Using S60 device as WLAN access point?

[PawelDefee]

Hello,

Is there any concrete information available on whether an S60 device can be used as a WLAN access point ? This would be for the purpose of e.g. running a TCP/IP server on the handset and letting others connect to it via WLAN.

Please also let me know if you know this is impossible...


Thanks in advance,
Pawel

[petrib]

Not impossible, but there is no built-in support (software) in the phone for it to act as a router/WLAN access point.

And it probably requires access to lower level APIs, which have not been documented in the published S60 SDKs.

[pavarang]

I'm just curious, i admit...
but why they would like to access via WLAN and not BT? :-)
The maybe more interesting scenario would be: i have a Nokia phone with WLAN, but my friend sitting in front of me no... but he has BT, so he could navigate in internet with my WLAN access passing through his BT.... something like using BT from a 6630 towards a pc to surf...

[mateen_maldar]

Hi PawelDefee,

Ther is no concrete information or api regarding accessing s60 device as a WLAN access point . But in the low level api's AFAIK the IP sec is wrapped with both the internet and WLAN access points which is only avalible for partner's and licencees of symbian.I didn't find any such documents which are public in this regard.

Regards,
Mateen Maldar

[PawelDefee]

Hello,

The JoikuSpot software available from http://www.joikuspot.com/ claims to do exactly this.

I investigated the contents of the installation file. The software consists of two executables, a UI and a background server.

The server itself uses only standard capabilities (ReadDeviceData, WriteDeviceData, SwEvent, NetworkService, ReadUserData, WriteUserData). The libraries it uses are only standard networking libs (ESOCK, INSOCK, ApEngine, ESTLIB).

This all means that it must be possible to make an S60 device act as a WLAN access point using only commong Symbian code without access to restricted APIs.

So, it certainly is possible, the question is, how to do it?

Thanks in advance,
Pawel

[wizard_hu_]

I have not checked the application, just read about it on some site. There they wrote that JoikuSpot is HTTP-only, so it may act as a single-port proxy, basically starting a server socket on some pre-defined port on the WLAN side (and you have to specify the IP address of the phone and this port as proxy setting for the browser on the PC), and creating a GSM-side socket for the incoming connections. Then simple active objects can mediate between the two sides.
However I may be too optimistic, and note that I have not really checked if it is HTTP-only or not.