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General discussion

USB wifi tethering, MacBook can't see NAS or network printer

Mar 6, 2011 12:20AM PST

Hi,

Just wondering if anyone can shed any light on this issue.

When I tether my MacBook pro to my Airport extreme via my iphone, I have no visibility of the NAS or the network printer that are connected to the router.

I need to do this as the airport card in my MacBook pro has failed. I'm using an iPhone 4 and a USB cable. I'm running the latest versions of iOS and snow leopard.

thanks in advance for any help offered

Discussion is locked

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Sounds familiar.
Mar 6, 2011 12:28AM PST

I am on my tether now and if I look at the IP ROUTING TABLE the network looks to do exactly as you posted.

To fix this I have to use another machine and share that tethered connection to my home network. It's fairly advanced as you probably have discovered but this can be solved by designing a network from the ground up to do what you want.

Imagine the folk that don't want to know about networks. They'll want a "click here" to fix it. Let's hope there is such a button.
Bob

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If I had to guess
Mar 6, 2011 12:30AM PST

If I had to guess, I'd say the iPhone is adding an additional NAT layer which is getting in the way. But it's just a guess. I'm not intimately familiar with the networking stack on iOS.

If you used an ethernet cable or got a USB wifi adapter you could probably get this capability back. Probably be in your best interest long term since the battery in the iPhone isn't user replaceable. Using it to tether is going to really start chewing through those recharge cycles, and I'm sure Apple has some tool similar to their tester for laptop batteries for the iPad and iPhone that will tell someone exactly how many charge cycles are on that battery.

Also make sure there's no MAC address filtering enabled anywhere which may block access to parts of the network based on the MAC address of the network device you're using.

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usb wifi macbook
May 4, 2011 3:34AM PDT

<span id="INSERTION_MARKER">I have just discovered my macbook's airport card is dead and I too need to use my iphone 4 vis usb to tether wifi. Whereas I once could tether wifi.. the new "hotspot" function appears to do away with that and only accepts 3G data?<span id="INSERTION_MARKER">

<span id="INSERTION_MARKER">Or Am I doing something wrong?
<span id="INSERTION_MARKER">

<span id="INSERTION_MARKER">I use an imac normally but I have to work on the road Friday so no time to fix the airport, just need a quick solution. The hotel I'm staying in has great wifi, no ethernet and terrible 3G. So wifi is my only option.
<span id="INSERTION_MARKER">

<span id="INSERTION_MARKER">Anyone have a solution?
<span id="INSERTION_MARKER">