Enable Internet Sharing in Mac OS X to Turn Your Mac Into a Wireless Router

Did you know you can turn your Mac into a wireless access point by using Internet Sharing? Internet Sharing works for both Mac OS X 10.6 and Mac OS X 10.7 Lion, and with internet sharing enabled, your internet connected Mac will broadcast a wifi signal that can be used by another Mac, PC, iPad, iPhone, or whatever else you need to get online from. Here are situations where Internet Sharing is particularly useful: You don’t own a wireless router – no problem, let the Mac become one There is only a wired internet connection (ethernet) available, and you need to get a wireless-only device online, like an iPad or MacBook Air You’re at a location that charges internet access per device, rather than a flat rate for all devices, this is fairly common at hotels and airports Skirt the connected device limitations of Personal Hotspot (iOS) and Internet Tethering from mobile phones Hotels in particular have a bad habit of charging customers a per device fee rather than a single per room cost for internet access, using Internet Sharing gets around that greatly inflated expense. The setup we are going to use in this example is as follows: Wired internet connection -> Mac -> Other Devices, here’s a simple diagram to demonstrate this: It’s easy to set up, let’s get started. How to Share Internet from a Mac to Other Computers & Devices We’ll walk you through the process of setting up a secured wireless access point, broadcast from an internet connected Mac to be shared with other Macs, PC’s, or iOS devices.

Connect the ethernet cable to the Mac

Launch “System Preferences” from the  Apple menu and click on “Sharing”

Click on “Internet Sharing” from the left menu Select the pull-down menu next to “Share your connection from:” and choose “Ethernet”

Alongside “To computers using:” check the box next to “Wi-Fi” or “AirPort” (name depends on OS X 10.7 vs 10.6)

Next click on “Wi-Fi Options” and name the network, and then click to enable security/encryption, and then type in a WEP key as the wireless password

Click “OK” and confirm that you want to start internet sharing

You’re done.

Your Mac is now broadcasting a wireless signal that can be picked up by any other wi-fi enabled devices. Connecting to the Mac’s shared internet connection is now the same as connecting to any other wireless network, find the wifi access point name you set, enter the password, and you’re online. The network is relatively secure thanks to the WEP password you set, if you forgot that password you just have to disable security and re-enable it to set a new one. If you’re a perfectionist, you could then run the Wi-Fi Diagnostics tool and get the optimal signal for the network, but in a brief hotel or airport situation, the the devices will be close enough together that this won’t matter much.