I have the OTG port connected to one of the four USB ports on a 4b. I'm not sure what the next steps are to get the actual connectivity to function, though. I've seen posts saying that gadget mode is only supported on the USB-C port - does that only mean for using the 4b as a peripheral, or does that mean for any connectivity, even if it's the host?
Well, uh, I hope your power supply can provide 3 Amperes.
Also you need to explain your network architecture. Does your Pi 4 connect to the internet using WiFi, and provides internet to Pi Zero? Your should see Pi Zero as USB-Ethernet card on your Pi 4, and you should be able to create a shared connection on this card from Pi 4 system settings if you connect a monitor and a mouse to your Pi 4.
The end goal will be to have none of the Pis connected to wifi; this will be a closed unit. For now, both of the Pis I'm testing with are connected to my wifi.
I want to communicate over USB, and it seemed like ethernet-over-USB + regular web services are the easiest way to do that.
The goal is to have each Pi Zero be able to communicate with the Pi 4b and the Pi 4b be able to communicate with each Pi Zero.
When you say I should see it as a USB-Ethernet card, where would I see it? I only see eth0, lo, and wlan0 when I use ifconfig -a on the 4b.
EDIT: Oh my god. My cable was bad. I swapped cables and now I can see it.