How to Tether Your iPhone Without NetShare (Mac Walkthrough)
Author: Nic Elder | Posted under: How-TosTags: how-tos, iphone, jailbreak, mac, netshare, system, tether, tethering
Some of you were lucky enough to grab a copy of NetShare before it was taken down from iTunes (twice), but for those of you who weren’t (present company included), I’ll walk you through accomplishing the same result using a jailbroken iPhone.
NOTE: This walkthrough assumes you have already jailbroken your iPhone, see our 3G Jailbreak Tutorials for Mac Users & Windows Users (this walkthrough is for Mac users only, Windows version coming shortly).
Walkthrough
1. Download Boss Prefs from Cydia (see this Tutorial for help)
Boss Prefs is a great program that easily lets you enable and disable certain functions on your iPhone. Some of the built in features it supports are:
- 3G Data on/off
- Edge Data on/off
- WiFi on/off
- Bluetooth on/off
- SSH on/off
Boss Prefs also lets you create custom toggles, which we will be doing in this tutorial.
2. Download 3proxy from Cydia
3proxy is a command line program that will let you use your iPhone’s internet connection to browse the web from your laptop (or other WiFi connected device).
NOTE: If you can’t find 3proxy in Cydia it’s likely because you have selected “User” when Cydia asked “Who Are You?” In order to make 3proxy appear in the list of available applications you will need to change this to “Developer”.
- Tap Manage
- Tap Settings (top left)
- Tap Developer (no filters)
Now go back to search and type 3proxy and the application should be visible.
3. Create a Custom Toggle For 3proxy in Boss Prefs
- Open Boss Prefs
- Tap Config (top left)
- Tap Add (top right)
- Fill In Information for Custom Toggle
- Tap Save (top right)
The start, stop, and process fields are CASE-SENSITIVE, make sure to type the following exactly as I have it:
Name:
NetShare
Start:
/usr/bin/socks &
Stop:
killall socks
Process:
socks
Setting up your computer to use the proxy
Mac Users:
1. Create an Ad-Hoc WiFi Connection
First, we need to create a private WiFi connection between our computer and the iPhone. Click the airport icon in the toolbar at the top of the screen and choose ‘Create Network’.
When prompted type the name of your network. We’ll use ‘iPhone NetShare’ so we can easily identify our network on the phone.
Leave all other settings at default and click ‘OK’
2. Join iPhone to Ad-hoc Network
We now need to have our iPhone join the same network so it’s visible from the computer. On the iPhone goto Settings -> WiFi and select our newly created ‘iPhone NetShare’ network from the list.
After joining the network (check mark next to the name), then we can tap the blue arrow to the right of the network to enter some custom address settings.
- Tap Blue Arrow
- Tap ‘Static’ at top of settings page
- Enter 10.10.10.10 for IP Address
- Enter 255.255.255.0 for Subnet Mask
- Press Home button to return to springboard
3. Set Address Settings on Computer
Now we need to put our computer on the same network as the iPhone so we will need to give it similar manual settings.
Click on the WiFi icon in the toolbar, and ‘Open Network Preferences’ at the bottom
Let’s create a new connection profile for using NetShare. This will keep you from having to go back and changing your settings whenever you get back home and want to use your original WiFi.
Click the ‘+’ at the bottom of the connection profiles to add a new service
Leave Interface set to ‘AirPort’ and type in ‘iPhone NetShare’ for your Service Name
Select your new service from the list of profiles on the left, and choose the ‘Advanced’ button on the bottom right screen.
- Click TCP/IP tab
- Change “Configure IPv4″ dropdown to ‘Manually’
- Enter 10.10.10.1 in IP Address
- Enter 255.255.255.0 in Subnet Mask
- Click Proxies tab
- Check the box next to Socks
- Enter 10.10.10.10 in Socks Proxy Server box
- Enter 1080 in Port (box after the ‘:’)
4. Turn on NetShare in Boss Prefs
Tap Boss Prefs on the SpringBoard and set the NetShare toggle to ON
NOTE: NetShare will remain on even if you close Boss Prefs, so remember after you are done using the connection come back to Boss Prefs and turn the NetShare toggle to OFF to keep unwanted people from using your connection.
5. Browse the web
Now open up your web browser, and head on over to http://www.AppleiPhoneApps.com for the next great App Store review!
Summary
Nullriver created a great app when they released NetShare, however, most of us weren’t lucky enough to get it before it was delisted. For those of you who have jailbroken your iPhone, this solution is simple, elegant, and if you are using 3G, it actually has the benefit of letting you use the iPhone AND your computer at the same time (as it runs in the background instead of in the App sandbox that NetShare was required to use).
Tethering the iPhone to a laptop is a violation of AT&T’s use policy, and may result in overage charges, so use at your own discretion. I can tell you that I’ve used tethering on both the iPhone and other devices for years for things like email and web with no extra charges from AT&T, so as long as you use it responsibly (no Torrents, or Video streaming) you should be okay.
The other drawback to using both NetShare and the solution detailed above is that they use Proxy technology to share the connection, instead of true NAT routing. This means that whatever application you have that you want to use on the internet MUST BE PROXY COMPATIBLE. Safari, iChat, and most of the Mac’s built-in applications adhere to the system settings for a proxy server and will work just fine, but some applications will require you to manually enter the proxy settings.
The proxy type is always Socks 5, and the server address is going to be 10.10.10.10 if you followed the tutorial above. The port number will be 1080.
Good Luck, and Happy Tethering!
Having Trouble? Did we miss something? Let us know below.
[...] How to Tether Your iPhone Without NetShare (Mac Walkthrough) Some of you were lucky enough to grab a copy of NetShare before it was taken down from iTunes (twice), but for those of you who weren’t (present company included), I’ll walk you through accomplishing the same result using a jailbroken iPhone. NOTE: This walkthrough assumes you have already jailbroken your iPhone, see our 3G Jailbreak […] Bookmark iFones!SubscribeBlinklistDiggdel.icio.usFacebookNewsVineRedditStumbleUpon [...]
Apple 3G iPhone - How to Tether Your iPhone Without NetShare (Mac Walkthrough) | iFones.com Apple iPhone 3G iPhone News on August 8th, 2008 at 11:08 pm
[...] been lucky because of AppleiPhoneApps producing tutorials on maximizing your iPhone potential and a walk through of your iPhone. Few [...]
Tutorial to tether your iphone without netshare on August 9th, 2008 at 7:25 am
it does not work in the background for me. As soon as I click on home button while in BoddPrefs, it closed down the connection. When I open BossPrefs again I see the connection as OFF
CEBEP on August 9th, 2008 at 8:26 am
when you put the start command in boss prefs you left out the & at the end
Nic Elder on August 9th, 2008 at 6:46 pm
I am pretty sure that I did indicate the & sign at the end.
the problem might be that I also indicated:
stop: kilall socks
it was on the screenshot but was not mentioned in the instructions.
Anyways, I wanted to create the new record but did not find the way how to delete the old one.
Any ideas?
CEBEP on August 9th, 2008 at 10:04 pm
another thing is when you connect your iPhone to the ad-hoc (MacBook) and then set it to on in BossPrefs, my MacBook will not connect to the Internet as my iPhone conection icon shows only wifi connction and not EDGE. So I have to close the BossPrefs, open Safari, enter any webaddress. iPhone switches to EDGE and only after that go to BossPrefs, switch on NetShare.
And then MacBook starts using the EDGE connection via iPhone
CEBEP on August 9th, 2008 at 10:12 pm
I am having the same problem as post 3. I have re-done the instructions 10 times exactly how they are stated but it still does not work.
Stephen on August 9th, 2008 at 10:49 pm
To remove the service from BossPrefs (since the UI currently does not appear to have a way to delete or edit existing items) delete the file from the /Applications/BossPrefs.app/services folder using SSH, SFTP or Terminal on the iPhone.
Browsing around I noticed that several icons are included with BossPrefs. I personally like the tinyproxy icon, but there is also socks.png. Most of the icons are 20 by 20 pixels in PNG format, so you could make your own as well.
To use the icons included, enter the following into the icon field:
/Applications/BossPrefs.app/tinyproxy.png
Wizdave on August 10th, 2008 at 6:17 pm
I have figured out how to fix the issue with the application staying in the background. Change the start command to: socks -d.
I could not get BossPrefs to detect that the application was running after closing and opening since it only looks at processes of the mobile user rather than all users and the socks daemon runs as root. This is not much of an issue since you can just click the switch twice to close the socks proxy.
Wizdave on August 10th, 2008 at 8:59 pm
Very interesting. I can make everything work, but BossPrefs just refuses to toggle properly. The socks service is running (I can see it using ssh) and can surf the web with Safari on my laptop. But BossPrefs just won’t stay.
It’s not a huge deal as I can just sh in and start the service, but it’s odd that BP won’t stick.
BabyGotMac.com on August 11th, 2008 at 6:40 am
You do not want to run socks w/ -d as that will run as root… to make it run in the background you need to have the & on the end of the start command…. That will allow socks to run as mobile, and run in the background.. as long as you have the stop command (killall socks) then you should have no problem stopping the server, and the switching should stay correct.
Nic Elder on August 11th, 2008 at 8:29 am
I followed the instructions to a tee, and on exiting BossPrefs, the connection closes down as mentioned above.
Also, is there any way to route all connections on my mac through the socks proxy? I know there’s a program that does this on Windows.. It would be more convenient than having to change the settings in each application I want to use.
Jayphen on August 11th, 2008 at 8:05 pm
I just followed my own tutorial again, from a fresh restore of a custom ipsw.. I can flip the toggle for netshare and it remains active even if I go to the home screen. As long as the phone doesn’t lock (set auto-lock to never). I even SSH’d into the phone and verified socks was still running as a background process.
@jayphen: I have not yet found an application that will route all connections through the socks server. I know w/ windows there are a few different options out there. If you find anything I’d love to hear about it, I’ll update the tutorial, and/or make a new one
Nic Elder on August 12th, 2008 at 2:19 pm
Not bad.
Only works with Safari on the MacBook side of things, not Mail, Firefox, or other apps … But at least you can get some web connectivity in a pinch.
Wonder if there is a way to use the USB cable connector instead of the ad-hoc wireless network; that would save a few steps.
jdizzle on August 12th, 2008 at 8:48 pm
@jdizzle: It works with Mail and Firefox, also with iChat and various other programs.. those programs just need to be manually configured to use a proxy server, entering 10.10.10.10 as the server address and 1080 as the port.
Nic Elder on August 13th, 2008 at 9:47 am
[...] ha una guia bastant completa en Anglès, jo faré una [...]
Applebloc » Com compartir la conexió 3G del iPhone sense NetShare on August 16th, 2008 at 5:32 am
I have the same problem as comment 3, once I close BossPrefs the connection dies, the & is included and everything. I checked to see the processes running on the iphone and it’s not listed. When I reopen bossprefs it says socks is off, if i run socks from the terminal the open bossprefs it says its off, bossprefs is able to kill the by toggling to off.
Name... on August 25th, 2008 at 8:34 pm
Sorry edit comment 17, if i run socks from the terminal and then open bossprefs it shows that it’s on, i’m able to toggle it off from within bossprefs.
Name... on August 25th, 2008 at 8:37 pm
[...] jailbreak users can get relief from our own Tethering Tutorial , an Apple / AT&T fix would help usher in the same functionality to loyal users that adhere to [...]
Rumor: iPhone Tethering Option in the Works on August 29th, 2008 at 12:48 pm
I just tried this, but I can’t get it to work. When I connect the phone to the wifi netwok, the setting panel thinks it’s connected, but I never get a wifi icon in the status bar, and I can’t even ping the phone, let alone connect to the proxy server!
Iain benson on September 13th, 2008 at 6:11 am
doesnt anybody know if it’s possible to run this internet through my computer and then to my xbox, and run xbox live off of the phone? let me know
Peter on September 16th, 2008 at 6:31 pm
It has gotten a whole lot easier than that… an iPhone version of PdaNet is now available from Cydia - it works amazingly well (just create an ad-hoc network on the Mac, join it with your iPhone and that’s it), no odd proxy or other configurations required and all apps accessing the Internet do work (as far as I have tested).
dreyfus on September 30th, 2008 at 7:36 pm
@dreyfus: thanks for the tip dreyfus — we actually have a full review / how-to of pdanet in the works that should be up very shortly.
Andrew Robinowitz on September 30th, 2008 at 7:43 pm
Sweet! what’s the name of this app?
Bobby on September 30th, 2008 at 11:38 pm
[...] a while back I wrote about how to get Netshare’s tethering functionality without Netshare. Since the original iPhone I’ve been wondering why no one has created a transparent proxy [...]
Review: PdaNet (Look Ma’ No Proxy!) on October 2nd, 2008 at 2:29 am
[...] a while back I wrote about how to get Netshare’s tethering functionality without Netshare. Since the original iPhone I’ve been wondering why no one has created a transparent proxy [...]
Review: PdaNet (Look Ma’ No Proxy!) — Best Mobile Phone Deal on October 2nd, 2008 at 4:02 am
[...] a while back I wrote about how to get Netshare’s tethering functionality without Netshare. Since the original iPhone I’ve been wondering why no one has created a transparent proxy [...]
Review: PdaNet (Look Ma’ No Proxy!) — Best Mobile Phone Deal on October 2nd, 2008 at 4:02 am