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For my work, I am sometimes in the field using my iPhone 8's 4G connection for Internet. I tether my laptop to it over WiFi using Personal Hotspot; this works fine.

Some of the equipment I work on doesn't have WiFi to be able to connect to the hotspot, but it would be useful to temporarily give it Internet access while I'm working on it. I see that Lightning ethernet adapters are now available and show up as an ethernet interface in iOS. All the information I can find refers only to using the wired interface as the uplink to the Internet.

Does anybody know whether iOS will run Personal Hotspot (ie, DHCP, NAT, routing to the 4G interface, etc) on the ethernet interface when one of these adaptors is plugged in?

Thanks.

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    It will not. however it mya work if you connect the iPhone via usb to a PC or Mac and then forward it over ethernet to a wifi router.
    – bret7600
    Commented Jul 9, 2018 at 19:50
  • Thanks for the comment. Can you explain your reasoning - is this what you observed when trying such an adapter yourself, or do you know some specific fact about the iOS networking stack that would imply this result?
    – Pete Verdon
    Commented Jul 9, 2018 at 22:19
  • This would work because iOS allows for hot spotting over USB. from there, you can use the sharing preferences on Mac to share internet, you may share the connection to any available interface, which includes wifi/usb to ethernet or any other interface that may be connected.
    – bret7600
    Commented Jul 11, 2018 at 12:00

3 Answers 3

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It will work if you connect the iPhone via usb to a PC or Mac and then forward the connection over ethernet to a wifi router.

This would work because iOS allows for hotspotting over USB. from there, you can use the sharing preferences on Mac to share internet, you may share the connection to any available interface, which includes wifi/usb to ethernet or any other interface that may be connected.

With a wifi router, you would be able to access both wired and wirelessly what is on the network. The connection would come from the iPhone, go to the computer, then travel to the router; where a NAT would be created, and multiple devices connected to the wifi router would allow for communication between the wired and wireless devices.

A note: your Mac and iPhone will not connect to the network because they are supplying the internet connection. Another device would be needed.

See Screenshot below:

sharing

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The easiest way would probably be to connect a computer to the iPhone hotspot, then use the computer's Ethernet adapter to share the connection with a hardwired device.

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  • Sorry, but this doesn't answer the question.
    – Pete Verdon
    Commented Jul 9, 2018 at 22:23
  • Why not, I think it would. OP is trying to get temporary internet access to devices that do not have Wifi (and presumably have an Ethernet port). OP has an iPhone and a laptop, and is trying to get an ethernet interface out of his iPhone for these devices, which doesn't seem to work (and I don't know much about these adapters). However if the computer is connected to the iPhone via the hotspot, you can (on a Mac) to go System Prefs->Sharing and enable Internet Sharing, selecting to share your connection from the laptop's Ethernet port or USB Ethernet adapter. This should give OP what he wants.
    – Adam
    Commented Jul 10, 2018 at 17:02
  • we are also trying to get clarity in answers -- ask yourself, why does this work, what makes it a good answer.
    – bret7600
    Commented Jul 11, 2018 at 12:18
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just wanted to add some info even though this is a couple of years old...

A router with DD-WRT as seen here: http://www.hagensieker.com/blog/page/?post_id=64&title=iphone-tethering-with-router-with-dd-wrt

If a power cycle happened, you'd need to be there to press "Trust this computer" on the iPhone which would be the crux of this method.

A more permanent solution for consumer grade use is Alcatel HH41 or Netgear Nighthawk M1 (MR1100)

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