...and just how long do you think it will take the network to notice 2 machines with the same MAC address..??? Red flag to a bull! At my university, this would have you shut out of the network permanently.

A cheap router should allow you to mask it's MAC address and enter that of your "allowed" Mac. Then you can hook up as many machines as you have ports on the router.

You might invest in a cable/DSL router and connect both of the computers through that.
All of them now have the ability to set the MAC address of the internet side to a selected value -- so the router will always appear to the network as your Mac.

[obwarning]
Do check your terms of service before doing this, of course.
[/obwarning]

[idiot]
Duh. Didn't see yellow's post.
[/idiot]

Breen

Hi yellow,

That sounds like a good idea, what would be a good router that is relatively inexpensive for my purposes? Just a number of further questions though:
1) The router would have its own MAC address right and this is the one I have to update with the network admin yeah?
2) Would the router allow me to plug in BOTH machines at the same time? Just wondering but it'd be cool if that's the case.
3) Are there different types of routers with specs I should look out for? I ask because I've never done stuff like this before, and I certainly dont wish to be caught out without any connection at all.

As an aside though, I note a certain reluctance in the thread to tell how to actually change the MAC address - does it make your system unstable or are there other reasons? Sorry if its a dumb question, but honestly I'd rather just change the MAC address if its possible than to spend extra money getting stuff.

Thanks everyone however for chipping in, I'll give it a thought and see if I can get my hands on a cheap router. appreciate it :)

cheers

Rubike, my suggestion was for PRØBE. Of course it would not work in your case. For you any router will do. in case your laptops have wirelesss you can go wireless. An other possibility if both machines are running panther is to connect them using tcp/ip over firewire. connecting machine (one) to the uneversity network and sharing the connection with machine (two) over the firewire, machine (two) uses machine (one) as a bridge. That means that machine (one) should be always up an running when (two) wants to go online, so a router will work much better.

Salut,
Lluis

see http://www.macosxhints.com/article.p...31102075234315

oops lluis, sorry about the confusion - its about that time of the day :P
what you suggested though was interesting, even if it requires both machines to be on simultaneously: do you think you could go into a little detail as to exactly where i can do this (here i'm crossing my fingers that no terminal is involved lol) ~ merci!

thanks for the link rg - should have searched more carefully for it, appreciate it :)

are both machines running panther?

hi lluis,

yes both pbooks are running panther 10.3.3 :)

Haven't done it myself... But I guess it should work this way:

The machine connected to the campus will be (one) and the other will be (two).

Machine (one) configuration
- Go to System Preferences > Network (Maybe you want to create a new location for this)
- In Show select Network Port Configurations
- You'll see listed Internal Modem and Build-in Ethernet. Click New... Name it Built-in FireWire (or whatever you like) and in Port select Build-in Firewire ok.
- On top of the window in Show you have listed Built-in FireWire select it.

(Here I'm asuming that you have correctly set up your ethernet to connect to the campus)

- in tcp/ip tab. Configure IpV4 (Manual), Ip Address (172.168.0.1), Subnet Mask (255.255.255.0), leave the rest empty.

- Click Apply Now

Go to System Preferences > Sharing
- Click the Internet Tab
- Select Share your connection from: (Built-in Ethernet)
- Mark To computers using (Built-in Firewire)
- Click Start

Machine (one) is ready. Of course you will have to tweak your firewall.

Machine (two) configuration:
- Go to System Preferences > Network (Maybe you want to create a new location for this)
- In Show select Network Port Configurations
- You'll see listed Internal Modem and Build-in Ethernet. Click New... Name it Built-in FireWire (or whatever you like) and in Port select Build-in Firewire ok.
- On top of the window in Show you have listed Built-in FireWire select it.
- in tcp/ip tab. Configure IpV4 (Manual), Ip Address (172.168.0.2), Subnet Mask (255.255.255.0), Router (172.168.0.1), leave the rest empty.

- Click Apply Now

Now you can use a Firewire cable to connect both computer and (i hope) be able to connect to the internet from both machines at the same time.

As I said before I haven't test this myself, so let me know if it works.

Salut,
Lluis

hi lluis,

thanks for the detailed explanation of the process - i'm afraid i can't try it out at the moment because i need to get my hands on a firewire cable first (doh), which was why i needed to try and change the MAC address first.

cheers

I don't believe that 2 devices can be on the same network, with the same MAC address, at the same time.

Most routers have the ability built-in to masquarade as another MAC address. So, you'd simply plug in the router configure it with your Mac's MAC address. The router will have multiple ports on it and will provide DHCP addresses to anything plugged into it. Basically you will be creating your own mini-LAN behind this router. All network traffic that comes from behind it will appear to be coming from the specified MAC address.

NetGear makes decent routers.
LinkSys makes decent routers.

Hi Yellow,

thanks for the suggestion, will check out those routers and see which alternative is best for me. appreciate everyone's input :)

rubikube:
having 2 machines on the network with the same MAC at the same time would be pointless. just set up internet sharing on one and then you can use both at the same time.

well, it's basically because 90% of the time you want to change your MAC you're trying to do something illegal ;)

++ christoph ++

still no joy...
 

Hi guys,

I tried lluis' suggestion and tried to hook up both laptops using the instructions he gave but the secondary laptop doesnt seem to be connected at all. what is interesting however it gets assigned an ip address but that's about it - i cant use safari nor software update.

Sorry for not replying earlier, had to borrow a firewire cable from a mate to try it out :)

cheers.

edit: i also tried following the link to change the MAC address myself on the secondary machine but that doesnt seem to work as well...for some reason the new MAC address doesnt show up in Network utility.

One thing no one asked... What does it tell you when you try to connect to the GR network ? Also, how (and what game) are you using to connect to GR ?

rubi:

Do both powerbooks have airport cards? if so connect one to the campus LAN (pbook1) and use the Internet Connection Sharing prefpane to set up net access for the other pbook (pbook2). The drawback for this method is that pbook1 ALWAYS needs to be there and on for pbook2 to have a net connection.

The other solution is to buy a router with NAT and DHCP. Plug that into the LAN then plug your computers into the router. the MAC of the router will be the one registered with our school (many even do mac cloning) , and you can connect as many computers behind ythe router as you need.

Maybe it's not just you but part of your ISPs range that's blocked because of someone doing something irregular.

It happened to me to be locked out of a forum because someone kept trolling from the same range as me.