Database Develop

GPRS & WiFi: Let me select which one to use (on Helmi 1.4)

I’m like many others, a happy user of Helmi’s ROM and read this forum everyday to see what clever things people have come up with.
Recently, my cell phone provider came out of the dark ages and is providing GPRS. It’s even free at the moment! (Even though it’s very slow).
This is all nice for on the road and in town, but when I am at home or in the office, it want to connect via WiFi and being able to access web pages a LOT faster then via GPRS. I can connect to WiFi while I am connected to GPRS, but when I try to open a page with PIE, it uses the GPRS connection, not my WiFi (the difference is easy to tell since it’s so slow).
On one of the previous ROMs there was a little utility to track the GPRS settings and it had a disconnect option. However, this program is no longer included in the Helmi’s 1.4 and I have not found any other option to turn off GPRS then by using the “Flight mode” program to disconnect from the cell phone network and back on again. But that is of course a slow and strange solution.
What I would like is this: When WiFi is available, it will go via WiFi, when WiFi is off, it should use GPRS to get a web page. Is there is a way to prioritize the internet connections?
Vijay555 has a command-line utility to disconnect GPRS with and I’m going to give that a try, but maybe someone has a different solution where the 2 connection can exist at the same time….
Thanks in advance.

Are u referring to http://www.gb-soft.cz/XDAII/ this little app?

GerardNL said:
Is there is a way to prioritize the internet connections?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, it's built into the TCP/IP protocol. You are looking for something called "interface metric" which is a number. IIRC, the lower the metric, the lower the "cost" i.e. the better the link is. This can be set manually on PCs. No idea how to do it on the phone, probably a registry tweak. The following makes sense:
1 Wifi
10 ActiveSync
100 GPRS
The numbers are whatever you want them to be.

kerio said:
Are u referring to http://www.gb-soft.cz/XDAII/ this little app?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, that's the one. Thx!. It's a very tiny program, but it has the option to add the "disconnect" button to the pop-up bubble. Maybe that is just a registry setting... I will have to look into that one. If so, then that registry option is going to be a standard for me...
fraser said:
Yes, it's built into the TCP/IP protocol. You are looking for something called "interface metric" which is a number. IIRC, the lower the metric, the lower the "cost" i.e. the better the link is. This can be set manually on PCs. No idea how to do it on the phone, probably a registry tweak. The following makes sense:
1 Wifi
10 ActiveSync
100 GPRS
The numbers are whatever you want them to be.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I totally agree and it does make a lot of sense. I've been snooping around in the registry, but did not find anything that I expect that has to do with the "cost" of a connection. So, that might mean that extra keys need to be added if it would be possible at all and that's a bit out of league.
However, I can't imagine that other people not facing the same problem, so maybe the solution is in a totally different direction??

GerardNL said:
I totally agree and it does make a lot of sense. I've been snooping around in the registry, but did not find anything that I expect that has to do with the "cost" of a connection. So, that might mean that extra keys need to be added if it would be possible at all and that's a bit out of league.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've looked around myself with no success. It must be there because it's a part of the TCP spec. Very odd.
Is there any way to get a "netstat -r" out of the phone? vxUtil and vxIpConfig don't seem to do it, but the output would confirm that the device knew about iface metrics.
However, I can't imagine that other people not facing the same problem, so maybe the solution is in a totally different direction??
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've just learned to live with the fact that you cannot control this. Not that it matters for me, GSM and GPRS doesn't work for me on the 3.5 roms anyway; some sort of carrier issue.

Maybe the link below can help you
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa915714.aspx
I've found it see the attached file.
Original source : http://www.ce4you.cz/forums/view_topic.asp?t=13033&dd=0&fi=10 thx goes to jimm98y

PocketCMD not working
I've tried to install the PocketCMD program, but whenever I start it, I get the below error:
"CMD Cannot start. There are too many console windows open. Please close some console applications and try again"
This even happens when I just restarted my BA. Does PocketCMD work for you?

Its working like a charm, I've Helmi 1.4 vanilla one. Maybe its cause of some installed program?
I recieved the same message as you - but one soft reset and then disappeared.
Also I've NETf v.2 installed - not sure if its required or not?
http://www.symbolictools.de

Found out more about the network metric
Today, I noticed that there is also a Pocket CMD icon on of the Settings tabs. Once I started that and flipped through the pages, Pocket CMD starts!
The strange thing is that after another reset, I get the same error message again and the above trick doesn't work.
While it was working, I got these results:
With "netstat -r" (or "route print") I've figured out that my GPRS interface has a metric of 50.
And when connected to ActiveSync the metric is 30 (but the GPRS gets disconnected)
The WiFi interface has a metric of ?? (Haven't gotten that one yet), but obviously >50 or we would not be having this discussion....
I've done some searching on the internet (with the keywords: Pocket PC network metric interface) and you find a lot of conversion tools for metric to imperial, but did find something interesting on this page:
From: http://www.lockergnome.com/nexus/it/category/troubleshooting/page/3/ (by Marc Erickson)
-------------------------------
Below is the syntax to add a new route:
ROUTE ADD MASK METRIC IF
Here’s an example:
ROUTE ADD 192.168.1.0 MASK 255.255.255.0 192.168.0.9 METRIC 2 IF 2
In this example, 192.168.0.9 is the gateway for all traffic to the destination 192.168.1.0/24. The metric is 2, and the interface number is 2.
When you add a route using this syntax, the route doesn’t persist across restarts of the computer. To make a route persist, add the -p switch to the command, as shown below:
ROUTE -p ADD 192.168.1.0 MASK 255.255.255.0 192.168.0.9 METRIC 2 IF 2
To delete a route, use the DELETE keyword and the destination address. Here’s an example:
ROUTE DELETE 192.168.1.0
----------------------
So, it is (should) be possible to manually add and remove routes and set the metrics of multiple connections. Especially with the "-p" option this looks very interesting. Since all that we need is that the metric of WiFi is lower then the one of GPRS and we're in business.

Have you ever worked with ROUTE command (see the windows help)? It shouldn't be difficult to set the proper metric - just make your GPRS connection and analyse routing table. Then make persistent changes.
Or post here your entries of routing table.

never mind, I answered my own question .

Metrics are not the problem
Today, I finally had a chance to work on this and all the electronics were willing to cooperate, so I finally have a result. This is the output from the "route print" statement while having GPRS and WiFi enabled:
Code:
=============================================================================
Interface List
196610 0 0 0 0 0 0
196611 0 9 2d 10 ab 0 tiacxwln1
=============================================================================
=============================================================================
Active Routes
The no. of entries is ::: 13
Destination Netmask GatewayAddress Interface Metric
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 192.168.1.1 192.168.1.3 30
0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 10.41.247.141 10.41.247.141 50
10.0.0.0 255.0.0.0 10.41.247.141 10.41.247.141 50
10.41.247.141 255.255.255.255 127.0.0.1 127.0.0.1 50
10.255.255.255 255.255.255.255 10.41.247.141 10.41.247.141 50
127.0.0.0 255.0.0.0 127.0.0.1 127.0.0.1 1
192.168.1.0 255.255.255.0 192.168.1.3 192.168.1.3 30
192.168.1.3 255.255.255.255 127.0.0.1 127.0.0.1 30
192.168.1.255 255.255.255.255 192.168.1.3 192.168.1.3 30
224.0.0.0 240.0.0.0 192.168.1.3 192.168.1.3 30
224.0.0.0 240.0.0.0 10.41.247.141 10.41.247.141 50
255.255.255.255 255.255.255.255 10.41.247.141 10.41.247.141 1
255.255.255.255 255.255.255.255 192.168.1.3 192.168.1.3 1
=============================================================================
For the WiFi, I'm using the 192.x.x.x range and the 10.x.x.x is used by the phone company. As you can see, the metrics are correct: WiFi has a metrics of 30 and GPRS of 50, so when you open a page and both connections are active it should route via the WiFi as these 2 lines would suggest:
Code:
Destination Netmask GatewayAddress Interface Metric
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 192.168.1.1 192.168.1.3 30
0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 10.41.247.141 10.41.247.141 50
So, why doesn't this work? As it seems to me, the metric is not the problem that the "cheapest" route is not choosen. I have been thinking what else could cause this, but have not found anything logical yet.

Interesting. I've been quiet on this as I can't get PocketCMD to work. Locks up my phone.
What I would test next is test that all routes are active. Connect to GPRS and use xvUtil tracert (or pocketcmd if it has it) to determine where packets for the following destinations:
1) www.google.com
2) 192.168.0.1 (you router)
3) 10.41.247.141 (GPRS router, may change per connection)
Now, if you can hit (2) OK, the WiFi routing is mostly OK. As per your original problem, (1) should route via GPRS. The default route is represented by 0.0.0.0 here; this means that any subnets (e.g. google's) that aren't specifically mentioned in the table go that way. If you delete the GRPS 0.0.0.0 route via "route delete", then you should guarantee that the internet packets go via your wifi. However, this isn't an ideal solution as you would need to run this all the time. On the other hand, you might be able to write two scripts to manage this. The first would activate the wifi and delete the GPRS route. The second would deactivate the wifi and re-enable the route. As the GPRS route probably changes, this could be difficult. Would probably be easier to write this in Visual Studio as a compiled app in order to do the parsing, perhaps storing the GPRS route details in the registry for retrieval when it's re-enabled. Quite a lot of work for what is essentially a brute force fix. There must be a better way...

Wifi Tethering on Hero - Root Users

Hi, since rooting my Hero, have been trying to get the wifi tethering working.
Currently the laptop and phone show "connected" however webpages refuse to load on laptop.
Am currently in talks with the app developper and so was just wondering if anyone had actually got it to work on a hero.
Here is the link to the app:
http://code.google.com/p/android-wifi-tether/

I can't get it working either. My laptop connects and gets an IP but I can't connect to anything. I can't even ping the phone.
On the HTC Magic it didn't work because HTC used a kernel that didn't have iptables/netfilter support. Someone had to recompile the kernel with these in to get it working. I guess this is the problem on the Hero.

Done some checks of the config files and apparently the kernel does have both iptables and netfilter support.
I couldnt ping initially but then completely disabled my firewall and ping worked... :S

Hi!
There is an open issue on our google-code-page which covers exactly this problem.
http://code.google.com/p/android-wifi-tether/issues/detail?id=122
I don't own a hero so it's pretty hard to say what is going wrong.
What we know so far:
1) It looks like that netfilter is enabled in the stock kernel - so there is no need to replace the kernel.
2) Clients get an ip-address (dnsmasq) but they are not able to ping the gateway (192.168.2.254 - wifi-interface of the phone).
For me ... getting an ip-address but not be able to ping gateway (the gateway is the phone and you receive the ip from the phone) is very weird.
Anyway ... help from hero-users is highly appreciated to find out what the problem is.
Questions I have:
1) Some people say that they are able to ping the gateway after shutting down the personal firewall (client). True or false?
2) If the gateway is pingable does the dns work? "nslookup android.com 192.168.2.254"?
3) Could somebody create wireshark/ethereal traces (on the client-side)?
Thanks.
Cheers,
Harry

Disabling the firewall made no difference for me, I still couldn't ping the gateway.
If it helps my laptop spends ages "Acquiring network address" (Windows XP).

footboydog said:
Disabling the firewall made no difference for me, I still couldn't ping the gateway.
If it helps my laptop spends ages "Acquiring network address" (Windows XP).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Could you please open a command prompt and type "ipconfig" - look for the wireless adapter and tell me the ip-address. I guess it's a 169.xxx.xxx.xxx which is invalid in our case (it's a default-ip which will you receive if you can't get an ip via dhcp).
Anyway ... some people say they can ping the gateway ... and need to finally find out if thats true or not (I don't own a Hero so I can't do that on my own).
Wireshark/Ethereal traces would be helpful as well.

Yep Harry i'm part of that discussion.
Are you the developer from the site?
The ping worked when:
- Firewall OFF, Original tiwlan.ini
The ping failed when:
- Firewall ON
- Firewall OFF, Your modified tiwlan.ini file.
___________
nslookup fails all the time, despite always attaining a valid IP address.

veejayjameson said:
Yep Harry i'm part of that discussion.
Are you the developer from the site?
The ping worked when:
- Firewall OFF, Original tiwlan.ini
The ping failed when:
- Firewall ON
- Firewall OFF, Your modified tiwlan.ini file.
___________
nslookup fails all the time, despite always attaining a valid IP address.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Good ... then please jump back to the tiwlan.ini which allows to ping the gateway. Dns does not work for you but the phone is pingable?
Which ip-address do you get from the phone? Does a ipconfig /release ... and ... ipconfig /renew ... work for you?
Are you able to ping 208.67.220.220 for example?
Does "nslookup android.com 208.67.220.220" work for you?

Previously I could turn the firewall off and ping the 192.168.2.254.. however I can no longer do that??? This is with a fresh install of the wifi tether... :S
So basically. I cannot Ping nor Nslookup with firewall ON/OFF or Orig/Mod tiwlan.ini...
Tried pinging the 208 ip, and nslookup - this failed too.
When I renewed my ip it told me could not connect to dhcp server...

veejayjameson said:
Previously I could turn the firewall off and ping the 192.168.2.254.. however I can no longer do that??? This is with a fresh install of the wifi tether... :S
So basically. I cannot Ping nor Nslookup with firewall ON/OFF or Orig/Mod tiwlan.ini...
Tried pinging the 208 ip, and nslookup - this failed too.
When I renewed my ip it told me could not connect to dhcp server...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Do you got a valid ip-address ... something like 192.168.2.xxx or was it a 169.xxx.xxx.xxx?

Right.
I did ipconfig release and renew.
Although this said there was an error with the dhcp server.
I did ipconfig /all
straight away - I got a 169 ip address, i.e invalid.
However, I typed ipconfig /all again, this time getting a valid ip address.
I think the answer therefore is yes I do get a valid address. However it took a few attempts/few seconds for the ipconfig /all to register..?

veejayjameson said:
Right.
I did ipconfig release and renew.
Although this said there was an error with the dhcp server.
I did ipconfig /all
straight away - I got a 169 ip address, i.e invalid.
However, I typed ipconfig /all again, this time getting a valid ip address.
I think the answer therefore is yes I do get a valid address. However it took a few attempts/few seconds for the ipconfig /all to register..?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Whats the output of "cat /proc/net/dev" (via adb or terminal emulator)?

harry_m said:
Could you please open a command prompt and type "ipconfig" - look for the wireless adapter and tell me the ip-address. I guess it's a 169.xxx.xxx.xxx which is invalid in our case (it's a default-ip which will you receive if you can't get an ip via dhcp).
Anyway ... some people say they can ping the gateway ... and need to finally find out if thats true or not (I don't own a Hero so I can't do that on my own).
Wireshark/Ethereal traces would be helpful as well.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It was a 192.168 address. If I get time I will put wireshark on the laptop.

harry_m said:
Whats the output of "cat /proc/net/dev" (via adb or terminal emulator)?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
hi ... i got a valid ip address (192.168.2.103) but nslookup doesnt seem to work ...
this is the output of "adb shell cat /proc/net/dev" while wifi tether (1.52.pre2) is active.
Code:
Inter-| Receive | Transmit
face |bytes packets errs drop fifo frame compressed multicast|bytes packets errs drop fifo colls carrier compressed
lo: 4102 71 0 0 0 0 0 0 4102 71 0 0 0 0 0 0
dummy0: 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
rmnet0: 1193041 1479 0 0 0 0 0 0 237581 1471 0 0 0 0 0 0
rmnet1: 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
rmnet2: 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
usb0: 0 0 8 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
tiwlan0: 20107 203 0 0 0 0 0 0 738 3 0 0 0 0 0 0
output for "nslookup android.com 192.168.2.254"
Code:
DNS request timed out.
timeout was 2 seconds.
*** Der Servername für die Adresse 192.168.2.254 konnte nicht gefunden werden:
Timed out
Server: UnKnown
Address: 192.168.2.254
DNS request timed out.
timeout was 2 seconds.
DNS request timed out.
timeout was 2 seconds.
*** Zeitüberschreitung bei Anforderung an UnKnown
> ping 192.168.2.254
Code:
Ping wird ausgeführt für 192.168.2.254 mit 32 Bytes Daten:
Zeitüberschreitung der Anforderung.
Zeitüberschreitung der Anforderung.
Zeitüberschreitung der Anforderung.
Zeitüberschreitung der Anforderung.
Ping-Statistik für 192.168.2.254:
Pakete: Gesendet = 4, Empfangen = 0, Verloren = 4 (100% Verlust)
> nslookup android.com 208.67.220.220
Code:
Server: resolver2.opendns.com
Address: 208.67.220.220
Nicht autorisierte Antwort:
Name: android.com
Addresses: 74.125.47.99, 74.125.91.99, 74.125.95.99
> ping 208.67.220.220
Code:
Ping wird ausgeführt für 208.67.220.220 mit 32 Bytes Daten:
Antwort von 208.67.220.220: Bytes=32 Zeit=130ms TTL=56
Antwort von 208.67.220.220: Bytes=32 Zeit=128ms TTL=56
Antwort von 208.67.220.220: Bytes=32 Zeit=166ms TTL=56
Antwort von 208.67.220.220: Bytes=32 Zeit=123ms TTL=56
Ping-Statistik für 208.67.220.220:
Pakete: Gesendet = 4, Empfangen = 4, Verloren = 0 (0% Verlust),
Ca. Zeitangaben in Millisek.:
Minimum = 123ms, Maximum = 166ms, Mittelwert = 136ms
sorry for the german output stuff =P
i hope all this helps identifying the problem =]

harry_m, I sent you a PM with a link to wireshark trace. Hope that helps.

I am having this exact same issue with my Sprint CDMA HTC Hero.

wifi tether encryption problems and access-control
The wifi tether works great on my rooted htc hero for sprint. I can connect pretty much any laptop I can find. However, when doing so, it doesn't prompt the computer to put in the encryption code I set and checked as "enable wifi-encryption". Anyone know how to fix this?
Also, I have access-control enabled but I don't understand what its function is. It simply shows my computer as connected with its IP address and name, but the only option it gives is to disable access control. Is this supposed to enable one to disconnect anyone that's connect to my hero???
Any help on these two would be great! I registered for this site because it was the only place I found a suitable root application that worked successfully. Thanks

hi poorboy09,
can i check if the version you're using is the 1.70 pre-1 version?
that is the only version that is working for me at the moment and I'm running a stock rooted SEA rom.
Access Control works on a MAC address basis where each MAC addy is unique. When enabled, it will allow other people to log into the ad-hoc network but stops data flow and sharing if the MAC address is not enabled in the Access Control settings.
this is a great app and has helped me immensely when i needed internet access and there just isn't a wifi hotspot available.
thanks Dev!

You can always try using aNetShare

gmanvbva said:
I am having this exact same issue with my Sprint CDMA HTC Hero.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am also having the exact same problem

[Q] Help with reverse tethering

Hey there,
I would like to use reverse tethering over my usb cable.
Before I start I'll let you know my setup:
Windows 7 x64 machine, sdk (inc. adb) installed but adb seems to make problems
i9000 running infinitum 2.1 with devil2 v0.72
These are the steps I used:
-connect the phone
-activate usb-tethering on the phone
-PC: change the ip on the new network adapter to 192.168.2.1
-PC: set my local area connection to share my internet connection with the new network adapter
-PC: add http service to the shared internet services
-open terminal on the phone
-executing the following commands:
Code:
ifconfig rndis0 192.168.2.2 netmask 255.255.255.0 up
route add default gw 192.168.2.1 dev rndis0
iptables -F
iptables -F -t nat
setprop net.dns1 78.42.43.62
setprop "net.gprs.http-proxy" ""
Funny part is: I can't ping a domain like google.de also no app is able to access the internet... BUT I can ping 173.194.35.151 (google.de ip afaik?!).
So I DO have a connection... somehow (tested with WiFi off and mobile data off) but no app has access and it can't resolve any domain names?!
78.42.43.62 is the correct ip for my dns provider!
Here are two screenshots proving what I'm talking about: Screen1 Screen2
So what can I do? Can some1 help me out here?
EDIT: I just wanted to point out that normal tethering IS WORKING, I do have a stable connection to my phone (even when transfering data), drivers are working!

Read the following post.. maybe it'll help you
Reverse Tethering

Google Chromecast and Billion 7800N router

Hi,
I am trying to get my chromecast to connect to the 7800N router but it wont connect and im starting to pull my hair out.
I'm running the device on an extender and I have changed some settings but still no luck. eg
Wireless multicast forwarding = disabled
802.11g and N on channel 13. I do this because other networks in the area clash on lower channels.
igmp snooping = enabled
igmp proxy = disabled
upnp = enabled (port 2800)
I was wondering if there are any other settings i should check?

[Fix] [No Root] wifi disconnecting ...

RMN7 3-32 Global 10.3.6.0
Developper Options:
USB Debugging => ON
And
USB Debugging (Security settings) => ON (you need Sim card)
You need a computer, a usb cable connected and adb installed on the computer (i let you find "how to" install and use adb)
Code:
adb devices
adb shell settings put global wifi_sleep_policy 1
If you want come back to the default value:
Code:
adb shell settings put global wifi_sleep_policy 2
if you want to check the "wifi_sleep_policy" current value:
Code:
adb shell settings list global
The trick is that the default setting "wifi_sleep_policy 2" should have been the one that does not create disconnections but this is not...
Keep WiFi on during sleep: Always = 2 #Fail
Keep WiFi on during sleep: Only When Plugged In = 1 #Good !
Keep WiFi on during sleep: Never = 0 #dunno, not tested
With "wifi_sleep_policy 1" I tryed plugged in and not plugged in=> no more disconnections.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Epic Fail !
Today I was disconnected from the wifi several times, I do not understand why it worked for more than 5 days. :crying: :crying:
So do not do what I wrote above it's useless.
I am on another track: my provider has imposed IPV6 sneakily recently...
I managed to get around their trick by forcing the IPV4 again.
I will come back here to say if it worked.

Success !
Forcing IPV4
12 days => 0 disconnection
As soon as I put back into service the IPV6 the disconnections came back a few hours later.

hey mate, you disabled ipv6 on router or on your phone? I'm having the same issue

Falknet said:
hey mate, you disabled ipv6 on router or on your phone? I'm having the same issue
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I used a laptop on W10 as an access point by having previously disabled the management of IPV6 on network cards.
But now I will have to buy a router to avoid killing the laptop .