# IP Networking over USB



## Triska Metria (Mar 10, 2016)

Greetings. I'm just starting to delve into cluster environments, and now have a usage scenario in which it would make more sense to ask this question. Thus far, I have my Master Control Node and a Slave Node built to spec with what I can afford. I would like to avoid having to go out and get more networking equipment and jump straight to something a bit exotic. Either I missed this item, or it wasn't covered in the handbook. A Google search also yielded nothing.

I would like to link USB<->USB and tunnel TCP & UDP between the channels. I have just enough ports on the Master to accommodate two (2) slaves with this setup.

Does anyone know if this is possible for FreeBSD?

Danke.


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## sidetone (Mar 10, 2016)

Did you see this? http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/network-usb-tethering.html . It doesn't cover much, but it's a start.

Also, an Ethernet switch is pretty cheap, if you choose to use that instead of usb.


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## Deleted member 9563 (Mar 10, 2016)

sidetone said:


> Also, an Ethernet switch is pretty cheap


In fact probably free if you just use the switch part of one of your old routers.


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## SirDice (Mar 10, 2016)

There is fwip(4) and plip(4) but I couldn't find something similar for USB.


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## Juha Nurmela (Mar 10, 2016)

Bluetooth an option? btpand(8).

Juha


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## SirDice (Mar 10, 2016)

If you have a proper managed switch you can use vlan(4) interfaces to separate the traffic. Physically you'd have one interface and one cable but _logically_ you'll have two or more interfaces and networks.


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## diizzy (Mar 31, 2016)

socat can probably do what you're asking for.


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