Sharing wireless network's Internet connection over crossover cable

accensi0n

Hi,

Have a wireless network set up in the house.

Main PC with wireless router and DSL modem attached.
Default gateway 192.168.2.1
DHCP enabled.
Any machine that connects to the network is assigned IP 192.168.2.3/4/5 etc.


Have 2 PC's in my room connected by crossover cable with statically assigned IP's. (192.168.0.1 & 192.168.0.2)

One of the machines is connected to the wireless network.
I want the other machine to be able to connect to the Internet. (if it's possible).

All machines are running windows XP.

ICS will not do the job as far as I am aware. (Will set the IP of Host machine to 192.168.0.1 and generally mess with the network in a bad way.)


Cheers for any help and let me know what other details I should give.

Webmonkey

Well you can do it very easily using a Proxy Server such as this:
http://www.analogx.com/CONTENTS/download/network/proxy.htm

Just run this on the machine that has the internet connectivity and then you just change the browser settings of the other PC to go via a proxy if your PC's static address and set port to 6588 or what ever it is.

Problem is not everything can be configured to go via a proxy but for basic web browsing its fine.

You'll have to implemented some emulated routing otherwise, think there is software available where your PC acts like a router.

Edit: Actually I think there is a registry setting you can enable to do routing on a PC, to forward IP packets out the ethernet interface to the wireless one. I would have thought that it would involve more than this but you can do some googling.

accensi0n

The PC in my room that is not on the wireless network would not be able to use the proxy because it is on a differant network. I need to get the two networks connected.

The PC that is not on the wireless network (192.168.0.2) needs to somehow be able to get to the wireless network (192.168.2.x)...

So if I could somehow do as you suggest, send packets from the wireless interface to the ethernet interface and then across to the ethernet interface on the PC that requires an internet connection...

Not finding anything too promising from web searches.

Webmonkey

accensi0n wrote:

Have 2 PC's in my room connected by crossover cable with statically assigned IP's. (192.168.0.1 & 192.168.0.2)

One of the machines is connected to the wireless network.
I want the other machine to be able to connect to the Internet. (if it's possible).

Arn't they on the same network, no?

The Wireless interface does not have to be on the same network as the ethernet one that connects the cross over cable.

The proxy will handle the translation between the two networks and look after the redirection of the packets.

accensi0n

Webmonkey wrote: »

Arn't they on the same network, no?

The Wireless interface does not have to be on the same network as the ethernet one that connects the cross over cable.

The proxy will handle the translation between the two networks and look after the redirection of the packets.

Yes, those 2 are on the same network.

But then the IP address of the wireless interface which has Internet access is 192.168.2.4.

If I try to ping 192.168.2.4 from the PC which is not on the wireless network, I straight away get "Destination host unreachable".

Webmonkey

Yes that is clear, but if you use the proxy and once the browser is configured to go via 192.168.0.2 then you will have connectivity via the PC that has the internet. (But you still won't be able to ping as you wont be going via the proxy.)

irlrobins

accensi0n wrote: »

ICS will not do the job as far as I am aware.

ICS should work.

Assuming PC 192.168.0.1 is connected to the wireless network, then enable ICS on it. On the 192.168.0.2 PC, set it's gateway and DNS to 192.168.0.1. Should work then.

Webmonkey

Can't you specify an IP as well for ICS. You don't have to default. ICS would be a cleaner solution than the proxy.

Edit - You can change it actually, but clients must be changed manually too as they default to 192.168.0.1 as their gateway. Theres a KB article on it

accensi0n

irlrobins wrote: »

ICS should work.

Assuming PC 192.168.0.1 is connected to the wireless network, then enable ICS on it. On the 192.168.0.2 PC, set it's gateway and DNS to 192.168.0.1. Should work then.

I read a microsoft article that seemed to say that it wouldn't work in my situation. Also, I tried to do it a few times and windows explorer would crash which made me believe that ICS could not be done.

I tried to bridge the wireless and ethernet connections and that caused windows explorer to crash and when I tried again it gave this error message.



Its a new computer, only out of the box a couple of days. Am I now looking at some sort of build/software/windows issue?

irlrobins

Explorer crashing when setting up ICS is not a good sign!

accensi0n

irlrobins wrote: »

Explorer crashing when setting up ICS is not a good sign!

It's worse actually. If I just go to the Advanced tab in LAN properties, make NO changes and click ok, explorer crashes...

Also, a network bridge has since shown up with absolutely nothing configured in it, stating network cable unplugged and I am unable to delete it.

It gives this error message again when I try.




EDIT: Removed the network bridge in Network Connections by uninstalling it from Device Manager.
Won't be able to get back to trying to sort this out till Sunday...

Should I just leave it and buy a 30 euro Linksys USB wireless adapter?....NAH.

bushy...

http://www.wikihow.com/Enable-Windows-Xp-Routing-&-Check-That-It-Works!

_CreeD_

You could use routing instead. For the PCs in your room: First up enable routing on the dual-homed (Wifi and Cable) PC, http://www.petri.co.il/configuring_routing_in_w2k_pro_xp_pro.htm . Set your Wired/Farthest PC's default gateway to that of the Wifi connected PC's Wired interface. On your router set a static route to 192.168.0.0/24 (255.255.255.0) pointing to the Wifi interface of the PC in your room.

tttoooeee

You've got two options:

Option 1) On the wireless-enabled machine in your room, enable NAT routing from the wired connection to the wireless connection. Microsoft's Internet Connection sharing will do this nicely. Just got into Control Panel -> Network Connections, then select the wireless interface, go to Properties -> Advanced, and then "Allow other users to connect to the internet thru...". Select you wired connection as the interface thru which it will be shared. Now when packets arrive at the wired interface, they'll be routed thru to the wireless interface and NAT will have been performed on the source address. Alternatively you could opt to not use NAT, but then you'd need to set a static route in your broadband router (and also you'd need to use something other than Microsoft's ICS).

Option 2) On the wireless-enabled machine in your room, go into Network Connections and bridge the connection between the wired and wireless.

My own preference is number 2. I used this method to get an XBox onto a wireless network by hooking it up to my laptop with a cross-over cable (the laptop had a bridge between its wired and wireless interfaces). The XBox got its IP address from my broadband router. Here's how the DHCP request was routed:

XBox sends DHCP request -> wired interface on laptop -> goes to wireless interface on laptop because the two interfaces are bridged -> goes thru the air to my broadband router.

Option 1 would be preferable in a situation where you don't want your traffic to be sniffed by other people... but since you're in your own house that shouldn't be a problem.