TUTORIAL / SCRIPT: How to share Internet connection with WiFi hotspot

Hardware Librem 5
21

Are you running amber or byzantium?

22

Evergreen running amber.

23

Me too. Strange then that it works for me with no problem.

24

I had problems before using wifi hotspot, but after an upgrade to byzantium on Evergreen it works as it should. Open the settings app, select wifi, and in the top right corner there is a menu with three dots, click it and chose the “create wifi hotspot”.

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25

Will it be possible or easy to do this with a wired connection between L5 and the connecting device, then using L5’s 4G connection to provide internet access?

26

What you are describing is standard internet connection sharing, this has been a possibility in the past so I would assume it’s still a possibility today.

If the WiFi hotspot (which is just internet connection sharing with your WiFi connection) is working out the box then standard internet connection with a wired connection should now be a little easier than previous and should only require that you set the connection method to “shared”.

There are some caveats…

  1. Internet connection sharing by default is implemented on IPv4, if your cellular provider is giving you an IPv6 only address then standard internet connection sharing will not work.

  2. Connection sharing by default uses the 10.42.0.0/24 address range, this will almost certainly be used by the WiFi hotspot feature. If you intend to have the WiFi hotspot enabled and share your connection with wired devices simultaneously then you will need to set the shares to use different non-overlapping address ranges.

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27

I am attempting to set up the Wifi hotspot, but whenever I try connecting to it from another phone (namely, my GrapheneOS phone), it fails entirely. I select the network, but the GUI quickly flashes from “connecting” to “authenaticating” to “disconnected.”

In fairness, I have only tried the so-called “manual way” described above; I have not tried executing the hotspot_bridge script.

I also am not sure whether I am running amber or byzantium. I recently re-flashed the phone, but that was ~3 weeks ago.

Any advice? In the meantime, I guess I’ll try connecting from a different device.

28

Hello, this topic is now obsolete (I’ll try to modify the first post)

Since april 2021, a better solution as been put together by purism
In the Wi-Fi settings tap on the button with 3 vertical dots, on top right, then “Turn on Wifi-HotSpot”
Then put a name and a password
Then “Turn On”

Make sure you have 3G or 4G signal (with no orange exclamation mark), nothing more to do

29

Seems that it fails for you, I don’t really know how to help you with your problem, but did you try to change the frequency of the wifi from your GrapheneOS ? (2.4Ghz / 5Ghz)
I don’t know if you can, but that could be one possibility

Also make sure Mobile data is activated in the mobile settings of the L5

you can type lsb_release -a in a terminal to see if you are on amber or byzantium

30

Just wanted to share that I have tried using my L5 as wifi hotspot today for the first time.
I used this tutorial https://puri.sm/posts/how-to-enable-hot-spot-and-tethering-in-pureos-on-your-librem-5/ and it just work. Really nice.

Once again thanks to everyone involved in the development. :pray: :smile:

31

If anyone is still having problems I just mention that for my Linux system to connect to the phone’s hotspot I had to add in my system’s file /etc/modprobe.d/iwlwifi the following line:

options iwlwifi 11n_disable=1

(found at https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Iwlwifi#No_internet_connection) I do not know why that worked.