Esp32 in uart trasparent bridge

[reneeot]

Hi guys

I wanted to ask if anybody has managed to use esp32 with an embedded Linux for a transparent WIFI Uart Bridge
where the esp32 used how a trasparent bridge between pc and router for to active the internet conection.
Is it possible , and if so how? i Would like to configure Hardware over Serial-Port, but I can't find any examples of using "ppp" or any kernel module that enable esp32 along the lines of wlan0 ecc...
I want use it for send a video stream online.

[kolban]

If I'm understanding properly, it seems like an odd request ... so that makes me think I am not understanding properly

You have an embedded Linux device which apparently has a UART ... and you want to connect an ESP32 through the UART such that the Linux device would see a network interface which would then drive the ESP32 (through UART) and the ESP32 would then use WiFi to connect to an access point?

What kind of Linux device is this? Might it have a USB port on it? If so, a cheap WiFi dongle might be better. PPP and SLIP are unlikely to serve you well here either as the notion of their existence was kernel -> serial -> serial link (eg. modem) -> serial -> kernel -> PPP/SLIP servers. Unless someone has an implementation of PPP or SLIP on the ESP32 (which LWIP may or may not have) then that is a big task.

[reneeot]

hi Kolban, thanks for you answer. therefore..

You have an embedded Linux device which apparently has a UART ... and you want to connect an ESP32 through the UART such that the Linux device would see a network interface which would then drive the ESP32 (through UART) and the ESP32 would then use WiFi to connect to an access point?

yes, i'm trying to do this.

I'm making a wifi cam to send streaming video to a server, and i'm working on a custom embedded board, where there are not available usb to connect a wifi dongle( there isn't physical space for it).
In this board there is a yocto linux system, I would use ESP32 to release this video stream to the dedicated server, or connect this board on internet.
..Is this possible?
thank you

[reneeot]

another question,
maybe using daemon how connman or ofono, i can fix it?
what do you think about it?
thank you

[kolban]

Can you describe more about your embedded Linux board? So far I believe it has UART ... but does it have other protocols and abilities ... specifically SPI or GPIO? My thinking here is that even if we could get you SLIP/PPP over a UART through to an ESP32 you are likely not going to be pleased with the low bandwidth. However, a protocol such as SPI can have a much higher serial throughput.

Have you looked at thew Pi Zero with WiFi? Would that Linux based device have a small enough factor to give you video PLUS WiFi? Have you considered using the ESP32 as the device driving the video camera by itself?

[reneeot]

Therefore, we thought of using the UART because we have a compression algorithm that allows us to make video streaming with 20kbps, so it is compatible with the UART speed. However, we can also use the SPI (future development).

Our system is a board with a IMX6 quad core processor with 1 GB RAM and a custom operating system linux YOCTO that runs on a micro SD card.

The board is similar with raspberry PI 0 (now I'm using just a PI3 for the prototype, the ESP32 is connected with tx/rx GPIO) but own board is customized for our project of video streaming. So.. there is no way to manage the communication at the operating system level by showing the ESP32 like a network interface transparently?

[kolban]

I am not aware of a transparent solution. The Linux kernel provides an IP stack and the device drivers then map that to the physical communication layer such as 802.11 radio or Ethernet or Token Ring or Serial (SLIP/PPP encoding). However, serial is meant to have a partner at the other end that also speaks the same protocol (eg. SLIP/PPP). So unless we have an ESP32 based implementation of SLIP/PPP we would be stuck here. If you are willing to program, then you can invent a private protocol that could be sent by your app and parsed by an APP on the ESP32 and interpreted there.

[WiFive]

Suggest to use esp8266 instead until esp32 has a Linux slave driver.
https://hackaday.io/project/9300-esp-12 ... -sdio-wifi

[reneeot]

Thanks for your answers,

Suggest to use esp8266 instead until esp32 has a Linux slave driver.
https://hackaday.io/project/9300-esp-12 ... -sdio-wifi

I do not know now if the solution proposes Wifive, may be right for our custom project.I have to analyze it better. also because we would like use the ESP32 to implement bluetooth layer later.

he Linux kernel provides an IP stack and the device drivers then map that to the physical communication layer such as 802.11 radio or Ethernet or Token Ring or Serial (SLIP/PPP encoding).

Regarding the solution proposed by Kolban, I can set up my linux yocto emebedded on a SLIP / PPP encoding, but what about the private protocol to be implemented on ESP32, can you give me some reference in more? maybe there is some other project similar to reference?

thanks, have good day

[Sreeshma]

Hi
I am also trying to do the same , esp32 with an embedded Linux for wifi. Can you please share how you have done this?

Thanks,
Sreeshma