Connecting two Macs through Ethernet

[luketee]

Hi all.

I have a revision A MacBook Pro from January 2006. The screen is starting to die, and since I'm way out of warranty, I got a little worried that I'd be out of a computer.

Today I was given a free iMac G3 (600 MHz "snow" iMac, summer 2001) and I was ecstatic. I installed Tiger on it without a problem.

Unfortunately, the iMac has no Airport card at all, and I'd rather not have to buy and install one. A solution I thought of was to connect the two Macs through Ethernet, and the iMac can piggyback off of the MBP's Airport.

MBP: In the Sharing preferences pane, under Internet, I selected "Share your internet from Airport" and selected to share it to computers using ethernet.
iMac: I did the same, but shared the connection from ethernet to computers using ethernet.

Something worked eventually, because I very briefly had a connection on the iMac. Unfortunately, this means I lost connection on the MBP. I must've changed another setting, because I can't figure out how to get the connection back on the iMac.

I'm a high school student (I'll be a senior), so I don't really want to spend much to get this working. This will basically be a temporary setup until I get a new Mac for college. I can buy a "crossover" ethernet cable if I need to, as an Apple support page said this iMac model needed one, but I wasn't sure if that was necessary. I also don't know much about AppleTalk and if I need to use that or not. Also, this iMac will be upstairs, while the cable modem and Wi-Fi router are downstairs, so connecting directly to the router is not really a feasible solution.

Any help?

Thanks,
Luke

 

[TEG]

Turn off everything in the Sharing Pane on the iMac. Just set the Network to get the IP via DHCP. After about 3 minutes, everything should work fine.

TEG

 

[luketee]

Works great!

Thanks, TEG!

 

[luketee]

While I'm here, I know the MBP will automatically sleep if I close the lid. Is there a way to maintain the internet connection while my MBP is sleeping or force it to not sleep when I close the lid?

 

[BSouther]

another

re ethernet connect,

With file sharing enabled, I only had to open a Finder window, then drag and drop files to copy from one Mac to the other.

Just be sure the files you want to move are in a shared folder and file sharing is enabled. (steps below, if needed)

re sleeping MBP,
One method, if practical for you: Your laptop won't automatically go to sleep when you close it if you've connected an external monitor and keyboard. (You might need to set the monitor arrangement for mirrored displays, but not sure about this.)

Also, you may need to open System Preferences and open Energy Saver and change settings so it won't go to sleep after a specified period of time.

For what it's worth: If the main reason you want to close your laptop is just to avoid the distraction of an open screen, you might solve your problem by simply using your brightness buttons to dim the screen to black. You can still detect a faint outline of screen contents at the dimmest setting, but it's almost as good as "turning off" the monitor ... and it won't affect your sleep settings.

To enable file sharing:
- open System Preferences
- open Sharing
- click File Sharing box to enable (if not already "checked")

To share a folder:
- open Finder window
- right-click the folder you want to share
- click Get Info to open the information pane
- in the lower-right corner of the pane, check to see if the "padlock" icon indicates that the file is locked. (if so, click the icon; a pop-up window will prompt you to enter your user/password to authenticate and unlock)
- under the general info, click the Shared Folder box to enable
- under Sharing and Permissions, check to see if the User login name for the connected Mac appears on the list. (If not, click the "+" sign to add it)
- in order to freely move files, assign "Read & Write" Access Privilege for the user login name of your connected Mac.

 

[whooleytoo]

I'll add one note (I've been using Macs for 19 years and OSX since it came out, and yet never realised this: )

If you allow guest users write access to a folder on your computer, all files they create in that folder will be read-only. That's because only the creator gets write access (everyone else gets read-only), and the creator in this case is 'nobody'. Hence, no one has write-access.

As the "Mac guy", I had to help out in my sister's office when all their files were being saved read-only, so no one else could modify them. It turns out the solution was to always connect to the other machine via a Registered User, never via Guest.

Technically, it makes sense. But from a user's perspective, it's silly.

 

[-tWv-]

While I'm here, I know the MBP will automatically sleep if I close the lid. Is there a way to maintain the internet connection while my MBP is sleeping or force it to not sleep when I close the lid?

Download insomniaX and enable it on your MBP