Obscure Internet Sharing with xbox360 question

[zfreak2004]

Ok, so here's the problem.

I have an xbox360 that I want to get online, but getting it close enough to my physical internet connection really isn't an option. I do not have a wireless router in my house. I do have a MacBook running OS X 10.4.11 and an old PowerBook G4 running OS X 10.4.11 both with Airport cards.

What I want to do is have one laptop share the wired connection via Airport. The other laptop would get on that Airport network and share it to the 360 via ethernet. I've looked online and saw tutorials for getting it to work if you're using a wireless router, but none involving two macs like this. Following the tutorials that aren't specifically what I want, it's gotten as far as the DNS step when it tests the connection. Any help you guys can give would be great.

I'll try and give any other information you guys might need. Just ask.

 

[Makosuke]

Well, I don't know exactly how the 360's networking is set up, but what you're trying to do is at least theoretically possible. Here's what you basically want to do:

On the computer that is hooked to the modem, open the Sharing preference pane, go to the Internet tab, select "Built-in Ethernet" in the "Share ... from" popup, check your Airport card in the "To computers using" list, click the Airport Options button and select whatever level of security you're comfortable with.

Now go to the second laptop, turn on Airport, and see if you can get a connection to the Internet through the first computer (using whatever security setting and password you set up on the other computer). This far should work fine--I've done it many times.

Next, still on the second laptop, go to that same Sharing pref pane and bring up Internet. This time, select "from" Airport, and check Built-in Ethernet in the "to" list.

At this point, if you hook your 360 to the second laptop with an ethernet cable (I expect you won't need to bother with a crossover cable--any cable should work) and tell the 360 to use DHCP, you should get a connection to the internet if everything is on and running.

Of course, should and will are different things, and I can't say I'd be surprised if this didn't work for some reason.

If you've already done all that and it's not working, sorry, no suggestions.

 

[zfreak2004]

I've done all that. I've hooked it all up and plugged in the numbers that various tutorials have told me. Like this one. But the connection test always fails at the DNS part.

 

[Makosuke]

Hmm. If it's the DNS part that it's choking at, sounds like maybe the 360 isn't getting the necessary info via DHCP. Can't say I know why, and the only way to check that this is even working at all would be to hook another computer up in place of the 360 and see if it gets an IP address and DNS servers and such properly.

That's the only obvious thing I can think of, but of course it's also possible that in this three-step-sharing process something is dropping the ball, so to speak.