Share usb wireless internet access with Router

[Chsoriano]

I have a sprint wireless internet (usb) card connected to my laptop. I would like to share the internet connection with a router which is connected to the laptop via an ethernet cable.

I would like to share the internet with my another computer in the house using the wireless router. Is this possible?

I tried setting it up today, but could not get it to work, I enabled ICS on the sprint wireless connection and tried resetting my router's settings. I've gotten it to work before but with an XP laptop. This is on Vista, and I guess I'm doing something wrong. Anyone have any ideas? Thanks.

[+BudMan MVC]

So this wireless router has access to the internet -- different than what your laptop has "SWI" ? Or your just wanting to use it to connect to your other machine?

How are you connecting the laptops wireless to this router? How is the other computer connecting to the router? Are you just wanting to use the switch portion of the router.. What is the routers IP?

Im not 100% sure if vista is the same for ICS, but XPs default IP address for the ICS interface was 192.168.0.1 -- this is the default IP for quite a few routers.. So you could have issues there.. Did you turn off dhcp on the router.. Where exactly are you connecting your laptop to the router -- its WAN/Internet port or one of the lan ports on the router?

Vista likes to use IPv6.. And defaults to both IPv6 and IPv4 being on -- I have seen this cause quite a few issues.. IMHO, if your not using IPv6, then you shoudl disable it.. No reason to run something your not using.

[Chsoriano]

Okay.... I hope I can explain it:

1. The router does not have internet access, only my laptop

2. The laptop is connected to the internet via a sprint wireless access card (USB)

3. The laptop is wired to the router via a patch cord to the internet port on the router (I'm not sure if this is how I should be connecting it)

4. Right now the router's IP address is default (192.168.1.1), I have to configure the lan connection on the computer I am guessing, but I'm not sure how to set it up

5. I also have to configure the router, it detects a fixed ip address, but I don't know the information because sprint doesn't really provide all of the information, it only has an ip address, subnet mask, and dns servers, no gateway.

I want to share the laptops's sprint connection with the router, so I can connect another computer to the routher's ports and access the internet as well as using wireless.

[+BudMan MVC]

Ok in that step your going to be doing a few NATS, atleast 1 at the ICS an another at the router. I personally would not set it up that way - but it can be done.

Your going to need to setup your routers WAN/INTERNET connection to be DHCP, or set it up as static an connect to the ICS interface on the laptop.. If vista is the same as XP, that that IP would be 192.168.0.1, so if your going to go static on the routers wan connection you would need to set it say 192.168.0.2/24 with a gateway of 192.168.0.1 -- But DHCP would work.

Your machine that would be connecting to the router as either a wired connection to one of the LAN ports on the router or wireless would get a IP address from the routers dhcp. .which would hand out the 192.168.1.x/24 network -- an those clients would point to the router as their gateway.. which would then forward to your ICS connection, which would then forward to your ISP.

Problem with this type of setup.. is your have a NAT between the vista an other machine - so file sharing is going to be a pain, you would have setup port forwards or put in the dmz, etc... etc.. Not an issue if your not planning on using anything other than internet on the machine connected to the router. But not how I would suggest anyone set it up.

Another option would be to just use the switch portion of the router - or just connect this other machine directly to the laptops ethernet port with a crossover cable if neither the computers or laptops nics are gig (supports auto crossover).

Or you could just use your router as an ACCESS POINT or switch.. This would mean turning off the dhcp server on the LAN side of the router, changing its lan IP to reside on your ICS network 192.168.0.x/24

Then machines connected to the router with wired or wireless would get their IPs direct from the ICS machines dhcp server.. and would point to its IP as their gateway 192.168.0.1

I am just assuming vistas ICS ip network is the same as XP.. I had not heard it changed - but you might want to verify that it still uses 192.168.0.x/24

Hope that helps! Let me know if you have further questions.

[Chsoriano]

Okay, thanks a lot, I'll give this a go in a little while and see how it goes.

[Chsoriano]

If I were to use the third option (using the router as a switch), what would I set the DNS servers to be? I have it's IP to be 192.168.0.2, and gateway 192.168.0.1

EDIT: I finally got it to work! Thanks so much for your little mini guide, I really appreciate it, thanks!

Edited August 9, 2007 by Chsoriano

[+BudMan MVC]

Well you could use anything really for dns.. OpenDNS, your isp's directly.. if your using the router as just a switch.. then you would point it at the ICS interface - which provides dns. 192.168.0.1

Glad to hear you got it working! BTW.. if you using the router as just a switch, an you turned off its dhcp server - the ICS machine should hand out IPs with its dhcp.. So your client could be dhcp - which out default to handing out the ICS machine as dns I do believe.

[Chsoriano]

Well I had no problem getting another computer wired to the router to connect, but I did have a small problem getting my Wii wireless to connect. I had to manually give it an IP/Gateway/DNS for some reason.