Tether N900’s wifi connection via USB

If you have been following this blog, you already know that the N900 is remarkable in its ability to adapt itself in various environments. This post will describe the steps needed in situations where you would like to connect to the internet using the N900’s wifi connection via USB from a desktop (or less likely,  a laptop) that does not have a wifi-adapter.

There might be other ways, but this post will explain the setup using SSH tunneling. The only drawback of this approach is that t

Note: Make sure USB Networking is setup before proceeding.

Ubuntu 10.04

1. Connect the N900 to the wifi access-point.

2. Connect the USB cable and select PC Suite Mode.

3. On the N900, execute as root:

ifup usb0
route del default usb0

4. Make sure you can ping the N900 (192.168.2.15)

5. Create a SSH tunnel on port 9999.

ssh -D 9999 root@192.168.2.15

6. Modify the system proxy settings (System->Network Proxy) to use SOCKS proxy on localhost port 9999. Apply System-Wide to have all internet applications use it.

7. You are now online!

Windows 7/XP

1. Connect the N900 to the wifi access-point.

2. Connect the USB cable and select PC Suite Mode.

3. On the N900, execute as root:

ifup usb0
route del default usb0

4. Make sure you can ping the N900 (192.168.2.15)

5. Create a SSH tunnel on localhost port 9999 using PuTTY. The tunneling option is under SSH->Tunnels. Enter 9999 as port, select ‘Dynamic’ and click Add. Open the connection to the N900 (192.168.2.15)

6. Modify the system proxy settings (Internet Options -> Connections -> LAN Settings) to use SOCKS proxy on localhost port 9999.

7. You should now be online!

Mac OS X

1. Connect the N900 to the wifi access-point.

2. Connect the USB cable and select PC Suite Mode.

3. On the N900, execute as root:

ifup usb0
route del default usb0

4. Make sure you can ping the N900 (192.168.2.15)

5. Create a SSH tunnel on port 9999.

ssh -D 9999 root@192.168.2.15

6. Modify the system’s proxy settings (Network Preferences->Advanced->Proxies) to use SOCKS proxy on localhost port 9999.

7. You should now be able to browse the web in Safari.