I just recently acquired a Raspberry Pi at SAINTCON 2013. I already had one, and forgot how much fun these little computers can be. I also forgot what a PITA they can be if you don't have your house hard wired to your switch for Internet access, and have to go into the basement to plug in. Plugging into a monitor and keyboard isn't a big deal for me, it's just the inconvenience of getting to the Internet. So, I downloaded Raspbian, ran through the initial config, including setting up an SSH server. The only thing left to do is get it online, and that will take a little config, which this post is about.
My laptop is connected wirelessly, so my ethernet port is available. So, I should be able to plug the Raspberry Pi into the laptop, and have it use the laptop's wireless connection. In other words, using my laptop as a router and a gateway. So, let's get started. Below is an image of what I am trying to accomplish:
The Raspberry Pi needs to be connected to the laptop via a standard twisted pair ethernet cable. The laptop will be connecting to the Internet wirelessly. So, while I still had my Raspberry Pi connected to the monitor and keyboard, while it is offline, I edit the /etc/network/interfaces file as follows:
# Raspberry Pi
iface eth0 inet static
address 172.16.1.2
netmask 255.255.255.252
gateway 172.16.1.1
Then, on my laptop, I gave my ethernet port the address of "172.16.1.1" (mostly because no one ever uses this network- so it shouldn't conflict with your home/office). My laptop must be the gateway to the Internet for the Raspberry Pi. Notice that my laptop does not need a gateway for this interface. Instead, it's going to masquerade off of the "wlan0" interface, which already has a gateway configured:
# Laptop
iface eth0 inet static
address 172.16.1.1
netmask 255.255.255.252
Now, I need to make my laptop a router, so it can route packets from one network (172.16.1.0/30) to another (whatever the "wlan0" interface is connected to). As such, run the following command as root:
echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward
Now, that this point, the "eth0" and "wlan0" interfaces are logically disconnected. Any packets coming into the "eth0" device won't make it any further. So, we need to create a logical pairing, called a "masquerade". This will allow packets going in "eth0" to exit "wlan0", and vice versa. So, as root, pull up a terminal, and type the following:
iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -o wlan0 -j MASQUERADE iptables -A FORWARD -i eth0 -j ACCEPT
If you have any firewall rules in your INPUT chain, you will need to open up access for the 172.16.1.0/30 network.
At this point, plug your Raspberry Pi into your laptop, SSH into the Pi, and see if you can ping out to the Internet.
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