Tethering MacOS X.5 Leopard with Nokia E51 via bluetooth

Bought myself a new phone (well, the company did so, because not being able to use ssh via my old one really sucks if you got a subscription to mobile internet just for those cases), a Nokia E51. Cool thing is that it supports up to HSDPA, which really has a lot better ping times than GPRS. Not sure about throughput, but I don’t care about throughput. I mainly check email and ssh, both use little bandwidth but really benefit from better latency (lower ping times).

Took about 30 minutes, with help from my coworker Kees to find how to tether my BlackBook with MacOS X.5 (Leopard). Writing it down here, because I couldn’t find it explained anywhere, really.

First, go to Network Settings and select Bluetooth. Now configure the Bluetooth device. From the little cog-menu in the bottom, select “Change serial devices” (name might be a little off, I’m using a Dutch version of MacOS X). Add a serial device with a name you can remember, privding service “Dial-Up Networking” and protocol RS-232. Close that window and select Advanced in the bottom right. Add a device in the bottom, using protocol RS-232 and changing the name to whatever you chose before. Close that window and go back to the Bluetooth connection setting.

Now choose Advanced from here and make sure your device maker is Nokia, but the device itself is “GPRS (GSM/3G)”. Not “E51″, at least it didn’t work for me with that setting. Now connect with your regular settings (which are empty for KPN in The Netherlands) and presto, you’re done.

Please leave a comment if this helped you!

Tags: bluetooth, dial-up networking, e51, gprs, hsdpa, kpn, leopard, macosx, modem, nokia, rs-232, tethering

IPv6 Tunnel behind Thomson modem, continued

My coworker is even better than me. After I thought I fixed it, I noticed that the incoming connection is denied if the machine hasn’t had any outgoing ipv6 over the tunnel for a little while. My coworker, Kees, found the solution and implemented it and now it works! Yay!

This is what you need to do (blatantly copied from Kees’ blog):
:expr add name=ipv6 type=serv proto=41
:firewall rule add chain=forward_host_service name=SixXS serv=ipv6 state=enabled action=accept
:nat tmpladd intf=Internet type=nat outside_addr=0.0.0.1 inside_addr=192.168.4.4 protocol=6to4
:saveall

Let me know if this helped you too!

Tags: 6to4, DMZ, firewall, ipv6, linux, modem, nat, pointopoint, proto41, sixxs, telnet, thomson

IPv6 Tunnel behind Thomson modem

Update: My coworker Kees found a better solution, see the next post.

Took me a little while to figure out, but I found how to create a point-to-point IPv6 tunnel (cordially provided by SixXS) if you’re behind a Thomson modem. In my case, it’s a ST546, but I imagine this works for other stuff too. WARNING: I’m NOT entirely sure what I’m doing here exactly. IF IT BREAKS YOUR MODEM, IT’S YOUR OWN FAULT!!! Consider yourself warned.

If you still dare, follow this:

• Telnet to your modem and login with your Admin credentials
• Perform the command: nat maplist. You’ll see something like:
  {Administrator}=>nat maplist
Idx Type Interface Outside Address Inside Address Use
1 NAPT Internet 12.345.678.90:22 192.168.1.200:22 1
2 NAPT Internet 12.345.678.90:113 192.168.1.200:113 0
3 NAPT Internet 12.345.678.90:49163 192.168.1.201:5060 1
4 NAPT Internet 12.345.678.90:49205 192.168.1.202:5060 2
5 NAPT Internet 12.345.678.90:49238 192.168.1.203:5060 2
6 NAT Internet 12.345.678.90 127.0.0.1 0
{Administrator}=>
  The Interface is important.
• We’re going to add a mapping for the 6to4 protocol by giving it the command: nat mapadd intf=Internet type=nat outside_addr=12.345.678.90 inside_addr=192.168.0.1 protocol=6to4. Replace “Internet” with your interface name, the outside address with the outside address (IPv4) of your modem and inside_address with the internal IP address of the server that you’re going to use for the connection.
• Now give the command saveall
• IMPORTANT: I had to ping out before I was able to receive any 6to4 packages! So ping6 ipv6.google.com and see if the outside world can ping6 your server.

That worked for me. I had a lot of trouble finding this solution, so I’m blogging about it in the hope that it helps someone else. The most important info was found in a post from Richard Menedetter on the SixXS forum. It was hard to find for me, though.

Tags: 6to4, DMZ, ipv6, linux, modem, nat, pointopoint, sixxs, telnet, thomson