Enable Port forwarding for Raspberry Pi OTG network

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hi @joe, after much work in the background and some back channel feedback via resin bizdev (and resin team), I think I am going to abandon this approach for now. There seems to be a hypothesis that the g_ether drivers are not stable (sensitive to power fluctuations and data noise on poor usb cables). What I managed to accomplish with my work was to configure and get repeatable fixed IP addresses configured (using resin dev image) but at some point using ‘dmesg’ found that there were a lot of errors and corrupted packets being transferred. From some web searches there seemed to be some indication this might be a memory leak in the drivers, though that was scoffed at too: no idea.

So I am now onto an alternative approach for my prototype, namely making the same network connections that i wanted to make via OTG via wifi instead.

I am attempting to build a system where i connect multiple rpi0ws via an AP that has two wifi connections. The goal is to connect all the rpi0ws through one wifi connection to the web and have them connect to and be managed by the resin system.

I have taken the approach outlined in: Creating access point - Raspberry Pi Zero W. At a high level the AP seems to work when implemented rpi3 and following the suggestions. I am able to connect with my laptop to the web through the AP. However shortly after that success the connection drops until i reconnect again. I also have tried to set up one of the rpi0w to connect to the ‘resin-hotspot’ side of the AP. When I scan the ports of this network from my laptop I see the rpi0w on the ‘resin-hotspot’. However again, shortly after this the network disconnects. I have the sense (but am not sure how to instrument) that incoming traffic back through the AP causes the disconnection.

Consequently, I have a few questions:

  1. What is causing the downstream side (resin-hotspot) to disconnect?
  2. Is there some configuration required on the rpi0w to allow them to get through the AP and to connect to resin?
  3. How would you suggest instrumenting this system to figure out what is happening?

Thanks for your consideration of these questions!