Internet Sharing, PC > 360

Daemonion

Dudes, it's question time.


My PC is connected to the internet via a shitty wireless USB dongle. I do not have a hard line available for my new 360, and refuse to purchase a $100 wireless router for it.

My motherboard has TWO ethernet ports. Is there any way I can enable internet sharing? In other words, can I plug my 360 (via an ethernet cable) to my PC to share my PC's wireless connection?


Any help is much appreciated.


[edit] Using XP.

Zxerol

Yeah.

1) Plug in your console to one of the Ethernet ports on you computer. You can use any ordinary Ethernet patch cable, crossover isn't strictly necessary since the 360's ports are auto-MDIX.

2) Go to Network Connections for Windows. Right-click on your USB's wireless connection and select Properties. Hit the Advanced tab and tick on "Allow other network users to connect through this computer's Internet connection" -- this enables Internet Connection Sharing. Below that, there's a combbox labeled "Home networking connection", select the correct Ethernet connection the 360 is connected to.

3) Press OK and wait a few. Turn on the 360, check its network settings to see if it can go out, praying optional.

Helpful hint: Check to make sure that your USB wifi connection isn't using an address in the 192.168.0.x subnet. Windows ICS likes using this block to share a network connection, and it's real boneheaded about it. Also, if you're running Service Pack 3, be aware that there is a bug introduced involving ICS. May want to install that hotfix before you start.

vonPoonBurGer

Network bridging might be simpler than ICS, particularly if the wireless dongle is connecting you to a wireless access point that is functioning as a router. ICS essentially turns your PC into a router itself, complete with network address translation and port forwarding. Going through your PC as one NAT router, and then the wireless AP as another NAT router may cause problems. If you bridge the connections, the 360 will be able to talk directly to the internet connection modem/router without going through NAT on the PC. As long as the PC is turned on, your 360 should be able to get a DHCP address directly from the wireless AP / router. To bridge the connections, simply go into Network Settings, select the wireless connection and the wired connection the XBox is plugged into, right click either one and select "Bridge Connections". Once that's done, the 360 should be able to get a DHCP address directly from the wireless AP router.

Daemonion

Oh, wow, that hotfix is exactly what I needed. Thank you so much!

Also, from my spelunking last night, it seems like networking bridging might be easier, now that I have the hotfix. Any pros/cons to using ICS vs a network bridge?


For internet sharing, should I set the 360, network card #1, and wireless connection all to auto IP or should I manually set them?

I was thinking of something like for manual:

Wireless:
IP: 192.168.1.100
Gateway: 192.168.1.1
Subnet: 255.255.255.0

PC Network Card > 360
IP:192.168.1.101
Gateway: (blank)
Subnet: 255.255.255.0

360:
IP: 192.168.1.102
Gateway: 192.168.1.101 (the PC wired network card)
Subnet: 255.255.255.0
Primary DNS: 192.168.1.101 (the PC wired network card)
Secondary DNS: 192.168.1.1 (the PC wireless gateway)

Seattle Thread

Auto should work fine

Daemonion

Thanks guys, got it working!

vonPoonBurGer

Daemonion wrote: »

Any pros/cons to using ICS vs a network bridge?

Well, as I was saying, with ICS you're turning your PC into a router. If you've got another router past that (the wireless AP), it might cause some NAT issues for devices connecting through the PC. That's only likely to happen if you need to do port forwarding for something using the PC as an internet gateway. You'd have to set up port forwarding twice, once on the wireless AP and once on the PC. Since the 360 usually doesn't require any manual port forwarding, I'd say you're in good shape either way. If you've already got it working with ICS, stick with that. Ain't broke, don't fix it!

ImDrawingABlank

I'm working on setting up something very similiar to the OP here so Im hijacking this thread.

I've got an ethernet cable run through the walls from the room the router is in to the room the pc is in. I don't want to rip the walls open to run a second cable, and I don't want to buy a second router.

The PC has 2 ethernet ports, one on the mobo and one PCI based NIC. The internet goes into the mobo port. With the PCI card sharing to the Xbox. Following the steps above, my ICS screen does not have the dropdown box that lets me choose a network. Auto settings is not working. The internet on the PC works great still, but it refuses to share to the xbox.

I have opened 2 extra slots on the routers DHCP server, but I'm not sure if the cards require them. How do I manually set this up? Auto settings on the PCI card lead to it being unable to aquire network address, manually setting to "172.16.0.139" says connected and sharing, but the xbox is still unable to connect.

More info to help the helping:
Router internal address: 172.16.0.1
DHCP Range: 172.16.0.135-172.16.0.141 (x.x.x.139 and x.x.x.141 available for setting up this share)
PC-router connection: 172.16.0.137
PCI card: ???
xbox: ???

DNS server primary: 64.59.144.16
DNS server secondary: 64.59.144.17

Daemonion

What I did was bridge the networks.

Go to your network connections. I have two ethernet ports in the mobo, so my connections are called Local Area Connection and Local Area Connection 2.

Local Area is where my PC gets it's internet, and the Local Area 2 is where I plugged in my 360.

I then right clicked each Local Area Network, and selected "Add to Bridge" from the menu. I then made sure the bridge was enabled by right clicking it.

If you are using XP and SP3, I would go ahead and download the hotfix mentioned earlier in this thread.


But yea, good choice - ICS/Networking Bridging is totally the way to go. Just be advised that if you use Zune software (like me), the 360 can't accept internet and media through the cable at the same time.

ImDrawingABlank

Bridging the connection gets me past the IP/DNS errors, now its stuck on MTU.

Daemonion

Mine stuck on MTU for a minute or so before going through.

Are you connections set to "auto" for everything? Is your 360?


Make sure to check you have auto ip/dns, etc. etc. enabled for:

network bridge
LAN
LAN 2
360

ImDrawingABlank

Last tests were still coming up as stalling on the MTU (fails after ~30 seconds), I was forced to reformat to Vista yesterday and a quick look online didn't come up with any drivers for the PCI network card. Could the failure be because of its lower speed? It is a 10/100 card, I am trying to avoid having to purchase anything as I am on a strong budget right now.