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Internet Sharing With MAc Ethernet Port 2 to a Router Downstream

Can this be done?

I have a WAN connection fro Ethernet Port 1 to a fiberoptic modem. Internet works fine. I have Internet Sharing turned on or Ethernet Port 2. If I connect E2 to another NIC, no problem - gets IP address and can connect to the Internet. However, If I connect my router's WAN port to the Mac's Ethernet port 2, the router fails to get an IP address from the Mac. I have tried just about everything and I just can't get it to work. Any ideas what the problem might be? I should mention that it DID work briefly - once - but never again. No idea why. Do I need a special cable for this? Do I need to configure the connection parameters differently? The reason I am trying to do this instead of putting the router upstream and connecting the Mac to it is because the router is a piece of junk Buffalo router that has nowhere near the throughput it claims to. I need to be able to connect to the Internet wirelessly, which is why I need the router, but if I connect the mac to it my max DL/streaming speed drops from 900kbps to 300. That won't do.

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ASKER

I'm a little grey on the mechanics of networking so please bear with me.

Doesn't the router need to be connected via the WA port in order to function as a second DHCP server for everything that is connected to it?

ASKER

Sorry - WAN port

ASKER

Or are you saying - that's not even necessary? Should I disable the DHCP function on the router?

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ASKER

OK - turned the DHCP function off and restarted the router. It is still assigning the old IP address to my downstream computer. Shouldn't the downstream computer be getting its IP address from the Mac?

ASKER

BTM - router is Buffalo Air Station WHR-HP-G54

should be... try restarting the downstream computer....

And verify that DHCP is off... i've seen in the past where I've turned off DHCP and gone back in only to discover that it was still on

ASKER

DHCP is definitely set to disabled on the router. But the downstream computer is still getting its address from the router, not the Mac. Should address translation be of for the router?

address translation should only be used to translate the address of the wan port to addresses of the LAN ports... that shouldn't be affecting this, but it won't hurt to shut it off... it's odd that with DHCP off, your downstream computer is still pulling DHCP... try power cycling the router (unplug it, wait about 15 seconds, then plug it back in)

ASKER

Tried it already. No luck. Here's a report from the router's log:
00:00:07 DHCP OpenDhcpSocket: can't set initial netmask: Invalid argument
00:00:08 DHCP broadcasting DHCP_DISCOVER

ASKER

Does the router need to be set up as a bridge?

It looks like you disabled DHCP on the WAN port... you need to disable DHCP on the LAN side... probably something that says distribute IPs or something along those lines

Looking at the manual for your router, click on LAN config on the left hand side, then click DHCP server then UNCHECK Enable next to DHCP server .. this is just going by what I read on the manual

ASKER

Under WAN settings

IP Address Options:
Internet@Start
Acquire from DHCP server
Use PPPoE client
Use IP Unnumbered
Configure manually

I have Acquire from DHCP server selected

Under LAN settings:
There is a checkbox labeled "Use DHCP Server"
It is unchecked.

Under lease information:
There is a section called something like "PC's engaging in web settings" (it's in Japanese). The IP address of the downstream PC shows up here. Is the PC assigning it's own address as the last one that worked? Seriously, I have rebooted the PC twice and released the connection more times than I care to count.

ASKER

You're description is accurate.

what is the address of the downstream machine?

ASKER

192.168.11.50
50 because at one point I configure the DHCP server to start with 50.

your downstream computer is set for DHCP, right.... what IP address does your downstream computer get when connected directly to your mac?

ASKER

Here's an interesting twist. To test my theory I tried connecting the pc to the mac directly. It got a new functioning address and connected to the internet successfully. Now it's plugged back into the router and one of the router's LAN ports is connected to the Mac. Downstream PC is getting the original IP address correctly from the mac and connects to the internet. Still trying to connect to the router's configuration utility.

ASKER

Now I can't connect to the router. The router's address should be 192.168.11.1. The PCs address is 192.168.2.2. The default gateway is 192.168.2.1.

ASKER

Incidentally, is the MAC's Internet sharing software really capable of assigning more than one downstream IP address?

you'll need to set up a second IP (manual) on your downstream mac make it 192.168.11.2 with a subnet mask of 255.255.255.0 and a default gateway of 192.168.11.1 (Although that could be blank.... you could set this up as a new location...

>>Incidentally, is the MAC's Internet sharing software really capable of assigning more than one downstream IP address?

Yes... that's the whole idea of internet sharing ... to share a connection with multiple computers...

ASKER

I'm afraid you lost me on that one. Just to make sure we're discussing the same configuration, I have:

- A PPPoE connection that goes in to Ethernet 1 on a Mac Pro.
- Internet sharing on the Mac Pro is set to share the PPPoE connection with computers connected to Ethernet 2.
- Ethernet 2 is connected to a Buffalo router via the router's LAN port 1.
- A Windows PC is connected to the Buffalo router's LAN port 2.
- The Windows PC is now receiving it's IP address from the MAC.
- I used to be able to connect to the router at 192.168.11.1; now I cannot.

sorry... i assumed your downstream computer was a MAC... in order to connect back to your router... you'll need to go into your network settings and change the IP from DHCP to static and assign it the address I gave above... then to get back online you need to switch it back from static to DHCP

ASKER

I'm still a little confused. I need to change the PC's connection parameters from Obtain IP Address Automatically from DHCP to 192.168.11.2?

ASKER

Is there anyway I can check to see if the router is getting an IP address from the Mac without looking at the router's config screen?

only if you need to configure the router... otherwise you should leave it on DHCP... it's kind of a pain, but windows doesn't provide an option to do locations like a MAC does, and you can set up multiple IPs on Windows, but they both have to be manual... another option is to somehow set the range of IPs that the MAC gives out to 192.168.11.xxx ... i don't share with my MAC, so I don't know how exactly that is accomplished ... i can do some research though

The router doesn't need to get an IP address from the MAC.

ASKER

OK I think I'm getting closer to understanding. Are you saying that I need to change my connection parameters when I want to connect to the router, then switch it back to DHCP when I want to connect to the Internet? Fair enough (if so). But why can't I connect to the router the way I've been doing it all along, at 192.168.11.1?

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ASKER

I see. I just assumed the router would have to be a legitimate node on the network to function. So by your logic, I should be able to enable wireless on the router and the wirelessly connected NIC should get an address from the Mac - no problems, yes? While I'm trying this, can you explain why connecting Ethernet 2 to the router's WAN port doesn't work?

Mike

Yes, the wireless SHOULD work by pulling an IP from the Mac

Well... I just thought of a way you can connect to your router. When connected to your router, change your router's LAN IP to 192.168.2.254 with a subnet of 255.255.255.0 ... when you switch back over to DHCP, you will be able to access the router at 192.168.2.254 instead of 192.168.11.1

I can't explain why the WAN port doesn't work... if you had the WAN port set up to use DHCP, then it should have pulled an IP from the Mac... I'm not sure why it didn't

ASKER

Man this is too much. OK, here's the problem now. If I disable DHCP on the router, I have no way to connect to it at all. So I'm dead in the water. It's a miracle that the wired connection worked out, but now I want to set up wireless - and I can't access the router. So I have to reset the router again and start over.

ASKER

Incidentally - when I try to connect the Mac's E2 port to the router's WAN port, the router's log says:

OpenDhcpSocket: can't set initial netmask: Invalid argument

Does this mean anything to you?

ASKER

Ugh. At this point I'm beyond caring. I reinitialized the router, turned off DHCP, plugged the PC into the Mac to get a good IP address, rebooted the router, plugged the IP source from the Mac into a router LAN port, and it works. All of my PCs are connecting to the Internet now with addresses from the Mac. I can't configure the router, but at this point I don't care to! Thanks for your help!

Mike

ASKER

...and for your patience!

Cheers,

Mike