Use Phone(s) as WAN?

[empyrials]

Hello!

I'm new to Merlin firmware and i've had a fun project with my Raspberry pi, but it's just too slow when i use Nat through it, so i'm hoping my AC68U with Merlin Firmware can do it. Here's what i'd like it to be able to do, and please let me know if it's possible, of if there's an easier way.

I want to host a hotspot with my iPhone, and have the router connect to it, using my phone as my internet source, and have everything behind the route, nat'd. This way i can host DLNA, or kids can play together on the same wifi network, even without the internet hotspot from my hone. With the Pi, I created a complicated cron job that would run every minute, attempted to connect to one of multipule wifi's(1 of 3 phones), if it connected and got an IP, it would reload the IP tables for IP it received being the default route to the internet. I'm hoping for an easier way to make this happen... is there one?

The reason is, when we go glamping in the camper, it's sometimes nice for my myself or my wife to be able to host internet for the whole rig.

 

[ColinTaylor]

No, Merlin (and stock) firmware doesn't support a wireless WAN connection. The closest you can get is to tether one of your phones to the USB port.

 

[RMerlin]

Can't tether an iPhone, because Apple felt that RNDIS wasn't "good enough". Requires proprietary support.

 

[empyrials]

well that sucks. Thanks guys

 

[JDB]

Can you not repurpose the Pi to be a WiFi<>Eth bridge but without NAT? So it still does the same searching for the phones, but rather than setting up MASQUERADE just let it be a bridge to the WAN port of the ASUS and the router will get an IP via DHCP from the phone.
The Pi should be able to bridge at MUCH higher speed if it’s not doing any NAT.

I use an Asus Tinker board (Pi form factor competitor) in a similar way as a bridge to my fish tank Wi-fi controller which only acts as an AP (it can’t client to my routers AP)


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[empyrials]

Can you not repurpose the Pi to be a WiFi<>Eth bridge but without NAT? So it still does the same searching for the phones, but rather than setting up MASQUERADE just let it be a bridge to the WAN port of the ASUS and the router will get an IP via DHCP from the phone.
The Pi should be able to bridge at MUCH higher speed if it’s not doing any NAT.

I use an Asus Tinker board (Pi form factor competitor) in a similar way as a bridge to my fish tank Wi-fi controller which only acts as an AP (it can’t client to my routers AP)


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

i can, and will. I just hoped to have 1 device to manage, however it might be my best option and a good setup, just not perfect.

I'll get it working with the Pi, then upgrade to a different device that has a Gig Port. I don't normally have very good enough service to need Gib but it would be nice not to have that bottleneck there.