Complicated wifi networking?

The "Real" router is the last router in the chain. If you turn off DHCP in the Linksys, then the "Last" router in the chain is the Powerbook G4 with Internet Sharing enabled.

If you pitch a tent in your nighbor's yard, the "Last" router is your neighbor's home router.

Your neighbor's home router thinks the "Last" router is the ISP's router.

Your ISP's router thinks the major networking feed its it's "Last" router.

That is to say, then next device up the chain which is acting as a router is the current device's "Last" router.

Your Powerbook G4 ONLY care's about your neighbor's home router, and the next device down from your Powerbook G4 ONLY cares about the Powerbook G4 as its router.

This is a long way to say, when you enable Internet Sharing, the Mac becomes a NAT router and provides its own DHCP server for the devices it is sharing the internet with.

Hi Bob,

I was forgetting to chunk up to info and that the Powerbook (as originally stated) would act as a DHCP router.

Mats does now seem to have substituted a MacPook Pro for the Power Book.

In Mats' second pic

It says "Self Assigned IP" which I would expect seeing Internet Sharing is On.

Surely this IP is being used as the MacBook Pro is as a Router.

Now it says it cannot connect to the Internet.

1) We are not expecting it to on that service/Network as it is getting it via the USB dongle.

(Effectively the "internet" as such, is being "sent out" on that Cable, as I understand it.)

2) Why is the Linksys not getting an IP in this case, or are we missing something about Self Assigned IP Addresses ?

The Linksys I had at one stage could not be put in to Bridge Mode.

It had several options in the drop down at the top of the Linksys pics Mats is posting that reads Automatic Configuration.

DHCP/Automatic as shown.

I seem to remember one called Ethernet.

PPPoE is another.

Static is one

I forget the actual wording but I seem to think there is also one called or refers to a p2p sort of connection (It is likely that this was my interpretation of what it said as it was a while ago)

As you both have progressed further with this I will continue to watch (And learn some as well)

8:00 PM Tuesday; May 31, 2011

Please, if posting Logs, do not post any Log info after the line "Binary Images for iChat"

 G4/1GhzDual MDD (Leopard 10.5.8)
 MacBookPro 2Gb( 10.6.7)
 Mac OS X (10.6.7),
"Limit the Logs to the Bits above Binary Images."  No, Seriously

I managed to delete a long reply I was writing, and my wife has already gone up to bed, so this is going to be brief.

Yes it is difficult becuase you are going way outside the bounds of normal home use. The home WiFi software developers and home router manufactures do not build in simple setups for complex situations such as yours. Sorry, but that is just the way it is. Networking is hard when you start "coloring outside the lines".

At this point, I do not know what is working.

Can the neighbor talking Mac access the Internet? If not you have to get that working first.

If the neighbor talking Mac can access the internet, then enable internet sharing via Airport, and see if the 2nd Mac can connect via Airport.

Does that work? If not, what is the 2nd Mac's network setup, including IP address, net mask, router address, and DNS server addresses?

I am keeping the Linksys router out of this, as it is apparently just confusing things. Besides the less hardware involved the easier it is to debug.

If sharing via Airport works, you might just declare victory.

If you really want to add the Linksys to the mix, then the next step is to verify ethernet BUT WITHOUT the Linksys.

Switch the neighbor talking Mac so it is sharing via Ethernet.

Connect the 2nd Mac to the neighbor talking Mac via an Ethernet cable.

Does that work? If not, what is the 2nd Mac's network setup, including IP address, net mask, router address, and DNS server addresses?

If that does not work, try a different Ethernet cable. It would not be the first time a bad Ethernet cable has caused networking problems.

If neighbor talking Mac to 2nd Mac via Ethernet works, then and ONLY then would I think about adding the Linksys to the mix.

First, I would use the Linksys in its default mode. That is connect the neighbor talking Mac's Ethernet cable to the blue "Internet" port (or so the WRT54GX-v2 PDF manual says it is). I would have Linksys DHCP enabled (this too would be default Linksys mode). As far as the Linksys is concerned, the neighbor talking Mac is the Linksys' ISP. To the Linksys it does not matter what the neighbor's ISP is, just the signal coming from the neighbor talking Mac.

Does this work. If not, what is the Linksys IP address, net mask, router address, and DNS servers?

It is important to make sure each leg of the network connection is working, which is why I have tried to set things up step by step with tests to make sure each leg works before moving on to the next.

OK, my Wife just told me to go to bed. Good night.

> But the thing I don't understand is what you mean with "talking Mac"? But maybe this is a answer to one important question.

Since you keep changing which Mac is using the USB antenna and connecting to your neighbor, I was using the term "Neighbor Talking Mac" to represent this Mac as the Mac which is connected to your Neighbor's home WiFi network.

So my previous step-by-step is trying to make sure each network link is working, starting from the Mac with the USB antenna that connects to your neighbor's WiFi (the neighbor talking Mac).

> The IP I get on my testing iPhone from the Macbook Pro is:

>

> IP Addrreess: 10.0.2.2

> Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.0

> Router: 10.0.2.1

> DNS: 10.0.2.1

> Search Domains: lan

This looks like a valid IP address received from Internet Sharing via Airport. I just did my own experiment with my MacBook at work, and I got similar results on my iPod Touch.

If the "Neighbor Talking Mac" is able to access the Internet, then I would expect your iPhone was able to access the internet via WiFi. If not, then we have to look more closely at the "Neighbor Talking Mac".

First, you should NOT be playing with the Ethernet configuration on the Mac talking to the neighbor's WiFi via the USB antenna.

When you enable System Preferences -> Sharing -> Internet Sharing from the USB antenna to Ethernet, the Ethernet port should be configured as needed. Anything you do to the Ethernet port via System Preferences -> Networking will just interfere.

Second, I would reset the Linksys to its factor settings. According to the user's manual I downloaded you can do this 2 ways. 1) press the Reset Button located on the bottom of the router for approx 5 seconds (why not wait 10 to be sure), or 2) restore the defaults from the Administration tab - Factory Defaults in the router's web based utility.

Now connect the ethernet cable to the blue Internet port (modem port; WAN port; the port colored different from the other 4). As far as the Linksys is concerned, the Mac's Ethernet port "IS" its ISP (Internet Service Provider, which is what the Mac is doing, providing Internet service).

With the Linksys connected via its "Internet Port", it should pick up an IP address from the Mac.

Using the LInksys this way is its normal usage. So you should be able to follow the normal setup instructions and not try to do something out-of-bounds.

If you cannot get an IP address for the Linksys, then look at trying a different Ethernet cable.

I got a chance to configure my MacBook to Share my WiFi connection via Ethernet.

You CANNOT use System Preferences -> Network -> Ethernet to see how your Mac's ethernet is configured.

HOWEVER, you can use Applications -> Utilities -> Terminal

ifconfig en0

en0: flags=8863<UP,BROADCAST,SMART,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500

ether 00:17:f2:f1:58:c3

inet 192.168.2.1 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 192.168.2.255

inet6 fe80::217:f2ff:fef1:58c3%en0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x4

inet 169.254.59.33 netmask 0xffff0000 broadcast 169.254.255.255

media: autoselect (1000baseT <full-duplex,flow-control>)

status: active

Your en0 (aka your Mac's Ethernet port) should have IP address 192.168.2.1, with a netmask of 0xffffff00 (aka 255.255.255.0).

When you connect your Linksys blue "Internet" port to the Mac's Ethernet port, your Linksys should see 192.168.2.1 as its router, a netmask of 255.255.255.0, and an IP address in the range of 192.168.2.n

You should NOT plug the Mac's Ethernet cable into any of the Yellow Linksys switched ports. That is not the normal way the Linksys connects to its ISP (and in this case your Mac is the Linksys' ISP).

But once your Linksys picks up a 192.168.2.n IP address from the Mac that is connected to your neighbor via the USB antenna, then your Linksys should be able to redistribute the Internet connection via its WiFi and its 4 yellow switched LAN ports.

> As I see the IP address that the Mac gives out is always the same (Self-assigned IP: 169.254.226.18),

The Self-Assigned IP address is NOT given out. It is self-assigning because the device with that address has assigned the address to itself. That is to say if your Linksys has 169.254.226.18, it is because the Linksys gave itself that address.

Generally this happens if the router's DHCP server is not functioning properly, or the device with the self-assigned IP address is not happy talking to the available DHCP server. In this case your Mac is the router and it is its DHCP server that should be started as part of enabling Internet Sharing.

Why yours is either not running, or the Linksys does not want to talke to it, I do not know. I think it is the bootpd process that provides the DHCP services on the Mac when it is in Internet Sharing mode.