen (as stated on the first page: it's almost impossible [and only almost because very few things are actually impossible: usually it's "just" not worth the expense/trouble])

Re: N900 as a Wifi Hotspot, part 2
 

I got MobileHotspot to work in my N900 with Macbook and iPad today, after numerous frustrating reboots to the phone, reading this message chain and eventually uninstalling also AutoDisconnect from the phone. I don't know whether AutoDisconnect was a culprit of anything, but after uninstalling it and rebooting the phone - Mobile Hotspot started to work ok.

Rambo has done great job helping people here and his messages in terms of debugging helped also me to get through everything. Now I know that if the hotspot does not work, I can try to drop into Xterm and check with sudo what the backend says and whether there is anyone else blocking port 53.

It would be great to have seamless and bulletproof operation straight out of the box, but all and all I am grateful that this piece of software exists at all.

So thank you and keep up the great work!

Re: N900 as a Wifi Hotspot, part 2
 

53 is often blocked by the carriers to force you to use there DNS server.

but by the way HTTPS isn't working... or lets say wasn't working. i just did an update to PR1.3 so i can't check it anymore. Is this packet ready for 1.3?

Re: N900 as a Wifi Hotspot, part 2
 

MH uses dnsmasq to proxy DNS from the DHCP clients to the DNS server N900 uses ATM.

Weird "works for me" and never before heard that anyone would be having trouble with just https.

MH itself, sure, it does nothing that special. However it does require titans kernel and it will take a while before an updated version of that will reach extras-proper.

Re: N900 as a Wifi Hotspot, part 2
 

It says 'hot spot failed to start'.. I cant get this to work..

Re: N900 as a Wifi Hotspot, part 2
 

my desktop icon disappear after i reboot my n900. i try to readd but it is not listed in the shortcut list. unistall and reinstall will bring the icon back but reboot and icon gone again. this is reproducable everytime. any idea how to fix this?

Re: N900 as a Wifi Hotspot, part 2
 

Check here
http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p=877571&postcount=9

Re: N900 as a Wifi Hotspot, part 2
 

Had to reflash my device, so now I have really vanilla PR1.3 device, and can't get Mobile Hotspot to work.

Symåtoms:

1) Mobile hotspot backend starts ( has one error in it )

2) adhoc wlan hotspot is created

3) devices can connect, but no DHCP ip is given

4) static network configuration on clients does not help

5) network on N900 works ok, so it does get internet connection


Hard data:

Firmware:
V 20.2010.36-2
RX-51

Kernel:
uname -r

2.6.28.10power42


When I start the MH:

~ $ sudo gainroot
Root shell enabled


BusyBox v1.10.2 (Debian 3:1.10.2.legal-1osso30+0m5) built-in shell (ash)
Enter 'help' for a list of built-in commands.

/home/user # /usr/sbin/mobilehotspot_backend start
DEBUG: executing uname -r
DEBUG: executing lsmod
DEBUG: executing insmod /lib/modules/2.6.28.10power42/nf_conntrack.ko
DEBUG: executing lsmod
DEBUG: executing insmod /lib/modules/2.6.28.10power42/nf_defrag_ipv4.ko
DEBUG: executing lsmod
DEBUG: executing insmod /lib/modules/2.6.28.10power42/nf_conntrack_ipv4.ko
DEBUG: executing lsmod
DEBUG: executing insmod /lib/modules/2.6.28.10power42/x_tables.ko
DEBUG: executing lsmod
DEBUG: executing insmod /lib/modules/2.6.28.10power42/ip_tables.ko
DEBUG: executing lsmod
DEBUG: executing insmod /lib/modules/2.6.28.10power42/nf_nat.ko
DEBUG: executing lsmod
DEBUG: executing insmod /lib/modules/2.6.28.10power42/iptable_nat.ko
DEBUG: executing lsmod
DEBUG: executing insmod /lib/modules/2.6.28.10power42/ipt_MASQUERADE.ko
ERROR:dbus.proxies:Introspect error on :1.85:/com/nokia/icd2: dbus.exceptions.DBusException: org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.NotSupported: Unsupported interface or method
DEBUG: executing ifconfig wlan0 down
DEBUG: executing iwconfig wlan0 mode ad-hoc
DEBUG: executing ifconfig wlan0 up
DEBUG: executing iwconfig wlan0 key 4868686830 restricted
DEBUG: executing iwconfig wlan0 essid "Hhh"
DEBUG: executing ifconfig wlan0 10.7.12.1 netmask 255.255.255.0 up
DEBUG: executing /usr/sbin/dnsmasq -i wlan0 -a 10.7.12.1 -I lo -z -x /var/run/dnsmasq.wlan0.pid --dhcp-range=10.7.12.10,10.7.12.100,6h --dhcp-option=3,10.7.12.1 --dhcp-option=6,10.7.12.1
DEBUG: executing iptables --flush
DEBUG: executing iptables --flush -t nat
DEBUG: executing iptables -P FORWARD ACCEPT
DEBUG: executing iptables -P INPUT ACCEPT
DEBUG: executing iptables -P OUTPUT ACCEPT
DEBUG: executing iptables --table nat --append POSTROUTING --out-interface gprs0 -j MASQUERADE
/home/user #

I tried static ip: 10.7.12.10 on client with netmask 255.255.255.0 and router 10.7.12.1

Before update to PR1-3 I had MH working at least once.

Any help or ideas would be appreciated.

Thank you.

Re: N900 as a Wifi Hotspot, part 2
 

I decided to bite the bullet and buy Joikuspot, since they promised it to work with PR1.3.

I deinstalled power kernel successfully and installed Joikuspot premium.

Joikuspot seems to work rather well, though I found two problems:


1) my iPad does not get ip configuration via DHCP, even though access
works if I put static ip configuration.

My MacBook laptop gets configuration via DHCP most of the time ok, but so far my iPad
has not got ip from dhcp even once.

2) Adhoc wifi stays open / available even after Joiukuspot is closed.
This is actually rather funny, as the joikuspot adhoc wlan is then
visible in internet connections available also for the N900. Annoying
but also worrying in terms of whether it sucks out juice from the
battery for something silly.


It would be great to have Mobilehotspot also as an alternative, even though I am happy to support finnish software company with 9 euros.

Re: N900 as a Wifi Hotspot, part 2
 

As posted elsewhere, there is now a new package that should fix the desktop shortcut issue.

Re: N900 as a Wifi Hotspot, part 2
 

Sorry, been away so didn't get around to answering yet.

This is an example of those annoying problems where I can't outright tell what's wrong, basically it boils down to low level networking debugging; wireshark, kismet et co.

Re: N900 as a Wifi Hotspot, part 2
 

I too am seeing a somewhat similar issue. I'm using kernel power 45 and encounter the following (I'm with T-Mobile USA):

1) Mobile hotspot backend starts when started from command-line ( has one error in it I'll post the log later) When I start from the desktop, I am prompted to login to the data network with a username set to nokia. I'll post a screenshot later.

2) adhoc wlan hotspot is created

3) devices can connect, DHCP ip is given

4) devices cannot reach the network

5) I notice that my n900 is showing connected to "Cellular Data" instead of "T-Mobile Internet"

This has me wondering if the kernel power 45 introduced this issue or if T-Mobile has caught onto our tethering... :(

Re: N900 as a Wifi Hotspot, part 2
 

As promised is the output of MH when run from the command-line:

and the screenshot is attached.