Accessing localhost of PC from USB connected Android mobile device

Question

I have an android device  Samsung galaxy tab  connected to my PC via USB    I want to use WebServices and run a web page which is located on my local xampp server of my PC on my android device    I can achieve it if I have both   my PC and android device   connected on the same wireless network    However is it possible to access the localhost page without any wireless connection   using only USB connection     PS   This same scenario works when I run the app on an emulator and use the ip 10 0 2 2 to access the localhost on my PC

User · Answer

How to Easily access LocalHost in Actual Android Device -> Connect your pc with the android device via USB

Go to Chrome inspection click 'f12' or Control+Shift+C

Chrome Inspection tool

Check the bottom of the chrome inspection tool.
Now go to settings in Remote Device Tab.

Remote Devices Tab

check on "Discover USB Device" option as well as check on "Port Forwarding" option.
Now Click on Add Rules, Enter Any Device Port e.g(4880) and in Local Address Enter the Actual Address of the local host in my case e.g (127.0.0.1:480)
After Adding the Rule go to your android studio -> inside your code URL(http://127.0.0.1:4880). Remember to change the port from 480 -> 4880.
Go to Remote Device Tab in Chrome and Click on your connected Device. Add New URL(127.0.0.1:4880) Inspect the Android Device Chrome Browser

Check your Actual Device Chrome Browser and start Debugging the code on Actual Android device.

User · Answer

I did this on a windows computer and it worked perfectly   Turn on USB Tethering in your mobile  Type ipconfig in the command prompt in your computer and find the ipv4 for  ethernet adapter local area connection x   mostly the first one  Now go to your mobile browser  type that ipv4 with the port number of your web application  eg - 192 168 40 142 1342  It worked with those simple steps

User · Answer

I finally solved this problem  I used Samsung Galaxy S with Froyo  The  port  below is the same port what you use for the emulator  10 0 2 2 port    What I did    first connect your real device with the USB cable  make sure you can upload the app on your device  get the IP address from the device you connect  which starts with 192 168 x x port open the  Network and Sharing Center  click on the  Local Area Connection  from the device and choose  Details  copy the  IPv4 address  to your app and replace it like  http   192 168 x x port test php upload your app  again  to your real device go to properties and turn  USB tethering  on run your application on the device   It should now work

User · Answer

Hello you can access your xampp localhost by    Control panel --   windows defender firewall --   Advance setting  on left side  --  Inbound Rules --  New Rule --  Port --  in specific local port write your Apache ports --  next --  next  then you can access your localhost by using local PC IP address

User · Answer

Here is a piece of my Android app s code   This app is able to communicate with a HTTP get-post model between a servlet running on a server and an Android device plugged in USB-Debuggable mode  because the app was in developing progress    I also can run the app over Wi-Fi when the server  Tomcat Apache 7  running on  when the app development was finished      To get the IP address of yours   Go to Command Prompt Type ipconfig Hit enter   In the list  IPv4 Address  is your IP

User · Answer

Make sure you have adb installed on the computer  USB debugging enabled on the phone  and the phone has allowed access to the computer   Plug the phone into the computer via USB cable  and make sure it s visible  it should show up in the Bash command adb devices  In your computer s Chrome browser  open chrome   inspect  devices  click the  quot Port forwarding quot  button  check  quot Enable port forwarding quot   and add the port on the computer that you want to be accessible from the phone  detailed instructions here    You ll need to keep open the tab running chrome   inspect  devices  In your phone s browser  navigate to localhost  port number   and it should display whatever is running on the computer   This works on Windows and Ubuntu Linux  and should work on Mac as well

User · Answer

Google posted a solution for this kind of problem here   The steps    Connect your Android device and your development machine with USB debugging enabled Open Chrome in your development machine  open new tab  right click in the new browser tab  click inspect Click the three dots icon on right top side   -  More Tools  Remote Devices  Look at bottom of the screen  make sure your device name is appeared on the list with Green colored dot  Look below at the settings part  check the Port forwarding mark Add rule  Example  if your python web server is running on your machine localhost 5000 and you want to access it from your device port 3333  you type 3333 on the left part  and type localhost 5000  and click add rule  Voila  now you can access your web server from your device  Try open new browser tab  and visit http   localhost 3333 from your device

User · Answer

Check for the USB connection type options  You should have one called  Internet pass through   That will let your phone use the same connection as your PC

User · Answer

I ve read numerous forums and tried play apps but not found a solution until now   My scenario I believe is similar to yours  but I will clarify to help others  I have a locally hosted website and web services to be used by my android application  I need to have this working on the road for demonstration with only my laptop and no network connection   Note  Using my iPhone as a wifi hotspot and connecting both my pc and my android device worked  but the iPhone 4S connection is slow and dropped out regularly   My solution is as follows    Unplug network cables on PC and turn off wifi  Turn off wifi on android device Connect android to pc via USB Turn on  USB Tethering  in the android menu   Under networks- more   - Tethering and portable hotspot   Get the IP of your computer that has been assigned by the USB tether cable   open command prompt and type  ipconfig  then look for the IP that the USB network adapter has assigned  Open a browser on the PC using the IP address found instead of localhost to test  i e  http   192 168 1 1 myWebSite Open a browser on the android and test it works

User · Answer

Connecting android phone via USB cable and accessing http server on the Computer   Firewall - switch it off  once everything works you can add a rule under Inbound rules  enable Apache HTTP Server  UDP and TCP   or whatever HTTP server you re using  Warning - if you switch off the firewall  your computer becomes vulnerable to internet attacks  So switch off internet and disconnect from network first  You don t need to be on the Internet for this to work  as you re connecting two devices on local network   Plug in the USB cable  If networking window pops up  select Home Network  If it doesn t pop up it s probably set to Public  which won t work   so go to  Control Panel Network and Internet Network and Sharing Center  in win7  and set it to Home Network there  It might give you a next screen after you press it to share Pictures  Music    just click cancel on it  On the main screen Home Network will still be active   You need the Computer s IP  localhost or other aliases don t work  To get the IP of your machine  start the Windows command line shell  press Windows Key   R and type cmd   the black command prompt window should pop up  type   quot ipconfig quot  and hit enter  Now look for   IPv4 Address                        192 168         That s the IP that your phone assigned to your computer  Now you should be done  in the phone s browser  try accessing a test html file from your computer s server it should display fine   Now that everything is working you ll probably want to enable the firewall and Internet access on your computer  Now try accessing your http server again  It probably won t work  Depending on your setup you might get a popup asking you to add a rule to allow it  but if you don t  just add it yourself  Start the windows firewall and go to Inbound Rules  because it s a server  and add New Rule  Select  quot Program quot   Locate the exe of your http server  and in the next screen make sure Allow is selected  Try connecting again  and now it should work  If not it s probably because you selected wrong exe  You can even go more advanced to restrict outside usage  because now everyone on the internet can access it if they have your Internet IP address  To restrict access you can right-click on the new rule you ve just created  click Properties  and go to Scope tab and change things there accordingly  Note for Android developers  now in your android code  you have to use  quot http    quot   otherwise it won t work  For example  MyAsyncTask execute  quot http   192 168 123 123 test html quot     Part II -- Setting IP to fixed static  Now that things work  every time you unplug the cable and plug it back in  your IP will change  And if you are using it somewhere like inside a code  you ll have to update it every time  Solution I ve come up with is to set the IP to static   Having the phone connected and tethered  go back to Network and Sharing Center and click on the Local Area connection  quot Connections  quot     On the next screen select Properties  then highlight IP 4 and press properties there and click  quot Use the following IP address quot  Put Default Gateway and Subnet Mask exactly as it was in the ipconfig  and for the IP Address  only change the last 3 digits to anything from 1 to 255   That IP will be your new fixed static IP and it will remain the same next time you plug the phone

User · Answer

I very much liked John s answer  but I d like to give it with some changes to those that want to test some client  server configuration by running a client TCP on the USB connected Mobile and a server on the local PC   First it s quite obvious that the 10 0 2 2 won t work because this is a REAL hardware mobile and not a simulator   So Follow John s instructions    Unplug all network cables on PC and turn off wifi  Turn off wifi on the android device Connect android device to pc via USB Turn on the  USB Tethering   USB Modem  USB Cellular Modem   USB                     in the android menu   Under networks- more   - Tethering and portable hotspot      This USB connection will act as a DHCP server for you single PC connection  so it ll assign your PC a dedicated  dynamic  IP in its local USB network  Now all you have to do is tell the client application this IP and port   Get the IP of your PC  that has been assigned by the USB tether cable     open command prompt and type  ipconfig  then look for the IP that the USB network adapter has assigned  in Linux its ifconfig or Ubuntu s  Connection information  etc    Tell the application to connect to that IP  i e  192 168 42 87  with something like  Java - client side    String        serverIP         192 168 42 87   int           serverPort      5544  InetAddress   serverAddress   InetAddress getByName serverIP   Socket        socket           new Socket serverAddress  serverPort         Enjoy

User · Answer

Problem I faced maybe it will help some one  I was working long time where my pc and android device connected to the same WiFi network and the android device connected via the IPV4 address of the pc with opened port 8080 trought the fire wall  ONE DAY   I installed Genymotion emulator in order to debug UI on different screens  THANKS to Genymotion Virtualbox network configurations it ruined my WiFi adapter  The fix was to reconfigure IPV4 TCP settings on the WiFi netwrok adapter

[android] Accessing localhost of PC from USB connected Android mobile device

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