A great feature of Mac OS X is the ease of sharing your Internet connection. For example, you are in a hotel with your family or coworkers, you have wired or cellular Internet access (this includes EVDO cards, USB cell cards, etc.), but more than one of you needs to be connected at the same time. With your MacBook, MacBook Pro, or MacBook Air (with optional USB-Network connector), you can share your connection safely and securely!
First, open System Preferences: Click on Apple -> System Preferences…
Second: Click on Sharing
Next, you will see the sharing preferences. In the list on the left side, click on the Internet Sharing line, but don’t click on the box to enable it just yet.
Now click on the button labeled AirPort Options…
Here, you want to name your network (I don’t suggest any self-identifying names here… something very generic is best: my_network, private_net, etc.). Spaces are okay when sharing with all Macs. Just to be sure you can share with everybody in your group, you can replace spaces with underscores as shown in the above examples.
Put a checkmark in the box to Enable encryption.
Choose a password, confirm it and choose your preferred WEP key length. See the explanation in the box to help you make your choices. Your choices will depend on the other computers in the network that you are creating.
Click OK
You will get this warning:
Click Start
In a moment or two, the icon in the menu bar will change to look like this:
When you are done sharing, just turn it off:
1) Go to System Preferences again
2) Click on Sharing
3) Click on the Internet Sharing checkmark box to “uncheck” it.
That’s all there is to it.
Note: in another post, I explain how easy it is to use an AirPort Express for this purpose. It is an even better solution because you can leave it plugged in and enabled, even when you want to shut your laptop down or take it with you. Your family can stay behind and surf or check email without you. The AirPort Express is inexpensive, easy to carry and very easy to set up. I usually bring it along. However, in a pinch, this solution, which is built right into Mac OS X, has saved so much time and frustration. When we get to the hotel, everybody can surf on just one wired connection.
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Hi, I have tried this using an ATT USB card (sierra wireless usb881). My choices in system preferences-sharing for “share your connection from” do not include usb. When I select built-in ethernet or firewire I do not get internet connection out through the broadcast. I pick up the broadcast with good signal strength but no through put of usb fed internet. Doesn’t make sense I should select share from airport or bluetooh. Any sugestions?.
By the way, I am using OS 10.4.11, not 10.5.
Earl,
When I bring up System Preferences with my USB727 up and running, I get the following choices for “Share your connection from:”
Novatel Wireless CDMA
AirPort
Bluetooth
I chose “Novatel Wireless CDMA”
Are you connecting using System Preferences, or is there some ATT or Sierra software manager involved? I would try using the System Preferences to connect, then use the above instructions.
Hope this helps. Please let me know how it works out.
David
I’ve got a Sierra Wirless USB-Stick. I first couldn’t choose my stick in the internet sharing dialog. But now it’s working! What I did is connnect using Sierra Wireless Watcher, then go to System Preferences, Network. There you’ll see a modem-device that is connected made by Sierra Wireless Watcher. The problem is that this device has no name! All you got to do is mark it and choose “Rename service” close to the +/- buttons below. After the service is named you can select it in the internet sharing dialog.
hey thank you sebastian… just what i was looking for
Sebastian and david: Thanks for your helpful comments!
hi
i tried sharing my internet connection, thus the other computer has limited connection where i cant browse the internet, would you know what else do i need to do?
thanks!
When i secure the connection, another person using a windows Pc cannot connect. In fact the person can see the wireless connection but can’t get connect to it. So PLS if somebody knows what to do just tell me. THANKS
I am running OSX and Windows 7. At first all I did was plug in and ethernet cable to my wireless macbook and my pc. And then I went to the system preferences of the Macbook like you described. So essentially my Macbook was sharing its wireless connection to my pc via ethernet cable. Then one day it stopped working, I think maybe Windows or OSX ran a system update. Any ideas to help me get my pc back on the web?
Bob:
Interesting problem. It sounds like you connected the computers in a different way than described above. The ethernet cable is connected only to the MacBook. Then the MacBook shares its Internet by creating a wireless access point that other computers connect to wirelessly. So, in your case, the PC would be connected over WiFi, not over ethernet cable. Have you tried it that way?
Hello,
Not sure what I may be doing wrong. I want to use my Macbook Pro to connect another PC to the internet. My Mac is connected to the internet wirelessly, therefore I would like to use the ethernet port on my Macbook and connect to my PC with an ethernet cord. In other words, my Mac is connected to the inernet wirelessly and I want to use the mac as a hard link to my PC.
Can you help?
Thanks
Phil
I’ve done all the steps (correctly I assume), but it doesn’t seem to work. My Airport icon doesn’t change to the one with an arrow so I guess there’s the start of it not working, but I have no idea what to do differently to make it work…?
Thanks
/Markus
Markus… are you trying to share a wired connection? If so, the above should work without any troubles.
If you are trying to share a cellular modem (such as the USB727), make sure that you are not using VZAccess Manager to connect. VZAccess does not allow the AirPort to work simultaneously with the cellular modem. Instead, use Mac OS X’s System Preferences to connect: USB727 on a Mac: How to Connect Using System Preferences.
Hope this helps.