Connection Sharing.

willhub

willhub

willhub

Caporegime
Joined
3 Jan 2006
Posts
25,205
Location
Chadderton, Oldham
Hi.

At uni I am in flats that is running of Manchester Uni's Hornet system, problem with this is wireless is not allowed, and you can only have one computer connected at a time since you only have one connection and you need to enter the network adaptors MAC address on Hornet page, if I wanted to plug my laptop in I'd end up changing that address and it's just be a faff.

My desktop has 2 lan ports on, so is it possible for me to plug my lappy into the second lan port and have the desktop provide the internet through it to the laptop?


Thanks
Will.
 
Yes it is possible, all you would need to do is enable Internet Connection Sharing on the desktop and set the laptop up to use the PC as its gateway. Alternatively you could just use a router, which would mean you wouldn't need your PC on for your laptop to have internet access.
 
Dist said:
Yes it is possible, all you would need to do is enable Internet Connection Sharing on the desktop and set the laptop up to use the PC as its gateway. Alternatively you could just use a router, which would mean you wouldn't need your PC on for your laptop to have internet access.
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Can't use a router, the connection into the wall is a LAN port, so basically on some huge router somewhere in Manchester. We need to enter the MAC address into the Manchester Hornet setup for our network adapter on the PC.
 
A router doesn't have to be placed between a WAN and LAN, it can be used between any 2 networks, so you can use a router to separate your LAN from your universities LAN and you will just provide your routers WAN MAC address. The router will be assigned an IP and provide NAT for the desktop and the laptop, which is no different from what the desktop would do if it was providing NAT for the laptop.
 
If I did this there is no way the uni could detect I'm using a router right? If they know I was using a router I'd get banned from the internet for 56 days and get a 50 quid reconnection fee.
 
willhub said:
If I did this there is no way the uni could detect I'm using a router right? If they know I was using a router I'd get banned from the internet for 56 days and get a 50 quid reconnection fee.
Click to expand...

I don't see how they would know, its no different from connecting to the internet on a home connection in that its not possible (at least not easily at all) for someone else online to see that there are more than one device at an IP.

At most all I can see the uni being able to do is check the MAC address to see what make it is, but this is way too much hassle for a uni to go through for something thats doing no real harm and have no reason to suspect you to be breaking the rules about the number of devices attached to the network.

Just make sure your router doesn't make itselfe visible on the WAN port, some routers allow configuration from the WAN port in which case if someone went to your local IP it would show a router configuration screen, bit of a give away, so disable any feature like that (should be disabled by default if it is included at all on your router).
 
willhub said:
If I did this there is no way the uni could detect I'm using a router right? If they know I was using a router I'd get banned from the internet for 56 days and get a 50 quid reconnection fee.
Click to expand...

Well I've hear d of a few people trying put a router in and it ruins everything,
the IT guys will get hugely angry and will come down hard on you if they catch
you. Think its something todo with dchp and there networking, but unless you
know what you doing I would stay well clear.
 
DHCP has nothing to do with it, a router may act as a DHCP server (as it should on a LAN unless you have a reason not to use it), the only way it would cause problems is if you connected your UNI network to a LAN port on the router, in which case your router would try to act as a DHCP server for the whole uni network. If you connect the uni network to the WAN port on the router than the router will use the unis DHCP server to assign an IP address to the routers WAN port, and the router will provide a DHCP server itself ONLY to clients accessing one of its LAN ports.

A router attached by its WAN port to the uni network is just acting as a DHCP client in a way no different from how a PC would that doesn't use a static IP.
 
edit: Ahh, I see you have mentioned that the MAC address includes a manufacturer code Dist, my original point now deleted still stands though, if it can be built in to a routers firmware to do an OUI lookup with a single click (Tomato firmware on the Linksys WRT routers), I'm sure a UNI will have an even easier way of dealing with it.
 
Last edited:
Surely if wireless is out of the question just using ICS through my desktop is the best way forward then? I mean surely I won't see any performance impact?
 
BloodyL said:
edit: Ahh, I see you have mentioned that the MAC address includes a manufacturer code Dist, my original point now deleted still stands though, if it can be built in to a routers firmware to do an OUI lookup with a single click (Tomato firmware on the Linksys WRT routers), I'm sure a UNI will have an even easier way of dealing with it.
Click to expand...

A uni wouldn't care about doing a MAC lookup though because of how easy a MAC address can be changed. I know people in similar situations at a uni that can only have 1 MAC address attached to the uni network, and he had already assigned his PC MAC for that, so when he wanted to use more devices he just used a router and got the router to spoof the MAC of the PC.

willhub said:
Surely if wireless is out of the question just using ICS through my desktop is the best way forward then? I mean surely I won't see any performance impact?
Click to expand...

ICS would require your PC to be on whenever you want your laptop to be connected, also routers usually come with a firewall so you will know they will provide at least some measure of protection from people on the uni network.
 
I've emailed Manchester Hornet to see what they say, if they just issued a fine of say 20 quid I might give it a go but with 56 days disconnection and 50 quid reconnection fee I don't want to risk it, and screw mobile broadband.
 
Sorry to bring this up, but I'm having hell of a time trying to get this working agian.

Just switched the ports round, so the one I did use to share the connection is now the one I get the internet from, had to do this as cable did not reach the bottom one.

Problem is, I can get my laptop to see files on the desktop but cannot get internet through, don't know what I am doing wrong.


I have enabled ICS on the desktop.

Any ideas?


Thanks
Will.
 
haven't used ICS in aaaages.

you could simply select both of your LAN adaptors in Windows and create a bridge? I don't think it's the most elegant solution, but it's always worked for me :p
 
So you can't access the internet on the desktop?

If you switched the ports, wouldn't that mean that you're using a different network card to the card registered against the Hornet system? Different cards have different MAC addresses.

Also, if ICS is still active, it'll assign a static IP to that particular network card. Turn off ICS until you've got the internet working on one machine.
 
I haven't read the whole thread but at my accommodation we operate a similar nat network, we don't officially allow wireless networks etc but if people correctly use a cable router it does no harm and is invisible on the network.

If you buy a cable router and input the mac address of the router on the website it should work fine. Cable routers automatically pick up the ip address settings etc and then just share the connection, it would just appear as another client on the network the same as your pc. It is adsl routers which would cause a problem and be fairly obvious as they run their own dhcp servers.
 
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