Backflip wifi tether with Ubuntu Linux

After gaining root access on my Motorola Backflip phone, I was (eventually) able to get wifi tethering working using the Barnacle application (version 0.5.1).

In Barnacle, I have “skip wpa_supplicant” checked, the channel set to six (6), and DHCP set up to use the OpenDNS DNS server (208.67.222.222) although the DNS server option may not be needed. (I had to also manually specify the DNS server IP on my client anyways.)

I had to pull some tricks on the client side (Ubuntu Linux) to make everything work. Specifically, setting MTU size to 1250 and setting up my own DNS name server IP.
The script I use to make this all work with ad-hoc networking on Ubuntu is as follows:

sudo service network-manager stop
sudo rm /etc/resolv.conf
sleep 1
sudo ifconfig eth1 down
ifconfig eth1 mtu 1250
sudo iwconfig eth1 mode ad-hoc
sudo iwconfig eth1 essid barnacle
sudo iwconfig eth1 channel 6
sudo ifconfig eth1 up
sleep 2
sudo dhclient eth1
sudo /bin/sh -c 'echo "nameserver 208.67.222.222" >> /etc/resolv.conf'

4 thoughts on “Backflip wifi tether with Ubuntu Linux

  1. Samson,

    The Phone side settings should be the same for windows. Windows has better (GUI config) support for ad-hoc networks than Ubuntu, so as long as you can go into your network adapters properties page and set the MTU, the rest of it may be as simple as just connecting to the network. If you have to set a DNS entry, most networks have an advanced property area where you can specify your own DNS servers.

  2. Pingback: Wifi Tether + Backflip

  3. Thanks for the pointers! I ran into the same issues with Ubuntu 10.04 and Barnacle on my LG Eve/GW620. NetworkManager just keeps on scanning and roaming causing the connection to get cut off. Configuring the connection manually solves this issue. With the LG Eve/GW620 it is not necessary to set the MTU or a nameserver.

    Thanks!

    Jeremy

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