Can I get Wi-Fi on my Macbook through an imac?

[cambsno]

Probably a silly question, but you never know!!!

Will be staying at parents for a couple of weeks. My dad has an imac, that is connected to the internet the old fashioned way - wires (broadband)!!!!

Is there a way that i can connect my macbook to his imac wirelessly and access internet that way? I can access my imac at home, although am on wifi there.

 

[Rafe]

You will only be able to connect to his broadband is if he has a wireless router.

If the router he has does not support a wireless connection, then the only way you can connect to his internet is for you to take out the ethernet cable from the iMac and plug it into your Macbook.

HTH

 

[Tenex]

You will only be able to connect to his broadband is if he has a wireless router.

I have to confess ignorance as I've never had to share but can you not (Leopard anyway) go

SysPref > Sharing > Internet Sharing and tick Airport?

As I say never tried it so may be completely wrong. See attached pic

 

[cambsno]

Thanks Tenex, thats what i thought, no way of knowing till i get out there but will give it a try.

 

[Tenex]

You know I have only the vaguest memory of it being in the setup when I first switched on the iMac years ago but your question brought it to the fore.

Here's the same from Apple and though its Leopard I'd have seen it under Tiger so if it works I'm sure its in earlier OS X versions too. HTH

 

[ciandrews]

I've done a similar thing with my MacBook before, where I had my 3G dongle plugged in and connected, then used the WiFi to share the connection with a workmate on his netbook in our works canteen. What I did was, on the MacBook WiFi indictator in the Taskbar, I clicked "Create New Network" I then gave it a name and set the channel. Once I did that, I enabled Internet sharing from the USB modem to the WiFi card. Once done, the WiFi indicator changes and an "up arrow" appears in it.
I am not too sure if I had to set the IP addresses of the WiFi cards or not. I have a funny feeling I set them up manually to save having problems (although they may work with automatic private addresses!)
I think I set them as 10.0.0.1/255.0.0.0 for the MacBook (serving the net connection) and 10.0.0.2/255.0.0.0 for my workmates netbook

I am sure you will get it working with minimum hassle

 

[jont]

That's what I do at my folks with my MBA and their imac when I'm up ... just set internet to share via Airport in the system prefs>sharing button and thats it - you might want to/need to set a password depending on how secure you want it to be ...

Jon