My Pineapple is Working as a WIFI Dongle - Anyone Had This Happen?

[Kelikaku]

While I was resetting the pineapple MK VII and trying to get it to open into the GUI, I plugged it into my laptop. Since I didn't want any other ethernet devices to interfere while I was doing this, I didn't plug any ethernet wires into the laptop, and used the manual WIFI switch to disable the WIFI on the laptop.  The pinapple was then the only device connected to the laptop.

While trying to browse to the pineapple's IP adress, I discovered that the pineapple had connected to my network, without any password, and was serving my laptop, from the USB port, as a WIFI dongle. I was able to browse and do a speed test. The speed was the same as if it was connected normally, and when I experimentally turned off my modem, the connection was interrupted. When I turned the modem back on, I was online again. 

Next, I plugged the pineapple into my desktop and disconnected the ethernet. My desktop has no WIFI card. When I tried browsing, through the USB connection, I again, had an internet connection, without a password, without any wires. Again this PC has no internal WIFI. I'm using it with only the pineapple connected to the USB. I'm getting normal speed. ‎The pineapple is working as a WIFI dongle on my desktop now. I'm posting this message with it right now, at this very moment.

Any comments on this? Thanks in advance. 

בס'ד

[dark_pyrro]

What IP address did you PC get from your WiFi network? What range?

[Kelikaku]

53 minutes ago, chris2008 said:

At least someone is getting some use from it. Mine is an ornament now 😕

I know where you're coming from. These things get so frustrating, and they're kind of complicated. I had trouble with it from the first day, thinking it was broken and wouldn't start. Then when I finally got it going, I got bogged down, thinking it was defective:

When I tried to get it working today, it wasn't connecting to any browser, and when I tried to reset it to factory settings, it still had no output.

Finally I went through the entire setup several times (in the website documentation), and after three times, it still didn't work. I started reading this forum, and when I saw any post that complained that the pineapple didn't work, I started reading. When I read this, I clicked on the link in the message - and it linked to my pineapple (which was still plugged into my USB hub)! From there I was able to get through the configuration.  

Keep working at it.

 

[Kelikaku]

4 hours ago, dark_pyrro said:

What IP address did you PC get from your WiFi network? What range?

It was through the pineapple, I did an ifconfig report from the terminal:

root# ifconfig
eth2      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:13:37:A7:34:DB  
          inet addr:172.16.42.248  Bcast:172.16.42.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:104056 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:83928 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:55035920 (52.4 MiB)  TX bytes:20708276 (19.7 MiB)

Anyway, I changed some of the configuration on the pineapple and then after running the wp7.sh utility, it stopped working. In fact, then all my ports stopped working. I had to reboot the computer twice to get back online. I have one modem and three ethernet connectors, one CAT6 on the motherboard (eth0), one through the network controller in my monitor (neat) which connects to the PC through USB (eth1), and the third through the pineapple (which WAS eth2, and now it's been disabled).

I am suspicious that it has something to do with the wireless client mode, after reading through the entire online setup description. This part is towards the end, and it does seem to indicate that the pineapple can function as a WIFI receiver through the USB port (or a "dongle").

EDIT: I know the above ip belongs to the pineapple, as I have my modem and home network's ip set to 177.177.177.177, so it's easily recognized.

[dark_pyrro]

Not sure what you are referring to, but the Pineapple isn't a dongle. Just the simple fact that you get an IP on your computer from the Pineapple range (172.16.42.0/24) shows that you've connected to the Pineapple, not as a WiFi dongle, but as a client to the network that the Pineapple provides.

6 hours ago, Kelikaku said:

177.177.177.177

I guess that's your public facing IP address and not something you use in your internal home network since it's not an IP address that is supposed to be used in private networks. If you pick IP addresses that is supposed to be used publicly in your own private network, then I'd suggest you stop doing that and use the dedicated ranges that has been reserved for private networks by IETF/IANA (unless you have an assigned IP range and run all of your devices straight on the internet without any routing or firewall).

[Kelikaku]

18 hours ago, dark_pyrro said:

... the Pineapple isn't a dongle.  ... 

Yes. More like a router, since it has an IP address. But it assigned my laptop an IP of 172.16.42.248, as you can see in the above post. That's out of the range that is stated. I wonder what the explanation for that is?

18 hours ago, dark_pyrro said:

... that's your public facing IP address and not something you use in your internal home network ...

Only computers that connect to that router are assigned an IP from 177.177.177.178-254. It is my local IP address range for that router, and it's not visible to the WWW. My public IP address is visible to the sysops of this forum and to any website I browse, and is assigned to me by the company that provides my internet service. I do not use a VPN for most of my online activity. I have another router with another IP, as well, on my network. Every router that I've ever used was limited to using four three digit sets of numbers that range from 0 to 255. There was never any limit other than that. For example, the system will not let me set an IP address of 333.333.333.333, but it WILL let me set an IP address of 222.222.222.222, the three digit sets must be less than 256 and greater than or equal to zero, as I understand it. There are no "IP police" that come to your house and tell you what IP address numbers you can set your router to. Interesting that you would think this though. These local IP addresses are invisible to the web and have no way of interfering with the outside world.

Even if you tried to set your home network to a static address that matched the IP address of an online website, it would be impossible for it to make any difference to anyone. It would be like playing a recording on a VCR of a movie at the same time a television station broadcasts the same movie. As I understand it, if you want to play your own version of the exact same movie that a television station is broadcasting that very same movie, at the very same time they are playing it, the TV station might not ever realise how devious and diabolical you are being, by daring to copy their activities. If I'm incorrect, please explain to me how in the world it makes any difference what random numbers a user of a router assigns to the router's local network (LAN). 

[dark_pyrro]

Ehh, out of range?! Stated where?! A 172.16.42.0/24 network can provide the following addresses: 172.16.42.1 - 172.16.42.254, of which 172.16.42.248 is a part.
A .248 address also makes total sense when looking at the dhcp config of the lan interface of the Pineapple where the start address is set to 100 and the limit is set to 150 which makes .249 the last address possible to lease (and 248 is less than 249).

Regarding selection of IP addresses, it's just simply bad practice and can (but less likely) lead to routing and/or DNS issues. It's your choice though.

If you think you are totally unable to get the Pineapple working, then I'd suggest you create a support ticket.