Sharing an OS X internet connection with a Nintendo Wii

[macclassic]

Hi,

Does anyone have any experience/advice on sharing an OS X internet connection with a Wii, or any Wii experience in general.

My Wii is connected to the Mac with a ethernet cable and the Mac is connected to a wireless router with Airport - and this is because the Wii is just too far away from the router to pick up the routers wireless signal.

My problem is that the Wii will surf the net and the shopping channel with a DHCP setup but it won't connect to the online game Mario Striker!

Tried adding Wii firewall ports on the Mac and the router, a DLink, without luck, and also turning both firewalls off.

More annoying, I had this working once with a fixed IP address setup but lost it!!!

 

[madmax_2069]

i shared a internet connection with my Xbox using my Beige G3 AIO with the Xbox hooked to its ethernet and the Beige G3 using wifi. i kept running into a DNS error cause i was using the wrong IP address setting on the Xbox. below is what i dd to get everything working.

in OS X keep the internet sharing you have set

here is what you do

in OS X open terminal and type ifconfig en0 (thats a zero) which will give you the IP of the ethernet port and other info.

manually enter the DHCP info on the Wii, set the IP of the Wii one number higher then the IP you gained from running ifconfig en0 (a example is if the results show you 192.168.2.1 set the Wii's IP to 192.168.2.2). then set the gateway to the IP you seen when running ifconfig en0. it should be using the mask of 225.225.225.0 and enter that as the mask in the Wii.

once that is done you might need to get the DNS server your computer is using and manually enter them in to the Wii as well. in terminal type dig and after a bunch of text scrolls by, you'll have a line starting with SERVER near the bottom, the IP address in that line is the DNS server your computer is using and put that into the primary and secondary lines as the DNS in the Wii.

after that it should work, i did that and my xbox connected to live just fine. the same should work for the Wii

if you need more help just ask, let me know how it goes.

 

[macclassic]

Thanks for the info. I will give it a try.

I covered some of this area too, but the ifconfig en0 command produces a couple of inet ip addresses, so could you please post an example showing which one to choose?

The Mac side of this is easy compared to the Wii which I don't think helps in requiring 12 number IP addresses and taking about five minutes to report whether the setup is good or bad.

 

[madmax_2069]

here is what i get when i type in ifconfig en0 into terminal.

en0: flags=8863 mtu 1500

inet6 fe80::203:93ff:fe1b:7ab6%en0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x4

inet 192.168.2.2 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 192.168.2.255

ether 00:03:93:1b:7a:b6

media: autoselect (100baseTX ) status: active

supported media: none autoselect 10baseT/UTP 10baseT/UTP 10baseT/UTP 10baseT/UTP 100baseTX 100baseTX 100baseTX 100baseTX 1000baseT 1000baseT 1000baseT

going from mine the first IP is what you want (the one next to inet), the second IP means nothing for this, all that second IP shows you is the range the final number can go up to (which means 2-225, since 1 is being used for the router for me).

going from mine (as a example) i would set the following in the Wii as

IP : 192.168.2.3

Mask : 225.225.225.0

gateway 192.168.2.2

the run dig this is toward the bottom of all the text

;; Query time: 217 msec

;; SERVER: 192.168.2.1#53(192.168.2.1) (you want the IP from this line)

;; WHEN: Sat Feb 2 18:13:50 2008

;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 436

and for the DNS server settings on the Wii i would put

primary : 192.168.2.1

secondary : 192.168.2.1

yours might be different then mine, just post what terminal shows you if you are not sure and i will see what i can do to help. plus it will help to tell me what Mac you are using and what version of OS X.

 

[Quadraman]

I use my Wii with my laptop. All you do is set the internet connection on the Wii with the name of your router and security code. It should connect automatically. One thing to watch out for is WiConnect 24. If you leave this on, your Wii will check for updates every so often and your Wii may come on at weird hours. It usually isn't a problem unless you are asleep and the blue light on the front shines in your face or the whirring of the drive wakes you up. Some functions require WiConnect 24 be left on, though, so you have to decide whether you need those menu choices to be active at all times or not.

 

[macclassic]

I use my Wii with my laptop. All you do is set the internet connection on the Wii with the name of your router and security code. It should connect automatically. One thing to watch out for is WiConnect 24. If you leave this on, your Wii will check for updates every so often and your Wii may come on at weird hours. It usually isn't a problem unless you are asleep and the blue light on the front shines in your face or the whirring of the drive wakes you up. Some functions require WiConnect 24 be left on, though, so you have to decide whether you need those menu choices to be active at all times or not.

You are talking about a wired connection to the laptop, aren't you?

 

[Quadraman]

I use my Wii with my laptop. All you do is set the internet connection on the Wii with the name of your router and security code. It should connect automatically. One thing to watch out for is WiConnect 24. If you leave this on, your Wii will check for updates every so often and your Wii may come on at weird hours. It usually isn't a problem unless you are asleep and the blue light on the front shines in your face or the whirring of the drive wakes you up. Some functions require WiConnect 24 be left on, though, so you have to decide whether you need those menu choices to be active at all times or not.

You are talking about a wired connection to the laptop, aren't you?

No, I mean I have my laptop and Wii connected to my router wirelessly. The procedure for connecting is the same for both.

 

[benjgvps]

Try bringing the Wii to the router and hook an Ethernet cable to the Wii from the router. If it works that its the computer not the Wii. I'm not too sure I can help too much as I don't have an OS X machine or using Ethernet on my Wii.

 

[Quadraman]

Try bringing the Wii to the router and hook an Ethernet cable to the Wii from the router. If it works that its the computer not the Wii. I'm not too sure I can help too much as I don't have an OS X machine or using Ethernet on my Wii.

The Wii has only wireless built in. You would need an adapter to connect it by wire.

 

[macclassic]

I have the wired adapter, but the trouble is the Wii and the wireless router are in different rooms with a three foot wall between them.

I realize that a wireless router might be an answer but the the Mac works fine as an ethernet bridge when it's set up right.

With some setups I can surf the net on the Wii but not play an online game so it's either a DNS or a firewall issue and the IP addresses boxes on the Wii are as follows:

000.000.000.000

so when you enter 192.168.2.1 save it and check back on what you've entered it appears as 192.168.002.001 and I'm not sure if it should be 192.168.200.100 instead?

 

[macclassic]

Thanks for all the help, I got it going, it seems that you have to use a fixed IP address and add plenty of ports for the Wii.

One small nugget of wisdom to add, the Screensaver or HD spindown turns Sharing off - this had me scratching my head for a bit when it happened.

And for some reason I didn't get any DNS servers from the 'dig' command?