Thunderbolt Firewire 800 Ad Hoc

Question

Level 1

0 points

Thunderbolt Firewire 800 Ad Hoc

After 6 hours on the phone, 8 hours on the internet and 4 hours in the mac store i still dont have a solution to this! :

I have a MBA which i connect to my Mac Pro via Thunderbolt to Firewire 800 (with a connector)

My MBA sees my Mac Pro in the finder and vice versus but the connection fails. I am also NOT prompted to enter user name and password if i click "Connect As"

After 4 hours in the Mac store the problem was solved, it worked for a few days and now its not working again.

Im not an expert on networking but here is what i know and what i remember that happened:

It is an ad hoc network i am trying to create.

We managed to get it to work when one computer was using DHCP with a manual address.

It would not work when both computers were just using DHCP

In the network preferences both computers show the network with a green light and say connected.

I do have a theory why it is not working but do not know if its right........i think that the ip address has been changed when my MBA has been restarted. So when connected to the Mac Pro it is trying ot find the old IP address????? Not sure if this is correct.

I also have a MBP and this connects seamlessly via firewire 800 to my Mac Pro. I can see everything on both computers through the finder....no problem!

If anyone out there has an answer to this it would be very helpful however........

Please do not tell me it cannot be done as it took 7 "Mac Genius' to make it work and they did it successfully. Also i dont want to use Target disk mode (i know all about this already)

All 3 computers are running the most up-to-date version of Mountain Lion 10.8.2

Please please please help

thanks in advance

Dan

MacBook Air, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.2), Thunderbolt Firewire ad hoc

Posted on Oct 22, 2012 4:51 AM

Reply

Answer 1

Nov 19, 2012 3:41 PM in response to danhk82

You're not going to get proper DHCP information like this, at least the way I'm currently understanding it:

MBA -> Thunderbolt/FW800 adaptor -> FW cable -> Mac Pro

One of these ends will have to offer a DHCP service (and have static info) to have the other get DHCP info. Usually DHCP is used in a much different type of network for slightly different purposes. This kind of "ad-hoc" setup is exactly what self-assigned addresses were actually for (provided internet access is not an issue).

In this kind of setup, two computers who are told to get DHCP addresses will not get them, and usually this is not a problem if the two computers just fall back to a automatic self-assigned IP addresses. (Broadcast packets, bonjour traffic, etc work fine most of the time onder this arrangement.)

I would imagine then, that the Thunderbolt/FW800 adaptor or the config for it is somehow at fault. Wrestling to get this to work may eventually produce results, but there's got to be a simpler solution for you at this point...

Reply

Answer 2

JasonFear

Level 5

4,965 points

Nov 20, 2012 8:41 PM in response to danhk82

Typically when someone puts together a complex scenario of configurations to make something they:

A.) Leave directions, a sort of road map of what they did, so that in the event it stops working you can quickly retrace your steps to get it back to work.

B.) Provide a method to contact them in the event that it stops working.

So after 18 hours of troubleshooting, and 7 different technicians working with you on the issue in store, you've come to an Internet forum to ask for help instead of just going back to the location that got it setup for you? Seems odd... but with that out of the way.

As BigBlue stated, one machine needs to serve DHCP in order for the other machine to receive DHCP. If you're using DHCP then you can't have a static IP address, the "D" in DHCP stands for dynamic after all, as in... it's always changing. So which computer has the static IP address information and which one is set to DHCP?

Secondly, what is the flow of data here? Are you looking to move data from the MacBook Air to the Mac Pro, or Pro to Air, or regular movement of data in both directions? Thirdly, is there a particular reason why you're using Thunderbolt to FireWire instead of Ethernet? The Thunderbolt to Ethernet connector is 10/100/1000 connection now and Gigabit Ethernet would move the data faster.

You indicate that you have a MacBook Pro that connects to the Mac Pro via FireWire without any issues. Is it implied that it's connected via the same Thunderbolt -> FireWire method? Because if it's FW to FW the relationship is not the same and that information is excluded from your initial remarks. If this MacBook Pro is connected via Thunderbolt -> FireWire how is it configured? Are those settings replicated? If not, why not? If so, how so?

Regrettably, because all of us here are "new" to the issue you'll need to give us some back story on the previous 18 hours.

Reply