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l008com · Apr 8, 2006, 09:02 AM

I want to set up an old G4 tower as a router. I have the computer and the dual ethernet card, and I turned on internet sharing and everything seems to be working. So far so good. But everyone I talk to tells me that from time to time internet sharing will turn itself off! Is this true? And if so, how do I prevent that from happening? I tried rebooting a few times and shutting down and powering up a few times and it stayed on for me. I know that if I have to, I can install Webmin on the machine to use its nat/dhcp, but as long as simple internet sharing stays on, I should be fine like this.

Also, are there any other limitations to Tiger's Internet Sharing I might have missed?

Rainy Day · Apr 8, 2006, 04:24 PM

Always seems to keep working for me. Maybe the folks you’re talking to are insane?

I suppose a System Update could possibly change the settings, but i’ve never noticed it.

l008com · Apr 8, 2006, 04:25 PM

Well thats good to hear.

mpancha · Apr 9, 2006, 11:42 AM

it should work as advertised. I've never used it for more than a couple hours at a time, usually when I bring home a laptop belonging to a company owner or something where I have to finish it before business hours the following day.... I'll share my internet connection from airport -> ethernet so I can do whatever updates I have to on the 2nd laptop.

It always works for me with minor hiccups.

l008com · Apr 9, 2006, 11:44 AM

What are these minor hiccups? It has always worked for me too, its just, i need it to stay on reliably so that when I turn it on for these people, it stays on.

IamBob · Apr 10, 2006, 01:28 PM

I've used the built-in internet sharing for a while...

Reliability shouldn't be an issue once it's setup. Even sharing dial-up it's like I've got an "always on" connection. You might have to keep the nat-Mac from going into a deep sleep and there might be an option somewhere to "disconnect from the internet when I log out" that you'll need to uncheck. Not sure if that last one applies if you've got broadband but I'm pretty sure it's there for dial-up.

The last time it crapped out on me it turned out one of my brothers had turned it off so I wouldn't make him lag (more) while he played WoW. ymmv

l008com · Apr 10, 2006, 01:34 PM

Well the machine i'm using is a file server so its always on, always connected to cable via DHCP, and set to never sleep at all, other than monitor sleep. So if what you say is true, then this should run forever. Cool.

mpancha · Apr 10, 2006, 03:19 PM

Originally Posted by l008com

What are these minor hiccups? It has always worked for me too, its just, i need it to stay on reliably so that when I turn it on for these people, it stays on.

The problem I tend to have is once in awhile the iBook forgets which interface is the primary one. For example if I'm connected to the internet via Ethernet, and I'm sharing via Airport.... for some reason despite being "online" I can't pull up a website, but once I disable sharing it will work again. Same is true with the opposite setup, internet via Airport, shared via ethernet. For some reason I've consistently had issues with OS X remembering which interface is the internet, and which is LAN

Rainy Day · Apr 10, 2006, 11:38 PM

Originally Posted by mpancha

The problem I tend to have is once in awhile the iBook forgets which interface is the primary one.

Sounds like a sleep related issue, which is moot for an always-up server.

mpancha · Apr 11, 2006, 09:08 AM

Originally Posted by Rainy Day

Sounds like a sleep related issue, which is moot for an always-up server.

I would agree, but the iBook is not asleep, I'm using it, and it happens while navigating from one page to the next. For example www.cnn.com -> article on CNN.com.

Its happened way too many times during mid-use to be a coincidence for me. I blame the OS. Besides, its an option in the system preferences, it asks you what to share through, and what to share from. If the OS forgets that if the computer goes to sleep... thatn that is just poor functionality.

Rainy Day · Apr 12, 2006, 01:27 PM

mpancha: I may not be understanding your situation correctly, but it sounded to me like it is losing its connection on one network (maybe due to loss of signal?) and automatically switching to another. This can happen especially when waking from sleep (as i believe the system is setup to re-examine its network connections at that time), but it could happen at other times, like if it lost the AirPort signal. If that’s what is indeed is going on, then what you describe sounds like that is how the system should behave (depending on your System Preferences settings). You might want to examine the system logs as it ought to indicate that it switched networks, and why.

Now you can tell it not to switch networks automatically, or to establish the order in which it checks the network availability, in System Preferences.

Or maybe i’m just not correctly understanding what you’re describing?

But in any case, your situation is different from the typical case of running a Mac as a server (in which case one is likely to set the network interface statically to EtherNet, and not have InterNet sharing turned on).