Disable Airport Extreme cards to allow VirtualPC networking

Apr 11, '03 09:38:00AM

Contributed by: jambrose

Here is my workaround for the problems with Virtual PC and the 17" PowerBook's built in AirPort Extreme card (Connectix talks about this in their knowledge base - article 4871). This workaround allows you to configure Virtual Switch networking properly so you can run servers in your Virtual PC session. Users of Shared Networking need not do this since Shared Networking "works." Note, however, that this workaround also completely disables the Airport card in your machine (as would Connectix' solution, which is to physically remove the card from the machine!).

I was able to perform this process with the help of my friend Jason from Shekinah Studios who pointed me in the right direction by telling me about the extensions directory and what it was for. Thanks Jason!

[robg adds: I have not tested this hint, and clearly, there's potential for bad things to happen if you do something wrong. However, given the alternative of physically opening the machine up and removing/inserting the card each time you want to use VPC networking, this seems like the much safer solution! Please read the whole article before proceeding, and pay attention to the author's warnings ... and if you know of an easier method, by all means, please post it in the comments.]

A few words of caution before we start:

Here's how to do it:
  1. Go to the directory /System -> Library -> Extensions/

  2. Create a folder on you desktop to backup these files.

  3. Copy these three files from the extensions folder to the backup directory:
    AppleAirPort.kext, AppleAirPortFW.kext, and AppleAirPort2.kext

  4. Start up a terminal session.

  5. Go to the same directory in terminal with:
    % cd /System/Library/Extensions

  6. Change to superuser mode or prefix each command with sudo (superuser do). The su command will prompt you for your root password. Warning this sets you as root, and you can DO ANYTHING BE CAREFUL
    % su
    Password:


  7. Create a backup directory to store the three files:
    % mkdir backup

  8. Move the three files to this backup directory:
    % mv AppleAirPort.kext backup
    % mv AppleAirPortFW.kext backup
    % mv AppleAirPort2.kext backup


  9. Exit your terminal session

  10. Now reboot your system
This process could also be done entirely from Finder, but I'm more comfortable doing this in a terminal session. You would have to change the permissions of the files before doing the move. I found the method more complicated, but if you know how to do it all from Finder, go ahead. Just be careful. Working as a root user and fiddling with permissions can have disastrous consequences to the functionality of your operating environment.

Caveats:

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