I have a PC running Windows XP Pro. It is connected via ethernet to a broadband DSL router. It also has a Linksys WiFi card, model WG311v2. We want to connect a Mac via the WiFi to access the DSL. The Mac isn’t the problem, we’re having trouble getting the PC to share the internet connection. Any advice?
Are you trying to connect the Mac to the XP box or to the router?
It’s sounding like you’re trying to set up the XP box as an ad-hoc WAP (wireless access point), which just sounds like all kinds of difficult, and it’s probably a lot simpler to change the broadband router to one that has WiFi built in, or to plug a hardware WAP into it and not mess with trying to make the XP box pretend it’s a router.
FWIW, WG311v2 is a Netgear product, and it doesn’t look too promising to use it as a WAP, rather than as a receiver.
There’s no such thing as an “ad-hoc WAP”. An ad-hoc network means there is no WAP and all machines on the network are peers. There’s nothing difficult about setting up an ad-hoc network.
What you want to do is set up the ad-hoc network (sometimes referred to as “computer to computer” or “peer to peer”) and get that working first. Make sure the computers can ping each other and test out file sharing, for example. Then you go to the XP machine’s LAN connection and turn on Internet Connection Sharing. I don’t have the UI in front of me, so I can’t remember the exact steps, but it’s a setting on one of the pages in the LAN connection properties. You want to make sure it’s set to share the connection with everyone on the wireless network (I believe it makes you choose which other network adapters benefit from the “sharing”). When you enable Internet Connection Sharing (ICS), it would probably be a good idea to force the mac to refresh its network settings and get a new IP address (I’m not sure how to do this on the mac, but it would be the equivalent of an “ipconfig /renew” on the PC).
If it’s not working, there may be a firewall issue. I usually turn off the XP firewall completely, since I have a hardware firewall, and I’m not exactly how the firewall may affect ICS. If you suspect the firewall, you can always do a test by turning the firewall off temporarily. If it starts working then, the firewall is your issue and you have to decide whether to leave the firewall off or find a way to configure the firewall to let ICS through.
Since you don’t specify what you’ve done with respect to the PC I don’t know what the exact problem is, but the first thing to do is to configure Internet Connection Sharing on the PC. There may also be some additional configuration steps to configure the wireless card to run in ad-hoc mode (i.e. it automatically forms networks with other WiFi-capable appliances). Essentially what will happen is the PC will form a gateway to itself (and thus, to the network adapter going to the DSL router) and include your Mac in the network.
How well will this work? Probably not very well, although at least the product literature indicates that it can. In my experiece dd hoc networks aren’t very robust and the capability of 802.11b/g protocols for ad hoc networking seem to be tacked on. 802.11n (so-called “WiMAX” protocols should be better. You also need to consider security; most older hardware won’t support ad hoc networking with anything more secure than WEP encryption, which is better than nothing but still inherently insecure. (Anyone who thinks that they don’t need to use encryption on a home network “'cause I don’t do anything on the wireless connection that is critical” needs to reevaluate that position. I only use ad hoc networking when needing to transfer noncritical data between two unnetworked machines and it’s not worth burning a DVD or too large to fit on a thumbdrive.
For ~$50 you can get an inexpensive wireless router that can attach to your DSL modem/router, can be easily configured to use secure wireless encryption (WPA), and will be far easier to configure and more robust than trying to use your Windows box as a router/gateway/firewall. It’s often tempting to use hardware that’s sitting around to do something, just because it’s there and it supposedly can, but you’ll save yourself a lot of frustration and effort for a pretty small cash outlay.
Stranger
As an onsite pc support type, this would be my advice as well. I have set up about a dozen wireless neworks sharing macs and PC’s, worked like a charm.
Just in lack of headaches it will be a well spent $50, the instructions for most routers these days are targeted to home users and include wizards that autodetect your connection type and transfer those settings to the router sparing you manually configuring the router which can be really obnoxious at times even for home user grade stuff…
WiMAX is 802.16.
Q.E.D. will probably be along shortly to give you an answer.
Yeah, I’ll probably just go the wireless router route (ha!) if I can’t get it working per galt’s advice. Not worth the headache if it’s not going to be a simple thing. Thanks everyone, as usual.
I stand corrected. My error, and I’m not even sure why I said that.
Stranger
My experience is that LinkSys wireless would rather disintegrate than talk to Mac hardware. Try getting a non-LinkSys router.
I’ve never had a problem with mine (WRT54GL). The Airport cards and routers adhere strictly to the 802.11b/g protocols, and it’s true that some manufacturers seem to work better than others (I’ve had some issue with Buffalo back when WiFi was the shiny new thing, although I understand they’ve gotten much better). Poke around on-line and you can find all kinds of reviews of different routers and their general compatability.
Stranger
Don’t know if this helps, but it’s really easy to share the connection the other way around, from the Mac to the XP box. If the Mac is plugged into the modem via ethernet, it can share the internet connection over the wireless, and it’s really easy to set up. To turn on internet sharing, go to the system preferences panel. Click on the “Sharing” preference. Select the “Internet” tab. Click the “Start Sharing” tab. There’s an “Airport Preferences” button just below that let’s you set up WAP, WEP, or MAC address security.
Dude, this is just what the Windows people hate; all this snobbish Macophiles rubbing salt in the wounds by pointing out how easy it is to perform some administration task on a Mac. I mean, it’s almost as if Apple designed the operating system to be functional and intuitive for the average user.
Nobody wants to hear that shit. Especailly after they’ve shelled out $150+ for Vista.
Stranger
Not my intention; just thought if reversing the order was acceptable, that was a potential solution. For all I know, there’s a control panel in Vista that does the same thing better. For that matter, I don’t even know if Vista has control panels. Not trying to show off - Mac’s just what I know best. The only XP systems I’ve done time on are work PC’s. Since the boss (me) frowns on playing with systems on the corporate LAN, I’ve never really played enough with XP to learn. And our IT guys don’t know Macs, so I have to figure it out myself if I want to do something.
Relax, I was just joking. However, as an amusing and totally irrelevent aside, I went to a coworker’s apartment a few months ago, and he decided to have an impromptu LAN party. (Please, no comparison to an orgy for geeks…it’s bad enough as it is.) All the 2000 and XP laptops were having to go through various gyrations to get connected. I just asked him “What’s your encryption key?”, opened up the Network Connection panel, typed it in, and there I was. This did not make me the hit of the party, though I did notice a few people eyeing the PowerBook with a combination of envy and menace. (I love playing with FreeBSD and all, but after spending fruitless hours trying to get 802.11g adapters to work on that laptop, I’m happy to have an OS that just doesn’t require digital voodoo to check my e-mail.)
I’m guessing that the o.p.'s Mac is a laptop, though, and thus he doesn’t want to make it his access point for the PC. Like I said before, it’s probably just better all around to pick up an inexpensive wireless router and let it do the proper job.
Stranger
Yep, it’s my girlfriend’s machine, and it won’t be here all the time; only when she comes down to stay with me. Wouldn’t make sense to make it the AP.
Gah, You’re right. I’m so accustomed to “infrastructure” networks where everything knows its lot in life.
So true! And not true. When my Linksys WRT54G router lost its magic smoke last year, I discovered that it’s impossible to take a new one from out of the box to running by using a Mac to set it up as the “wizard” only runs on Windows. Once I dragged an old laptop out of the closet, I was able to configure the thing, and now it works quite happily in our all-Mac home.
That’s simple; don’t use the stupid crippled “wizard” software that the manufacturer provides; instead, log into the http administration interface by hooking it up to your computer (running Windows, OS X, Linux, BeOS, Ultrix, Plan 9, or any other operating system that supports TCP/IP and has a graphical web browser), pointing the browser at http://192.168.1.1 (for Linksys) or http://192.168.0.1 (most others), log in as “admin” (the default password is typically also “admin”, something you should change, as well as disabling remote and wireless administration) and go to town. Check out Tom’s Networking (curiously renamed…when did that happen?) for basic information on how to configure a wireless access point/router. (I’d also suggest replacing the manufacturer’s firmware with typically more robust third party firmware, but that’s probably more than most people want to get into.)
Stranger
Nuh-uh! You can’t do the initial setup that way. I thought the big sticker placed over the jacks tht said the CD must be run first was for ninnies, but no such luck. You may be a stranger on a train, but I’m no stranger to 192.168.1.1 - this is my fourth (and last) Linksys router. You can certainly log in to the admin page, but your entries will not work.
Even to say that your DSL’s static IP is xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx, the DNS servers are xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx and so forth. It won’t even allow that much to pass WAN traffic to local wired clients, and that’s before you even think about wireless.
Their tech support is also unapologetic about being Windows-only, so my next purchase will be from someone who understands that a router should be OS-agnostic, and has a better handling of state tables and failed connections. You can DOS yourself very easily with a Linksys router if you don’t power cycle it every couple of days.
Yes, you could put HyperWRT on it, but you shouldn’t need to. That’s like saying “Go buy a Chevy, but before you drive it home, drag it over to the Dodge dealer to replace the engine.”
If you’ve got the money, I really really really really recommend Apple’s Airport Express. It’s a wireless router that’s about the size of a digital camera and the configuration software couldn’t be easier. It’s really as simple as plug and play for nearly everything, Apple is always releasing new drivers for it (new set last week that supports WPA2), and you can stream music wirelessly to your home stereo system through iTunes.
Not only that, but the small size means it’s portable and can be taken on the road quite easily. It comes in handy when I go to visit my mom and I have to spend the night.
My favorite part is that the router body itself has prongs for connecting directly into your outlet, which means no extra wires.
It costs more than other wireless routers, so you might not want to go that route, but I can’t recommend it enough. I’ve gone through lots of routers in my life (installing home and business networks), and Airport is miles ahead of them for the average home user.