iOS14 iPhone USB tethering broken for Linux/OpenWRT

USB Tethering worked for me about 2 months ago prior to updating to iOS 14.0.1. It is definitely broken on attempting to tether both my iPhone SE and iPhone 11 Pro to OpenWrt based GL.iNet AR300M (and also AR150-Ext) travel routers. I substituted a Netgear MR1100 M1 Nighthawk LTE Router with USB tether for the iPhone(s) and it worked immediately. As others have indicated, from inspection of the IP addresses it appears to be properly connected, but there is no traffic flow.

Same issue... On Ubuntu with iOS 13 worked fine connected via usb... now with iOS 14 Ubuntu detects the ethernet adapter but no internet connection... ips allocated via usb are on same range as wifi(on wifi works but on usb doesen't)

No, that is not correct. I couldn't get USB tethering to work with either of to iPhones running iOS 14 to my GL.iNet AR300M travel router. Since I was trying to eliminate the possibility of user error, I substituted my Netgear MR1100 M1 for an iPhone with a USB- to USB-A tether to the AR300M just to see if I had the AR300M properly configured. Turns out that I did. At no point did I try to tether an iPhone to the M1.

Looks like iOS 14.0 broke Linux compatibility via some non-backwards-compatible interface changes. It doesn't affect Windows. People are trying to fix it from the OSS community side (see discussion on this libimobiledevice issue: https://github.com/libimobiledevice/libimobiledevice/issues/1038).

But I haven't seen any sign of successful USB tethering yet on Linux and iOS 14.

Oh how I regret updating to iOS 14. I’m also ****** that Apple has blocked executing downgraded to 13.x. I’ve been working remote since COVID. My GL iNet 750M is useless now. 14.2 has emojis and widgets, but I can’t find any reference to fixing this HUGE functional error. I’m very disappointed with Apple.

No solution/workaround yet? with no choice I'm connecting with wifi

iPhone XS with IOS 14.0.1

Operating System: Manjaro Linux

KDE Plasma Version: 5.19.5

KDE Frameworks Version: 5.74.0

Qt Version: 5.15.1

Kernel Version: 5.4.67-1-MANJARO

I'm having the same problem, Apple should be ashamed... due to covid I'm forced to working remote and rely on this connection type so my child can attend remote school, and my wife an I can work to pay the bills. Now we can't do any of these tasks!

Yes. No change, no fix unfortunately with ios 14.1. It is so annoying!

Tethering via wifi is not stable, the connection is getting lost after some time and the iPhone‘s wifi-hotspot is not visible anymore (why?!?). One has to switch the personal hotspot off-on, then the wifi-hotspot is visible again and devices can reconnect.

Agree’d, infact I spent a good part of the night on the phone with 1st & 2nd level support over at apple. When I tried to convince them the seriousness of my situation & pleaded for assistance to roll back to iOS13.7, their answer was simply “we didn’t officially support linux tethering before, and it’s not our priority now”.

I’m not interested in bashing apple right now, I just need a solution to get my family back online that doesn’t cost me new infrastructure again. Apple’s only suggestion was “buy a new hotspot” which of course also means a new data plan to go with it 😢. I hope someone at apple has a heart and helps put priority on this

A possible solution would be to USB tether your iPhone to your Mac, then go to Sharing in your Mac's settings and share your internet connection. Then connect an ethernet cable from your Mac's network port to the WAN port of your router. This should give everyone on your home network internet access.

I'm guessing Apple won't fix it, as 3rd party providers are already developing fixes for this. Synology has a hot fix for their latest update for the RT2600ac that restores USB tethering. Tested and tried. This is why I think that Apple won't fix this, and that this simply requires driver changes.

I'm saying that they already developed an updated driver that's fully working as we speak. They still haven't released an official firmware update for it, but they do have a hot patch with the updated ipheth.ko driver.

@Hector. I mentioned the Synology hot patch you spoke about in the dd-wrt forum, and was asked to contact you if you can help locate a copy of the submitted code or at least a link to the original source. Possible?

A couple of people here said they were able to tether their iPhones to their routers wirelessly (albeit not reliably). Can someone share how this is done? I’d rather have an unreliable connection for my family, than no connection at all.

Next step is to dump my family’s 9 apple devices and look for a new ecosystem to become a regular consumer of. The irony is I was one of those idiots that upgraded hardware often.