Using a smartphone as a wireless router

Question

I wanted to know if it is possible for a smartphone with hotspot capabilities (such as some Android devices) to act as a Wi-Fi router.

Basically, the setup would be something like :

                 Internet
                    |
                Smartphone 
              /     |      \
Wireless Drive   Computer   Wireless Printer

The idea behind this is to be able to access the Printer, the Drive, and Internet with the Computer only being connected to the Smartphone via Wi-Fi.

I have no good knowledge about networks, so pardon me if my question sounds stupid.

Thanks

score 6 · Accepted Answer · answered Feb 24 '15 at 13:55

You have lots of articles that covers this topic. WiFi Tethering essentially turns your smartphone into a wireless router. When your phone has a data connection, it can share that connection with all of the other devices connected to it. When it doesn’t have a data connection, it still functions as a wireless router – or more accurately, as a switch.

Since you didnt specify smartphone that you want to use, I will list you some articels you should consider

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Feb 25 '15 at 15:46

Indeed, it seems like a smartphone with a "Hotspot" feature can act as a Wi-Fi router.

After doing some research, as far as I understand, the network I've been asking about works as follows :

                         Internet
                            |
                  (external IP address)
                       Smartphone
                      [file server]
                  (internal IP address)
                  /         |          \
     (IP address)      (IP address)      (IP address)
    Wireless Drive       Computer       Wireless Printer
    [file server]     [file client]      [print server]
                      [print client]

The important thing is that each device must have a server running for the Computer to be able to use it.

I found some useful Linux commands along the way :

netstat -rn gives you the internal IP address of the Smartphone under the "Gateway" column.

ifconfig gives you IP address of the Computer itself connected to the Smartphone, in the "wlan" section.

ip neighbour gives you IP addresses of the other devices connected to the Smartphone.

IP addresses can be used to gain access to a device's features from a client, using the syntax protocol://ip_address.

I hope this will help someone.

Using a smartphone as a wireless router

2 Answers2