"Tethering" Over ADB

If you have an Android phone with WiFi 6E and a Mac that doesn’t support 6GHz WiFi, this guide shows how to use ADB and SOCKS5 to route your Mac’s traffic through your phone’s faster 6GHz connection—no root or kernel extensions required.

Background

It all starts with my internet problem on campus. I noticed that our WiFi connection only allows 20MHz for 5GHz WiFi, which impacts both WiFi 5 and WiFi 6 devices. This policy locks the connection speed to 286Mbps. However, I found out they also enabled WiFi 6E 6GHz and it has a higher cap than 5GHz. If I need faster WiFi, I have to get on 6GHz, but my MacBook Pro 2021 does not support 6GHz.

The Solution Stack

Here’s how the connection flows:

Mac (Browser) → SOCKS5 Proxy (127.0.0.1:1080)
                      ↓
                  ADB (USB)
                      ↓
            Termux/microsocks (Phone)
                      ↓
            WiFi 6E 6GHz (Phone)
                      ↓
                  Internet

The WiFi 6E Android Phone

Luckily, I have a Moto G Stylus 5G (2024) that supports WiFi 6E, but its USB tethering is locked to RNDIS by the manufacturer ROM. RNDIS is supported by Linux and Windows. It was supported on macOS through a third-party project HoRNDIS, but it is not usable on Apple Silicon MacBooks.

ADB and SOCKS5

This leads us to a network workaround. Wired ADB provides a stable USB data channel, and a SOCKS5 proxy running on the phone can redirect the Mac’s traffic through the phone’s 6GHz connection.

Prerequisites

• Termux installed on the Android phone
• ADB installed on the Mac (brew install android-platform-tools)
• USB debugging enabled on the phone (Settings → Developer Options → USB Debugging)
• microsocks installed in Termux:

pkg install microsocks

Step 1: Start the SOCKS5 Proxy on the Phone

In Termux, start microsocks on port 1080:

microsocks -p 1080

To prevent Android from killing Termux when the screen locks:

• Settings → Apps → Termux → Battery → Unrestricted
• Pull down the Termux notification → tap Acquire wakelock

Step 2: Forward the Port via ADB on the Mac

ADB forward maps a local Mac port to the port running on the phone over USB:

adb forward tcp:1080 tcp:1080

Since ADB forward can drop when the screen locks or USB is interrupted, use this loop to keep it alive:

while true; do
    adb forward tcp:1080 tcp:1080
    sleep 3
done

Step 3: Configure the Browser for Isolated Test

In Firefox:

• Settings → search proxy → Settings…
• Select Manual proxy configuration
• SOCKS Host: 127.0.0.1, Port: 1080
• Select SOCKS v5
• Check Proxy DNS when using SOCKS v5
• Click OK

Results

A ~50% improvement in download and ~33% in upload, all over a USB cable with no root or kernel extensions required. And it is also easy to route the system connection to SOCKS5 in system settings.