Re: MacOS X networking setup

Tim McNamara wrote:

"Arild P." <arild@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes: 

Ethernet cables are hot-pluggable.  In other words, the computers
don't have to be off to plug it in.


Good to know!


3) Still, in the same control panel I press in the leftmost horizontal
button ("TCP/IP") and set it up as follows:

 Configure IPv4:  Manually
 IP address    :  10.0.0.27
 Subnet mask   :  255.255.255.0
 Router        :  10.0.0.10

Hmmm. Except you don't *have* a router. 

Correct, but Jon replied earlier in the thread:

>>>Both machines need to be on the same logical tcp/ip network.
>>>
>>>On both, enter a manual IP address, e.g., 10.0.0.1 and 10.0.0.2
>>>respectively, use the same subnet mask, e.g., 255.255.255.0 on both, >>>and possibly a (fictious) router address such as 10.0.0.10
>>>(in the same network range, anyway). The PC will probably require
>>>a reboot for this to take effect.

..... which is why I entered that value.


However, I would make the
numbers as follows:  router 10.0.0.1, Mac 10.0.0.2, Windows 10.0.0.3
as the router is conventionally the lowest address in the range.

Since I don't have a router I'll skip the first one, then enter 10.0.0.2 on the Mac and 10.0.0.3 on the PC and see if that helps.
So the router number also has to be different on both machines, just like the IP address?


 I
don't know if not having a router will create a problem.  If it does
not work, try it again with the router being assigned the same IP
number as the Windows computer.

I've heard from many people that it should be possible (and easy, which seems not to be the case as I can see) to connect just two computers together simply with an ethernet cable.


<snip> I can't comment since I know nothing about Windows.  However,
did you read the Web sites I posted yesterday about connecting Windows
and Mac computers?  Those included pictures of the various setup
windows in each system, which might make this more comprehensible.

Yes, especially the Shoemaker site (http://joelshoemaker.com/computer/mac/m98fs.html) is good, but it begins to assume that you already have a connection between the two computers where they can "see" each other. And the reference page which explains this in more detail isn't very helpful.

I have figured out how to "ping" on both computers!! :-)
As far as I can remember (I'm connected to the Internet via the ADSL router right now, and don't care to re-configure the IP addresses for the network and reboot before sending this), I could successfully "ping" the Mac, but the Mac couldn't "ping" the PC (I found a networking tool in the utilities folder on the Mac).

At least I'm one step closer.



NOTE: I've followed your instructions for the IP address here, adding 1
to the last digit instead of using the same IP address as the Mac, so
now I have the computers set up like this:

 Mac Powerbook:  10.0.0.27
 Windows PC   :  10.0.0.28



Good.  Each computer has to have its own IP address within the same
range (10.0.0.x).

By "within the same range", are you talking about changing just one of the four number "groups" instead of a random one? Let me word that a bit differently....

 10.0.0.123
 10.0.0.4
 10.0.0.89

or....

 233.0.3.99
 233.0.245.99
 233.0.58.99

are all OK, while the following aren't?

 10.0.0.7
 10.245.0.86
 231.0.5.104


Another question about IP addresses: can I choose *any* IP number as long as the digits are between 0 and 255, or do only certain IP numbers work with a computer to computer network, while other certain numbers only work for Internet communications?
Or do certain computers/networking cards only work with certain IP addresses?
I ask because having searched the web for more help on setting up a network and reading newsgroup postings I come across examples with completely different addresses.


I'm not entirely sure about the "Network mask", so I'm just guessing
that it's the same as "Subnet mask" on the Mac, and that the numbers
should be the same.



The numbers should be the same (255.255.255.0).  However, if it
doesn't work with that netmask, you can try 255.255.255.255 and see
if that works.  I am sure that understanding netmasks is not hard, but
it's sort of gobbeldygook to me.

OK, I'll try that out, with and without the router numbers.
So in summary, the IP addresses and the router addresses should be different for each computer, while the subnet/netmask should be the same on both machines?


When I've set this up, it was for a home network where both the
Windows and Mac computers were hooked up to a NetGear Ethernet hub,
and that seemed to make this process much less hassle than what you
are experiencing.

If I had a hub I'd try that for sure, but see little need for spending money on something like that just to transfer a few files once.


You know, if all you want to do is a file transfer then you'd find it
much easier to just e-mail them to yourself as attachments.  Since
you've got broadband this ought to be feasible.  Or you could copy
them to a thumb drive if WindowsME supports USB.  The latter is
probably the simplest option.

I have 3 files sized at around 5.5 Gbytes each (iMovie files), so that's not feasable. Email would be much too slow anyway, so if the files weren't that big I would just burn them to CD-RW and transfer them to the other machine. Unfortunately the PC doesn't have a DVD writer (although it does have a DVD-ROM drive, which I might add works very poorly -I think there's something wrong with it), but even that wouldn't allow me to burn the iMovie files as they're beyond the 4.7 GB limit.


If your ADSL router has a built-in Ethernet hub for connecting
multiple computers, you can use that as a hub to set up a LAN and
connect the computers to each other through the router.

No, I'd try that first if it was possible, but the ADSL router that was supplied by my broadband provider only allows for one computer to be connected.


http://macs.about.com/cs/tipstutorials/a/xp_osx_sharing.htm

probably would apply to your situation then.  This is what worked on
the first try for me when setting up my uncle's computers so he could
transfer files from his unreliable Toshiba Windows laptop to his iMac
g5.

I've read through it although it applies to Windows XP and not Windows ME as I'm using here. It seems I've tried most everything, but there are still a few things that are unclear:

1) if I should enter the router numbers
2) if I should enter the router and/or netmask numbers

It looks like the other things are covered.
.