10.3: Connecting a Mac and a PC via IP over FireWire
Nov 18, '03 11:01:00AM
Contributed by: filburt1
Last night, I was able to successfully connect my Panther iBook to my PC via a 400 Mbit FireWire connection. Extending on a previous hint, here's how you do this. You'll need 10.3 on the Mac and Windows XP with a FireWire card (and likely, a 6 pin to 6 pin FireWire cable):
- Make a new network location in System Prefs (Network Port Configurations -> New, FireWire). I called mine "Direct Connection (FireWire)."
- Set the location to have a manual IP address; I choose 10.0.0.1 with a subnet of 255.255.255.0.
- Disable all of the other ports on the Mac; i.e., only have FireWire enabled.
- Turn on FTP Sharing in the Sharing system pref (in my experience, only this yields reliable, fast transfers).
- On the PC, right-click on My Network Places, go to Properties, and right-click on LAN and choose Properties. Change the IP address to 10.0.0.2, and the subnet to 255.255.255.0.
- Connect the two computers via the cable directly.
- On the PC, open up your FTP client and go to 10.0.0.1/your short username. I suggest using Active mode rather than Passive as the latter always times out.
- Transfer away!
I copied 1.1 GB of data last night in about three minutes; the transfer speed held steady at a speedy 5 MB/sec! Just remember to change the Location on the Mac and settings on the PC back to what they were when you were done.
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