Cannot share 3G dongle internet via airport to iPad/iPhone

Hello Richard,

The iPad has a self assigned IP address, 169.x.x.x means that it can't find a dhcp server.
IIRC you have to either enable DHCP on the host (in the same scope as the host) in order for the other devices to connect.

The Airport in the MacBook is not a wireless access point so you can not connect a wi-fi device directly to the MacBook. Think you will have to get a wireless base station like the Time Capsule or Airport extreme. Connect mac to wireless base station and make sure internet sharing is on on mac. Connect iPhone and iPad to wireless base station. If not mistaken this should work.

On each of your devices you are trying to connect with (iPad, iPhone) try setting a manual IP address in the same subnet as your Mac (10.0.2.X--change the X to something else), and add DNS servers. Look at your Mac's Network Prefs, under DNS tab (probably under the Advanced… button). Under DNS servers, you should see two sets of gray numbers.
Use those in the iPad, iPhone. Or, you can use some other service like [OpenDNS: 208.67.222.222, 208.67.220.220|http://www.opendns.com> or [Google: 8.8.8.8, 8.8.4.4|http://code.google.com/speed/public-dns>.

I did pretty much exactly what you're trying to do while I was on vacation this summer. In my case I was sharing an ethernet connection over airport. What I found is that the shared connection worked as expected when first set up, but if I shut down my Mac and started it up again the iPhones that were sharing the connection via airport would connect to the wifi, but not get configured. I had to stop Internet Sharing and set it up again to get it to work.

In my case I also used 128 bit WEP encryption, but that shouldn't matter as far as it working.

If you have shut down or restarted your Mac since you set this up, try stopping Internet Sharing and setting it up again (including the Airport Options).

You are on Leopard or Snow Leopard as far as Mac OS, correct? Tiger was not very good about getting the correct DNS servers from the network so I would expect 10.4 not to work as well in a situation like this.

Something is not going right for you. I just reestablished the Ethernet sharing I was using a couple of months ago and it is working with my iPhone.

In network prefs I have;
1. Airport yellow with Self-Assigned IP, don't believe your status is correct for what you're trying to do. Assuming that XXX is the valid name of a Wireless LAN in your vicinity.

2. Ethernet (my equivalent to your 3G Dongle) shows connected with an IP address assigned by my router and my ISP's DNS servers.

Why do you have your iPhone Static? My iPhone gets an IP Address, Subnet Mask, Router and DNS (both set to IP address of 10.0.2.1, which I believe is what my airport is on the wireless side). My iPhone can get to the internet with this configuration.

Something is not right with your airport setup. When you click on the airport menu in the menu bar do you see Internet Sharing: On (and greyed out)?

As far as I know the Internet sharing on your Mac should have a DHCP server automatically running. There is probably some way to turn that off via Terminal, but it should be on by default.

Is your computer still under AppleCare? If yes, you may want to call Apple support or set up a Genius appointment.

Compared to what my airport has when I'm sharing via it your airport has a different configuration.

I can't reproduce your situation so unfortunately can't tell you how to fix it. My internet Sharing via the Airport just works each time I turn it on, including configuring my iPhone and allowing my iPhone ot get to the internet.

With the iPhone set for static config, can you fill in Router and DNS? If yes put 10.0.2.1 in both of those fields and see if you can get on the internet?

I believe the key difference between your configuration and mine is that your Airport is showing up with an IP address in you Mac System Preferences / Utilities of 10.0.2.1, but mine is showing a self assigned IP in Network Pref and Network Utility. Seems like sharing is not coming up properly for you.

These are the log entries I get in Console when starting Internet Sharing and connecting my iPhone, are you gettng something similar;

10/28/10 4:37:33 PM InternetSharing[4591] InternetSharing starting
10/28/10 4:37:33 PM named[4598] starting BIND 9.6.0-APPLE-P2 -c /etc/com.apple.named.conf.proxy -f
10/28/10 4:37:33 PM named[4598] built with '--prefix=/usr' '--mandir=/usr/share/man' '--infodir=/usr/share/info' '--disable-dependency-tracking' '--sysconfdir=/private/etc' '--localstatedir=/private/var' '--enable-atomic=no' 'CFLAGS=-arch x86_64 -arch i386 -arch ppc -g -Os -pipe ' 'LDFLAGS=-arch x86_64 -arch i386 -arch ppc ' 'CXXFLAGS=-arch x86_64 -arch i386 -arch ppc -g -Os -pipe '
10/28/10 4:37:34 PM named[4598] running
10/28/10 4:37:58 PM bootpd[4597] server name gbullmanmbp26.local
10/28/10 4:37:58 PM bootpd[4597] interface en0: ip 192.168.1.107 mask 255.255.255.0
10/28/10 4:37:58 PM bootpd[4597] interface en1: ip 169.254.247.106 mask 255.255.0.0
10/28/10 4:37:58 PM bootpd[4597] interface en1: ip 10.0.2.1 mask 255.255.255.0
10/28/10 4:37:59 PM bootpd[4597] DHCP REQUEST [en1]: 1,4:1e:64:52:f:ed <Garys-iPhone>
10/28/10 4:38:00 PM bootpd[4597] DHCP REQUEST [en1]: 1,4:1e:64:52:f:ed <Garys-iPhone>
10/28/10 4:38:03 PM bootpd[4597] DHCP REQUEST [en1]: 1,4:1e:64:52:f:ed <Garys-iPhone>
10/28/10 4:38:03 PM bootpd[4597] ACK sent Garys-iPhone 10.0.2.7 pktsize 300

192.168.1.107 is the IP address of my Ethernet connection
169.254.247.106 is the self assigned IP address that I see when looking at my airport with system preferences or network utility
10.0.2.1 is the IP address that the airport appears to be to connecting devices.

Do you have similar entries in Console (All Messages) and are there any errors mixed in with them?

I'm glad you found out what the problem was. There just was nothing else to configure from what I could see and my setup just worked each time I turned it on.

Sorry to bring this up again,
Here's an interesting challenge i hope someone can help! i have an imac and macbook pro in my office.
i have a CDMA 3G dongle, (wont work with most 3g routers-no sim card) i want to share this internet to my devices via airport base station/Time capsule.
how do i connect the 3G dongle to iMac and share the internet via the time capsule/airport base station?
i cant share internet directly from the imac cos i need all my computers to connect to the same network ( hence the time capsule). the program i use keeps crashing or internet is not shared if i just use the computers' built in airport. interestingly, iphones connect flawlessly to the computer sharing internet at that time

i have used ADSL connection with these items with no problem in the past but now i dont have access to the wired ADSL hence the need to broadcast a WIFI signal from the base station from the 3G


i hope i made sense!