[vdbuss]

If I want to share my internet connection with another computer, and I want to be able to surf the Web on that computer, I need to turn on Personal Web Sharing service on my computer. Isn't that overkill? Indeed, I don't really want to start up a Web server on my computer. All that is needed is to allow HTTP traffic through the firewall on my computer. Turning on the Personal Web Sharing service indeed allows that, but it also starts up a Web server which I don't need. It appears not possible, at least not through the Sharing preferences, to just set the firewall options directly without turning on the whole service.

Is there a way to do this from the command line?

[Big Mac]

I don't really get that either, vdbuss.

[TheMosco]

I am confused...

When I turn on "internet sharing" it creates natd, named, and bootpd processes. When I turn on "web sharing" it starts apache. But turning on "web sharing" doesn't start natd, named, and bootpd and vice versa.

Why don't I understand the question?

[analogika]

I use a Mac mini connected directly to the DSL modem as a wireless base station using Internet Sharing.

I do NOT need to turn on Personal Web Sharing for Internet Sharing to work.

[Big Mac]

Perhaps it was fixed with Leopard, but at least in Tiger I remember a requirement to turn on web sharing in order to have internet sharing active.

[C.A.T.S. CEO]

I never had to turn web sharing for internet sharing to work in Tiger or Leopard.

[analogika]

Originally Posted by Big Mac 

Perhaps it was fixed with Leopard, but at least in Tiger I remember a requirement to turn on web sharing in order to have internet sharing active.

I'm CURRENTLY RUNNING the mini on tiger.

You remember wrong.

[Brass]

Nope, internet sharing has always worked fine for me in both Tiger and Leopard with web sharing turned off.

I think you're problem has some other cause (or at least some other complication) other than this.

[Art Vandelay]

You need to allow http through the firewall in Tiger, which turning on Web Sharing conveniently does. So, Web Sharing is not required but the open port it creates is. What you need to do is open the port in the firewall by creating a custom rule.

[Brass]

Originally Posted by Art Vandelay 

You need to allow http through the firewall in Tiger, which turning on Web Sharing conveniently does. So, Web Sharing is not required but the open port it creates is. What you need to do is open the port in the firewall by creating a custom rule.

heheh... that makes sense. I thought it must be due to some other configuration issue. I never use the Mac OS X firewall (all my machines are behind a NAT router/firewall) which is why I never had the problem.

[vdbuss]

All--

Thanks for the responses. Upfront I should say that I should have specified that this was a Tiger-specific question. On Leopard things are a bit different. This is probably why TheMosco couldn't make sense of my question; my apologies.

My question was clearly firewall-related and I thank Art Vandelay for putting me on the right track by telling me to create a custom rule for the firewall. Since I had never done this I'll explain here what I've done in detail, hopefully this will be informative to others.

So, we go to the Firewall settings, where everything is shut up for the moment. I click on "Personal Web Sharing" (not on the checkbox, just on the entry) and then choose "Edit...". The system tells me I cannot edit that entry, but it also gives me the interesting information that turning on this service would open up ports 80, 427, and 443 in the firewall. Now IANA (www.iana.org/assignments/port-numbers) tells me that port 80 is http, and 443 is https, so that certainly makes sense. I am less sure about that port 427; IANA tells me it is "svrloc" and I suppose here it is used to access the domain name server (named).

OK, now we know enough to do what I wanted from the outset. We choose "New..." to create a custom rule for the firewall. We fill in as follows:
- Port Name: Other
- TCP Port Numbers: 80, 427, 443
- UDP Port Numbers: <leave this blank>
- Description: internet sharing <you can choose your own description>

That's it! We can now share our internet connection without running Personal Web Sharing.

Best regards --Jan