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Schneider · Oct 2, 2006, 01:13 PM

I am looking to set up my imac G5 which is wired in to the internet as an airport basestation so that i can run my ibook G3 with airport off of the imac rather than having to buy a whole wireless router. I have heard of this being done and know that it is possible, but i just need someone to walk me through this!

Any help would be much appreciated!

THanks and let me know~

Dave B · Oct 2, 2006, 03:59 PM

On the iMac, go to System Preferences, click Sharing, then click Internet.
Where it says Share Your Internet Connection, choose from: Ethernet from the pull-down menu
(unless you're on dial-up, which would be Internal Modem). Where it says To Computers Using..., click Airport.
Finally, click the Start button to turn on internet sharing.
I am using this method to share a dial-up connection from my iMac to my Powerbook Pismo.
Keep in mind that the iMac has to be on and connected to internet for the laptop to get online.

Note: If you want to encrypt the network, click Airport Options, then Enable Encryption,
and choose 128 bit key length. Note that WEP encryption isn't very secure, but it's
better than nothing. If you want better security, you will need to buy a router that uses WPA.

Sherman Homan · Oct 2, 2006, 04:10 PM

Dave B nails it!

The only thing I would add is that the iBook G3 AirPort card won't do WPA no matter what, WEP ain't bad.

Dave B · Oct 2, 2006, 04:48 PM

Sherman, I thought that was true also. I set up my mom's wireless network, and thought I would
see what would happen if I used WPA. It works on my Pismo, which uses the same Original Airport card. Cool!
This is on a 2Wire router. The Pismo also connects to a friend's Airport Extreme base station using WPA.
I think the main thing to watch for is that the router is set for 811. B/G mixed mode, since we have B cards.

Dave B · Oct 2, 2006, 05:03 PM

It could be argued that WEP is bad in the sense that it might give a false sense of security.
Of course, casual wardrivers will move on, but perhaps not someone who lives next door
who wants free WiFi. Here's a great article on how 2 FBI agents cracked 128-bit WEP
(as a demonstration) using readily available software tools, and cracked it in 3 minutes!

Sherman Homan · Oct 2, 2006, 05:11 PM

OK! I stand corrected, but I have never been able to get an original AirPort card to do WPA. I wonder if that is a particular feature of the Pismo?!

Dave B · Oct 2, 2006, 05:21 PM

What version of OS X are you running? Maybe something to do with that?

Schneider · Oct 2, 2006, 05:36 PM

Thanks a ton! It works and now i can use my lappy all around the house! Its got pretty good range, im surprised. Anyway thanks a lot!

ghporter · Oct 2, 2006, 06:26 PM

I think you're going to find out that, unless that G5 is on and "awake" all the time, it's going to get tiresom having to go turn it on/wake it up whenever you want to get online with the laptop.

On the other hand, setting up a wireless router is about the same level of difficulty as following Dave B's instructions, though with a few more steps involved. It ain't rocket science by a LONG way!

Finally, keep in mind that Dave B is spot on about WEP. It is poo. "False sense of security" is a good, if overly polite, way to put it. Breaking WEP is trivial to the extreme, taking only minutes in most cases. WPA, on the other hand is TRULY secure, easy to set up (no stupid cross platform gymnastics as with WEP) and WORKS.

tooki · Oct 4, 2006, 01:08 AM

WPA/WPA2 support is a function of the version of Mac OS X you are using. Any AirPort card will support WPA/WPA2 if it has Tiger on it (and possibly Panther... I don't remember).

I use WPA2 Personal for my home network and my old Pismo works just fine with it.

tooki