DrVlikhell
New Around Here
Hi everybody! New to the forum, just signed up today because I've been pondering a project and this seems like the best place to ask for suggestions and advice.
So here's the situation, I have cable internet (Motorola modem, Asus AC68U router) and a 4G LTE hotspot (Coolpad Surf). I need to be able to have one web browser on my computer use the hotspot to access the internet, while the rest of the computer (and all other client devices) on the network use the cable internet. I'm currently doing this in a very convoluted manner with a TP-Link router acting as a client AP connecting wirelessly to the hotspot, the TP-Link is then connected via ethernet to a USB ethernet adapter on my computer, the USB adapter is passed through to a VM running Windows, and on the Windows VM I run a small proxy program which is accessible through the VMs virtual network adapter. This actually works flawlessly, but it's convoluted. I'd rather not have to run an entire Windows VM taking up some of my computers resources just to run a 380kb proxy program. I could use an old laptop or micro PC instead of a VM, but again, that's massive overkill for such a small proxy. The proxy doesn't have to do caching, or ad blocking, or anything special. It doesn't even need to authenticate since it's local only.
I have some strict limitations for this project, it must be low power (or else I'd just use an old PC) and it must be inexpensive. I've allotted only $15 to work something out. With the way finances and economies are currently, if I have to spend more than that... there are other areas where that money would be better spent. So $15 it is. Especially since the setup I have now costs zero to keep using as is.
I've come up with two options:
1, use a Raspberry Pi Zero W along with my USB ethernet adapter and run Linux on it with some kind of proxy software, perhaps Squid or Tinyproxy. I already have a suitable power supply, OTG adapter and SD card. A Pi Zero W would run about $15 including shipping. The down side is I know very, very little about Linux and I don't have a micro HDMI adapter, so the install and setup would have to be done headless.
2, use a router with DD-WRT or OpenWrt on it and Privoxy or something similar running directly on that router. There are many DD/OpenWrt friendly routers available on eBay or in thrift stores for $10 to $15, some of which even have 64MB or 128MB ROMs. The down side here is that I don't know if a router based proxy server will do what I want with the router in client AP mode. I can't have it acting as a DHCP server because it will interfere with my main Asus router, and I also can't have it serving up internet from the hotspot to other devices because that would quickly deplete the hotspots data.
I'm leaning towards trying to make it work with a router running as a proxy server, I just don't know if it's possible with the router functioning as a client AP, or which proxy to use... it looks like OpenWrt supports Privoxy, Squid, Tinyproxy and others, none of which I've used before. If you guys have any suggestions on how to make this work I'd love to hear it. Or if someone has an idea for a third option that fits within my limitations I'd love to hear that too. Thanks for reading this far!
So here's the situation, I have cable internet (Motorola modem, Asus AC68U router) and a 4G LTE hotspot (Coolpad Surf). I need to be able to have one web browser on my computer use the hotspot to access the internet, while the rest of the computer (and all other client devices) on the network use the cable internet. I'm currently doing this in a very convoluted manner with a TP-Link router acting as a client AP connecting wirelessly to the hotspot, the TP-Link is then connected via ethernet to a USB ethernet adapter on my computer, the USB adapter is passed through to a VM running Windows, and on the Windows VM I run a small proxy program which is accessible through the VMs virtual network adapter. This actually works flawlessly, but it's convoluted. I'd rather not have to run an entire Windows VM taking up some of my computers resources just to run a 380kb proxy program. I could use an old laptop or micro PC instead of a VM, but again, that's massive overkill for such a small proxy. The proxy doesn't have to do caching, or ad blocking, or anything special. It doesn't even need to authenticate since it's local only.
I have some strict limitations for this project, it must be low power (or else I'd just use an old PC) and it must be inexpensive. I've allotted only $15 to work something out. With the way finances and economies are currently, if I have to spend more than that... there are other areas where that money would be better spent. So $15 it is. Especially since the setup I have now costs zero to keep using as is.
I've come up with two options:
1, use a Raspberry Pi Zero W along with my USB ethernet adapter and run Linux on it with some kind of proxy software, perhaps Squid or Tinyproxy. I already have a suitable power supply, OTG adapter and SD card. A Pi Zero W would run about $15 including shipping. The down side is I know very, very little about Linux and I don't have a micro HDMI adapter, so the install and setup would have to be done headless.
2, use a router with DD-WRT or OpenWrt on it and Privoxy or something similar running directly on that router. There are many DD/OpenWrt friendly routers available on eBay or in thrift stores for $10 to $15, some of which even have 64MB or 128MB ROMs. The down side here is that I don't know if a router based proxy server will do what I want with the router in client AP mode. I can't have it acting as a DHCP server because it will interfere with my main Asus router, and I also can't have it serving up internet from the hotspot to other devices because that would quickly deplete the hotspots data.
I'm leaning towards trying to make it work with a router running as a proxy server, I just don't know if it's possible with the router functioning as a client AP, or which proxy to use... it looks like OpenWrt supports Privoxy, Squid, Tinyproxy and others, none of which I've used before. If you guys have any suggestions on how to make this work I'd love to hear it. Or if someone has an idea for a third option that fits within my limitations I'd love to hear that too. Thanks for reading this far!