Using iMac as a WIFI Access Point on Existing Network

[shankle44]

Hello everyone,

I currently have a wireless network in my home with two Airport Extreme Time Capsules. The first router I will call the Master as it controls the DHCP. The second I'll call the Slave as it is bridged and only supports the Master by increasing the Wifi coverage and supplying additional storage for backups. My iMac is hardwired into the Master router via gigabit.

My question is this, can I use the Wifi sharing capabilities built into the iMac to essentially make my iMac a wireless access point as well? I understand how to turn it on and all that but the capabilities seem limited as far as controlling it. Instead of the iMac creating it's own Wifi with its own addresses, I would really like the Master router to be able to control it and assign the addresses so that anything connected to it would be connected to the rest of the home network as well.

Any sort of wireless syncing and transferring that needs to be done on phones and other Wifi devices would go much faster if the access point was right beside where I am working. Moving the location of the current routers is not really an option due to the layout of the home.

Is this possible?

Thanks,
Shawn

 

[rayward]

Looks like it can be a wifi hotspot at least. Not sure if this means it would allow for network access, or simply be sharing an internet connection. Give it a try and let us know!

 

[deific]

Yes, simply enable internet connection sharing via the sharing system preference as mentioned in the article above.

It's a pretty limited set of options though, you can set the Name of the network, the channel it distributes the wifi on, and then the WPA2 password it hands out.

Your main network router would be what handles distribution of IPs using DHCP and such. Your iMac would simply be a conduit/access point.

I would also recommend using a different name for the wifi network than the one coming out of your other Time Capsules so you can troubleshoot issues if your Internet Sharing breaks.