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Force ftp to use USB hotspot interface

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Faris Rehman

Background: My home broadband speed is very slow, so I use my mobile hotspot (5G, unlimited data) to download large files. Currently, to store media on my NAS I download the file to my phone, then transfer to my NAS via USB.

I want to move to directly connecting my NAS to the media server via FTP and download files that way, but I need the NAS to use my mobile data hotspot whilst also staying on my home ethernet for access from local devices like my main desktop. When I tether my phone to my NAS, I see "usb0" in the list of network interfaces.

My question is, how do I force the ftp application to connect to the media server via the usb0 interface? I've seen threads like: https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/210982/bind-unix-program-to-specific-network-interface

But when I follow this example, I don't get any connection with e.g. curl returning "Could not resolve host". I've got fairly basic level knowledge in UNIX. My local network is enp3s0 at 192.168.4.X.

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paladin avatar
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paladin
Do you use a hostname for connecting or do you use an IP? If you use a hostname for connecting, instead use the IP of the host, which you wanna connect to. If you want to use a hostname, add that hostname and it's **fixed** IP to your `/etc/hosts` file.
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jpbrain avatar
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jpbrain
Hi @Faris. This is done by setting specific routes to the host or network you are trying to reach. You could specify different networks and then create the specific routes through them.
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Faris Rehman
@paladin Are you talking about hostname vs IP for connecting to the NAS? I use my internal local IP to connect to the NAS, it's not accessible externally, and a hostname to connect to the FTP (which fails to connect when I follow the example steps on the link)
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Faris Rehman
@jpbrain Interesting, I've got quite basic knowledge in Linux but I'll look into this thanks!
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paladin avatar
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paladin
It seems you have problems with resolving hostnames. What I meant to say was: Don't use the hostname of that FTP server to connect to that FTP server, instead use its IP address.
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Faris Rehman
@paladin Makes sense, thank you
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jpbrain avatar Ubuntu
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jpbrain

Here it is a more detailed answer.
On any unix/linux machine you setup every interface with at least 3 parameters:

IP, Default Gateway/Route and Netmask
IP: is the actual direction for your inteface
Gateway: is the primary contact to reach other networks
Netmask: Would be a definition of what actually is your local network

then there is the DNS that it is only needed when you want to resolve out of the network host/IPs. If you configure names in the /etc/hosts then you know the translation between the name and the local IPs.

Now. if you have more than one way to reach the network you could use something like:

ROUTE add [destination] [MASK netmask] [gateway] [METRIC metric] [IF interface]

here you tell the server to use [gateway] to reach [destination] on a specific [IF interface]
using this you bind the routes by IP/Interface and it is not related to the program you are using.

Please, go ahead and google the specifics and try it.

Good luck.

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Faris Rehman
I got it working, thanks for the explanation!
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