Is it possible to provide internet via GPIO?

#1

Maybe some stupid question but I’m thinking about using setup like this:

  • Rock5b as NAS
  • Raxda Zero 3 as a WiFi input to provide internet connection to Rock5 via GPIO
  • second Zero3 as a WiFi hotspot to provide internet to other devices via GPIO from Rock5b

is it possible?

#2

You want to host a NAS using WiFi? Not the greatest idea. Just use a cable.

#3

Theoretically yes, there are 3 SPI interfaces on 5B and they can be driven at 48Mbps, you can then run SLIP over SPI and get a network.

I don’t think it’s possible to go faster than 48Mbps though, other interfaces on GPIO are I2C at 5Mbps max, UART at 4Mbps max, CAN at 1Mbps max, and I2S and SPDIF which are for audio data.

So you’ll get a network that’s worse than a 2005 era WiFi.

Also beware that SLIP creates point-to-point interfaces that cannot be bridged together, and most WiFi adapter cannot do bridging when not acting as a hotspot, so you need to setup routing for this to work.

If for some reason you absolutely must have a bridged setup, you’ll also need to setup a couple of tunnels, one from the first Zero to something on the wired network, one from the first Zero to 5B, and one from 5B to the second Zero.

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#4

Why not M.2 WiFi ?