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Connecting 2 macs manually

T

twdempsey

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 30, 2016
3
0
I have a real problem that so far has eluded an answer. I have a home network via both ethernet cable and wifi. my office has 2 computers. one has the ethernet connection and the other uses wifi. However,
I want to connect the two computers as well through an ethernet connection because i sometimes have to transfer large files between the two computers. Wifi will not work well, so on my main computer i want to use ethernet 1 to connect to the network and ethernet 2 to connect to my imac.

MacPro: ethernet 1 to network
ethernet 2 to imac

Imac: wifi to network
etherent 1 to macpro

i've tried to reset the DHCP lease on both machines. i'v also tried to set manual locations. none of this works. I keep getting the dreaded "self assigned IP" on both machines. Should I do this manually and if so
how?

Thanks Greatly!
 
If both operating systems are configured to use DHCP and if neither gets an address from the DHCP server (your home network), it's a problem with your home network. A router configuration problem, I guess.
 
Don't make a direct connection between the two machines.

Instead, connect Imac ethernet 1 to the same router that MacPro's ether net 1 is connected to. This will ensure that both machines use the same DHCP server (i.e. the router), they reside on the same subnet (LAN or WLAN), and the router will be able to route packets between the two machines.

When you have only a direct connection, there's no DHCP service, and no router to route packets. This is intrinsic to a direct ethernet connection between two machines. If this connection is the only network service, then that would probably work (note: I haven't tried this in many years). However, because there is another network service (the one managed by the router), the direct connection will be ignored.


You might be able to force a direct connection to work by raising its service priority in the Network pane of System Preferences.

Service priority is determined by the list of network service connections on the left. It shows things like Ethernet, Airport, Firewire, etc. You prioritize connections by clicking the gear icon at the bottom of the list, choose "Set Service Order", and moving connections around. An inactive connection (e.g. ethernet 1 on iMac when no cable is present) will automatically move down to the bottom of the list. The priority matters when the connection is active; it needs to be above the connection that's hooked up to the router.

Finally, you can duplicate a Location in the Network pane and modify it. Select it, then play around with service priority. If you screw something up beyond recovery, simply go back to the original Location, and delete the broken Location. Then duplicate the working Location again and start over.


Since I don't know what OS version you're using, the terms and labels used above may differ in your OS.
 
chown33 said:
Don't make a direct connection between the two machines.

Instead, connect Imac ethernet 1 to the same router that MacPro's ether net 1 is connected to. This will ensure that both machines use the same DHCP server (i.e. the router), they reside on the same subnet (LAN or WLAN), and the router will be able to route packets between the two machines.

When you have only a direct connection, there's no DHCP service, and no router to route packets. This is intrinsic to a direct ethernet connection between two machines. If this connection is the only network service, then that would probably work (note: I haven't tried this in many years). However, because there is another network service (the one managed by the router), the direct connection will be ignored.


You might be able to force a direct connection to work by raising its service priority in the Network pane of System Preferences.

Service priority is determined by the list of network service connections on the left. It shows things like Ethernet, Airport, Firewire, etc. You prioritize connections by clicking the gear icon at the bottom of the list, choose "Set Service Order", and moving connections around. An inactive connection (e.g. ethernet 1 on iMac when no cable is present) will automatically move down to the bottom of the list. The priority matters when the connection is active; it needs to be above the connection that's hooked up to the router.

Finally, you can duplicate a Location in the Network pane and modify it. Select it, then play around with service priority. If you screw something up beyond recovery, simply go back to the original Location, and delete the broken Location. Then duplicate the working Location again and start over.


Since I don't know what OS version you're using, the terms and labels used above may differ in your OS.
Click to expand...
[doublepost=1467312763][/doublepost]Hi, thanks very much for responding. the problem is that i cannot connect the second computer through ethernet to the network/router. I have only one line running to my garage from the router. the cable is run through pvc underground. is there a way to do this as i have it?

thanks much. td
 
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