Share internet connection with Wii via AirPort card
May 21, '07 07:30:00AM
Contributed by: romahony
If you own a Mac with an AirPort card, but don't own a wireless router, here's a way to put the AirPort card to use: use it to share your internet connection with your Wii. First, make sure you're connected to the internet (via something other than the AirPort card, i.e. Ethernet). Also, make sure AirPort is on. Then do the following...
Step One: Turn on Internet Sharing
- Go to System Preferences, click on the Sharing icon, then click on the Internet tab.
- Change the 'Share your connection from' pop-up to Built-in Ethernet.
- Under the 'To computers using' section, check the AirPort box.
- Click Airport Options, and enter an easy name such as wii in the Network Name box.
- OPTIONAL: Use any password that fits your settings (i.e. 128 bit WEP requires 13 characters).
- Click OK if you're on the AirPort Options screen.
- Click Start in the Internet Sharing panel.
Step Two: Gather Information
- Open Terminal.app and type ifconfig en1.
- In the output look for: inet xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx netmask ....
- Take note of the IP address associated with the first inet, negating values after the # (mine was 10.0.2.1; yours may be different).
- Type dig. Near the bottom of this output will be SERVER: followed by an IP address. This will be the DNS server address that you will use for your Wii.
- OPTIONAL: Use an ASCII/hex converter (such as this one), and enter you password in ASCII to get the %-separated hex-equivalent. This should be 26 hex characters for a 13 ascii character password using 128 bit WEP.
Step Three: Configure the Wii:
- Select a connection to edit.
- Choose Manual Setup.
- Enter the following parameters:
- SSID: wii (or whatever you chose in step one)
- Password: enter the hex equivalent of your password
- Auto-obtain IP Address: No
- IP Address: Take the first IP address you obtained earlier, and make the last digit different. i.e., mine could be 10.0.2.4 (10.0.2.1 was original)
- Subnet mask: 255.255.255.0
- Default router: The original IP Address, unchanged. (10.0.2.1)
- Auto-obtain DNS: No
- Primary DNS: your DNS SERVER from the dig output.
- Secondary DNS: leave as 000.000.000.000
- Test your connection at the top of the screen. This should work ... and you should see successful test results from the Wii.
Finally, go to News Channel and check to see if it works ... if not, go back and make sure you followed all the steps.
[robg adds: I can't test this one...]
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