In many occasions, I’ve been asked to compose an ad-hoc wireless network as a Host-computer and facilitate the Internet Connection through ICS. I thought it would be better off if I posted these information in my blog to be available for all people who are looking to share their internet connections and get some quick bucks! But before getting into this I would like to mention that this article isn’t a nitty-gritty config file that geeks would love to tweak.

The Scenario

Let’s assume that we have two laptops, the AHost “Adhoc Host” and the WClient “Wireless Client”. AHost is connected to the internet through whatever interface “LAN, 3G, Bluetooth, or even E1. Yah, I know, who needs to run ICS when he’s using E-Carrier!”.

On the AHost “Adhoc Host Device”:

1. Enable the Adhoc Wireless network.
2. Enter a Network Name “SSID” and Security Key “WEP encryption key”.
3. Enable ICS on the internet connection and disable all other ones “the dialog should prompt you for that”.

The WClient needs only to connect to the AHost Network…

AHost Part

Open the Control Panel » Network Connections » Wireless Network Connection properties » Advanced tab » Advanced button and choose Computer-to-Computer (ad hoc) networks only.

Now, you will be able to add the network SSID, let’s name the network “AHost Network” and enter all configurations as depicted in the figure below, the network key can be “12345″ for demonstration and cracking purposes “Come on, It’s WEP!”..

Click OK and open the properties dialog of the Internet Connection. In our case “Mobily”, tick the ICS (Internet Connection Sharing) checkbox “allow other network users to…”. Finally, allow the home networking connection on the Wireless Network Connection and click OK.

On the Wireless Client (WCLient)

That was from the host side, in the client side we need to connect to “AHost network” as following:

Enter the network security key that has been set earlier “12345″.

Now, try to connect to the internet and remember that you don’t need to add any proxy configuration.

rule of thumb

• The installed Wireless Network Adapters should have a built-in support for IEEE 802.11 Wireless LANs (WLANs).
• For any connection failure, check the Windows Firewall mode and exceptions.
• Check that the host and the clients have valid IP addresses.
• To create an Adhoc Wireless Network in Windows Vista, try the following:
  • Start » Control Panel » Network and Internet » Network and Sharing Center » Select Manage wireless networks » Add » Create an ad hoc network » Next » Enter a network name » Enter a security key » Save & Next
• As mentioned earlier, WEP has many security issues. I really recommend using WPA2/WPA.
• Sometimes you will need to configure the IP Address manually in case the internet connection doesn’t provide dynamic IP Addressing. Furthermore, you may need to set the proxy address in the same manner if you don’t have direct connection to the internet or if the proxy-settings aren’t auto-detected. This could also be applied to the DNS settings.