need a tutorial for Mac intranet setup

SwimmingInData · March 20, 2004

Hi,

Can anyone direct me to a tutorial for setting up a TCP/IP intranet for Macs?

We are a home office with a G5 running OSX and an iMac running OS9. We are set up for file sharing using AppleTalk over Ethernet, but each computer connects to the internet (one at a time) over a phone line because we moved to the absolute middle of nowhere where there is no DSL or cable service.

I enabled web sharing on a FM 6 database so I can view it through a browser window and it works great. This is all on the G5. Now I want the iMac to be able to see the database so that while the user is doing research online, he can search our internal database as well.

I'm tripping up on the IP settings. I think what I need is help with networking different Mac OS versions. If anyone knows of a source for this info could you send me a link?

Many thanks.

Version: v6.x

Platform: Mac OS X Jaguar

Garry Claridge · March 20, 2004

You can use the G5 to connect to the Internet and share that connection across your LAN. Having done this you can assign IP addresses to each computer on their ethernet ports.

You can use IP addresses such as 192.168.1.1 for the G5 and 192.168.1.2 for the iMac. The iMac can use 192.168.1.1 as the Gateway address. It will also need the address of the DNS provided by your ISP.

Good Luck.

Garry

SwimmingInData · March 20, 2004

Hi Garry,

Thanks for the suggestion. Unfortunately sharing the internet connection isn't optimal for us right now and OS X / OS 9 are not very compatible when it comes to TCP/IP. If I can get the iMac user to upgrade to OS X we could probably make this work. Or set up a satellite internet connection on the other side of a router . . . fortunately we sit side by side so the original form of networking ("Hey look this up for me") still works!

I appreciate the info though. It is definitely an option.

AudioFreak · March 20, 2004

HI,

This may be useful for you. We used this at work until we bought a dedicated server. Ony need to install on one computer and keep that computer running at all times. The link is here.

HTH

Garry Claridge · March 21, 2004

Having Internet Sharing enabled on the G5 would not degrade the performance of the G5. I've done it here with my G5's built-in modem and a number of other computers using it as the Gateway. (This was while I was waiting for my ADSL to be connected.)

It is worth a try

Garry

Steve T. · March 21, 2004

Hi, Swim! Are you set up like this? G5 ----- hub ----- iMac

If so, Garry's tip should work great but if you don't want to do it, you can get a router instead of a hub (or even a wireless base station will work great if you were thinking about going wireless, anyway). The router will be configured w/the "true" IP address and can then use an internal IP system such as the universal 192.168.x.x local network Garry mentioned.

In the modem method, the G5 would share it's internet connection with the iMac. If you get a router or base statiion, it can replace the hub and assign IP addresses to your computers or just handle the traffic between the two and/or the internet. The hub is dumb and cannot do this by itself. I don't think you can do what you want with what you currently have without doing it Garry's way. When you use your modem, you don't know what IP address you will be getting so how will the other computer know how to talk to it? If one shares the connection with the other is one way. If they both speak to a router is another way.

Don't worry about TCP/IP on X vs. 9. They should work fine together although I have had some AppleTalk connection problems when the 9 machine connects to the X machine and gets a "connection unexpectedly broken" error. This should go away by upgrading the 9 machine to OS 9.2.2 , though.

Good luck!

--ST

SwimmingInData · March 24, 2004

Hi ST,

Yes I do get the "connection unexpectedly broken" error on the OS 9 machine and it is running 9.2. It's helpful to know this might be resolved by an upgrade to 9.2.2 because I had about thrown up my hands at this point.

So I really have two issues at the moment -- first needing to set up internet sharing so I can have a private internal TCP/IP network and second needing to have the TCP/IP network actually function between OS X and OS 9!

It feels like a lot of setup but a least I see there are solutions. The web interface is very cool so it inspires me not to give up. I'll just have to go step by step.

Thanks for all the advice.

Swimming