Does Android have a "router setup page" when acting as a wireless or wired hotspot?

Question

I can edit all the crucial aspects of my hotspot/router within the setup options for the hotspot/router configuration.

I am confused as to how the DHCP works when using up the Android phone as a wireless hotspot/router and wanted to figure that out.

One of my attempts to get this information for myself was to try and navigate to 192.168.6.1 via a web browser - this is, of course, the phone's IP address. I was hoping to see some sort of router setup page as you would normally see when configuring a normal ethernet wired/wireless router via a web browser, but unfortunately, there was no such page.

I did some research and found out that you can get some basic information about the phone's IP configuration by downloading a terminal emulator and running a few basic *nix flavored commands.

I was looking for something more - a GUI would be excellent, but I'll take any suggestions on how to access the phone's routing configuration specs.

Is there any sort of "router setup page" that I can access when I enable my wireless hotspot on my Android phone?

See this answer — if you are using the builtin tethering support, there is no configuration, IP addresses used for Wi-Fi hotspot and USB tethering are hardcoded. — Sergey Vlasov, Jul 24 '13 at 13:17
Up to Pie dnsmasq is Android's DHCP/DNS server. You can configure it somewhat through dnsmasq.conf e.g. to permanently assign a static IP address to tethered clients, or through some hacks e.g. to permanently change hotspot tethering IP address or to change the default hotspot DHCP IP address range. — Irfan Latif, Jun 06 '20 at 20:55

score 3 · Answer 1 · answered Apr 29 '14 at 17:00

The Android builtin wifi tethering is designed to use 192.168.43.1/24 as the server, with netd handling the tethering, using dnsmasq. First DNS range is 192.168.42.1-254 and and 2nd DNS range is 192.168.43.1-254.

Netd is not easy to change. It requires a socket to communicate with it, and that socket is taken when android starts tethering. But going through the source files for Tethering.java (I used Froyo) we see:

// usb client will be provided 192.168.42.129
private static final String USB_NEAR_IFACE_ADDR      = "192.168.42.129";
private static final String USB_NETMASK              = "255.255.255.0";

// FYI - the default wifi is 192.168.43.1 and 255.255.255.0

private String[] mDhcpRange;
private static final String DHCP_DEFAULT_RANGE1_START = "192.168.42.2";
private static final String DHCP_DEFAULT_RANGE1_STOP  = "192.168.42.254";
private static final String DHCP_DEFAULT_RANGE2_START = "192.168.43.2";
private static final String DHCP_DEFAULT_RANGE2_STOP  = "192.168.43.254";

And Later on we see those ranges used, AS BACKUPS.

    mDhcpRange = context.getResources().getStringArray(
            com.android.internal.R.array.config_tether_dhcp_range);
    if ((mDhcpRange.length == 0) || (mDhcpRange.length % 2 ==1)) {
        mDhcpRange = new String[4];
        mDhcpRange[0] = DHCP_DEFAULT_RANGE1_START;
        mDhcpRange[1] = DHCP_DEFAULT_RANGE1_STOP;
        mDhcpRange[2] = DHCP_DEFAULT_RANGE2_START;
        mDhcpRange[3] = DHCP_DEFAULT_RANGE2_STOP;
    }

The main source for the dhcp ranges is not the hardcoded 42 and 43, but read from array.config_tether_dhcp_range, an internal string array. But it is currently empty.

You could edit the android framework. On my phone, it is /system/framework/framework-res.apk. There are a ton of tutorials online for editing framework-res.apk, from simple strings to full theming. Find one for your phone and android version.

Main thing you want to change is the /res/values/arrays.xml

Look for <array name="config_tether_dhcp_range" />

Change to:

<string-array name="config_tether_dhcp_range">
     <item>192.168.x.y</item>
     <item>192.168.x.z</item>
</string-array>

compile/zip/sign as needed (follow a tutorial), then reinstall.

If you want more than one range, just copy the two items over and over. You always need to provide a start and a stop for each range. Try to keep it in the same /24, ie 192.168.50.5 and 192.168.50.99 or whatever. You can confirm it is working with busybox ps | grep dnsmasq or if you don't have busybox ps dnsmasq then use the pid in cat /proc/pid/cmdline. You should get (or similar):

/system/bin/dnsmasq --no-daemon --no-poll -no-resolv --dhcp-range=192.168.50.5,192.168.50.99,1h

FWIW, my WIFI tethering uses the default dnsmasq ranges, yet my computer was assigned 192.168.43.147/24 and gateway 192.168.43.1/24. Not sure why yours defaulted to a 42.x address.

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 03 '22 at 19:15

0

FWIW, using "Ethernet Tethering" on my Samsung S20, My attached device gets a 192.168.13.200/24 address and a 192.168.13.25 gateway.

Interestingly, my "Net Analyzer" app shows my phone's external IP as 172.58.200.200 and an internal IP of 33.15.32.108/28.

How many routers are there in my phone...?

answered Apr 03 '22 at 19:15

Dale Hapeman

1

This does not provide an answer to the question. Once you have sufficient reputation you will be able to comment on any post; instead, provide answers that don't require clarification from the asker. - From Review – Chenmunka Apr 03 '22 at 20:09

Does Android have a "router setup page" when acting as a wireless or wired hotspot?

2 Answers2