Share wireless Internet connection with an Xbox

Nov 15, '04 08:54:00AM

Contributed by: Anonymous

With the release of Halo 2, its much anticipated multiplayer action, and a coupon for two free months of Xbox Live in every box, I bet a lot of people are looking for ways to get their Xbox online. My situation is that my Xbox is too far away from my router to string cable, and I don't feel like shelling out $100 bucks for an ethernet - wireless bridge when I have a perfectly good iBook (original clamshell) doing nothing.

I thought it would be as simple as turning on Internet sharing and plugging in an ethernet cable, but alas, the Xbox refused to acknowledge the connection. It agreed that a cable was connected, but steadfastly refused to get out to the `Net. After a few hours of frustration, and much Googling, here are the two "gotchas" to look out for:

  1. If you're using an older Mac, then you must use a cross-over cable, not a standard patch cable. This is easy to identify. With both your Mac and your Xbox connected, open the Network control panel. Make sure that you're showing the Network Status section. If Built-in Ethernet's status light is red, you need a cross-over cable. If it is yellow or green, you're okay.

  2. For whatever reason, the Xbox will not accept DHCP info from the Mac. Everything else I've ever tried will, but not the XBox. Monkeying with bootP or NetInfo is more than I want to tackle. The workaround is to manually enter the IP info for your Intenet Sharing Mac's subnet in the XBox live menus. Unless you've made changes, your info should be the same as mine:

That's it. Oh, one more thing -- don't let your Mac go to sleep or Internet Sharing turns off, and you have to manually restart it.

[robg adds: I haven't tested this one, as I don't have an Xbox.]

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