Wireles networking: The BQ as an AccessPoint (hotspot)

We want connect a computer/netbook through Wifi with our BQ, run TCP/IP over the link, perhaps even through this to Internet, like this:

netbook ---(Wifi)---> BQ ---(data mobile) ---> Internet

Just configure in Settings --> Hotspot the SSID and a good password (must have at least 8 chars) in turn Hotspot on. This allows any computer to connect to the BQ. This is the wpa_supplicant.conf entry I'm using in my beloved FreeBSD:

/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf
...
ctrl_interface=/var/run/wpa_supplicant
ctrl_interface_group=wheel
eapol_version=1
ap_scan=1
fast_reauth=1
update_config=1

# BQ
#
network={
        ssid="UbuntuBQ"
        priority=10
        key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
        psk="XXXXXXXXXX"
}
...

You can SSH just as usual to the BQ to do config stuff there. The interface in the BQ is ap0, not wlan0, and default routing goes to the data mobile interface ccmni0 (or ccmni1, dependig of the used SIM):

$ ssh phablet@10.42.0.1
Welcome to Ubuntu 15.04 (GNU/Linux 3.4.67 armv7l)
Last login: Fri Oct 23 06:43:00 2015 from localhost.localdomain

phablet@ubuntu-phablet:~$ ifconfig ap0
ap0       Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 4e:74:03:5f:20:60  
          inet addr:10.42.0.1  Bcast:10.42.0.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          inet6 addr: fe80::4c74:3ff:fe5f:2060/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:3987 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:4341 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:409598 (409.5 KB)  TX bytes:1253624 (1.2 MB)

phablet@ubuntu-phablet:~$ netstat -rn
Kernel IP routing table
Destination     Gateway         Genmask         Flags   MSS Window  irtt Iface
0.0.0.0         10.44.25.175    0.0.0.0         UG        0 0          0 ccmni0
10.42.0.0       0.0.0.0         255.255.255.0   U         0 0          0 ap0

In the netbook you have now full access and DNS to Internet

$ cat /etc/resolv.conf 
# Generated by resolvconf
nameserver 10.42.0.1

$ ping www.sisis.de
capability mode sandbox enabled
PING www.sisis.de (178.254.11.41): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 178.254.11.41: icmp_seq=0 ttl=48 time=49.513 ms
64 bytes from 178.254.11.41: icmp_seq=1 ttl=48 time=44.741 ms

You can move away with the BQ in pocket around 25 meter, without breaking the Wifi link.

The battery drain is around 36% in 2 hours of usage.

Last updated: Fri Oct 23 08:03:30 CEST 2015