Feedback

type to search

Welcome

Wiki pages

Top 5 groups

Top 5 users

Recent badges

Network Debian-Mac OS X

Asked by , Edited by Fernando C. Estrada [ Admin ]

How can I create a little home-network between a MacBook Pro running Mac OS X 10.6 and a powerpc MacMini running Debian 5 Lenny using an ethernet cable?

NN comments
adam.trickett
-

Your question is a bit wide, do you want to know about hardware or software?

Once you have the two systems connected what do you want to do with them?

It would help us answer the question if you could provide more details.

or Cancel

4 answers

1

filippo

Sharing your internet connection (given from USB Huawei E1800) from your mac to a debian box with a ethernet cabe is very easy. (but a little off topic here).

Go to your mac. Plug usb key and connect to the internet. Open "System Preferences" (under apple menu) and go to Sharing. Click the Internet Sharing (in services list). (DO NOT FLAG IT FOR NOW!!) 
Chooose the internet source from the popup menù (USB Key usually appears as "Built-inethenet 1" or 2 or 3 -this may differ depending from your USB driver- and flag the "sharing to" "Bult-in Ethernet")
Now activate (FLAGGING IT) the internet sharing service (on the left of the window). 
DONE !
Just plug an ethernet cable (you do not need to have a up-link cable because your macbook ethernet card has Auto-MDIX features).
Go to your Debian box and set your ethernet card to get a dynamic ip address (also called dhcp client). 

If you want to share a folder on mac activate the Document Sharing (Always in  AppleMenù-> SystemPreferences->Sharing) and in the option menù activate FTP or SMB service. (Remember your user needs a password for the FTP/SMB sharing to work!!).

IF you wand to share a folder under debian install (and configure SAMBA or NETATALK - it needs tweaks to suppiort encypted passwords)
NN comments
or Cancel
0

claudio

First of all, thanks for having answered…you’re the first one in the 4 forums I asked!

My first purpose is to share the internet connection (the MacBook Pro is connected with an USB Huawei E1800 I can’t install on the powerpc distro) but I’d like to share a directory too.
NN comments
or Cancel
0

tincho

To share the internet connection, you’ll do it as with any other architecture. Either by using network manager GUI, or by writing a script. If you’re using a DSL, /etc/ppp/ip-up.d is a great choice, as it will be executed each time you connect to the internet. You will need -basically- a masquerading rule in iptables. You can also add a dhcp server for auto-configuration of IP addresses (dnsmasq is a simple tool to do that), but the IPs can also be statically configured by hand.

About the file sharing, I don’t know much about macs, sorry.

NN comments
or Cancel
0

whizse [ Editor ]

You want to share the internet connection on OS X with a Debian system? In that case you can pretty much use the same documentation that explains how to do this between OS X and a Windows system. 


Some quick googling here suggests that OS X will not do DHCP, so you need to know how to configure a static IP-address on the Debian side. Either with a GUI like network-manager or manually in /etc/network/interfaces

Keep in mind that you will need a crossover ethernet cable when you are connecting two systems directly:

As for sharing files, there are quite a few alternatives (might warrant a new question) but something like WebDAV is quite easy for just sharing a directory.
NN comments
wes.frazier
-

Many Macs ship with an Auto-MDIX feature, which means their Ethernet ports are capable of switching the pin connections automatically without need of a cross over cable. This means, depending on the model you may be able to do this with a regular Ethernet cable. The list of macs which do need a cross over cable are here: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2274?viewlocale=en_US

whizse
-
.frazier This I had no idea about, very interesting! :)

adam.trickett
-

@wes.frazier I’m told the hardware is nothing to do with Mac per se, and most modern 1Gig Ethernet cards in any PC will do this – though I can’t say I’ve done this myself to confirm the behaviour.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediumdependentinterface

or Cancel

Your answer

Answer by email
You need to join Debian to complete this action, click here to do so.