Basic Networking for At-Home Job

T

TexasHays

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Dec 21, 2010
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Hey guys, I'm starting up a work-from-home position and had a quick question. My home office is about 50 feet from my router, which is fine now because I use wi-fi. However, the mac (I know) they are providing me will have its wi-fi abilities disabled because they want me to use ethernet.

I, however, do not want to mess around with running cable through my attic so I am thinking of getting a short crossover cable and sharing my PC's wifi internet connection with my Mac.
Do you think that will work or is that something they can easily detect?

I'm looking for any solution that requires less work than me actually running cable through my attic, though it's looking like I might have to do that.

Thanks for the help!
 
Just run wires, it'll be the best bet. If your router is in the room next to the computer, you can always just run the cable along the baseboard, and poke a small hole through the wall to get the cable between rooms.
 
Bobacus is right. Running the wire will be easier. Also, using Internet Connection Sharing over wifi defeats the reason your company is asking you to not use wireless in the first place. Consider ethernet over powerline if you absolutely cannot run wires and can't use wifi.
 
Run the cable. If some bit of information was stolen that they can prove happened due to your wireless you would be screwed. There is a reason they want you to use a wired connection.
 
Sheesh... the guy says he DOES NOT want to run cable....quit trying to make him do it. Try to find him the solution he asked for.

OP I would suggest running ethernet through your electrical wiring. There's some good solutions out there.

Use something like this
 
I would look into running the cable, especially if the basement is not done. If the basement is done and you can't then just make sure your wireless is well encrypted. If you really want to be safe look into something directional.
 
the OP never said this was for security or gave any reason for not using wireless. for all we know the company just doesnt want to waste money paying their helpdesk people to fix poorly setup home wireless networks so they are just requiring ethernet.

in which case- bridge mode will work fine between your PC and the Mac. or you can buy a cheap wireless bridge and plug the mac into that.
 
Dark Prodigy said:
Sheesh... the guy says he DOES NOT want to run cable....quit trying to make him do it. Try to find him the solution he asked for.
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ghost6303 said:
the OP never said this was for security or gave any reason for not using wireless. for all we know the company just doesnt want to waste money paying their helpdesk people to fix poorly setup home wireless networks so they are just requiring ethernet.
Click to expand...

Maybe, but the vast majority of my career as a network administrator is spent giving users what they need and not what they want. I'm not going to advise a user how to work around the restrictions put in place by his companies tech's. Fact is, a short 50' cable run will be easier and more reliable than sharing an internet connection via his PC.
 
If you don't want to poke a hole in your wall, go for the powerline but make sure to get reimbursed for it. If your company disabled wifi and is requesting a wired connection and you are in no position to change that, just do what they are asking.
 
Shadowspawn said:
Maybe, but the vast majority of my career as a network administrator is spent giving users what they need and not what they want. I'm not going to advise a user how to work around the restrictions put in place by his companies tech's.
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im not working for his company, and the OP is some dude asking a question on the internet. i just answer the question as it was asked instead of trying to guess at the motives behind the question.

if someone asks the best way to erase a hard drive, i would just reply "a sledge hammer". i wouldnt go into acusing the person of trying to hide child porn or offshore tax documents and tell him its illegal to destroy evidence. not my business to make assumptions about others.

i was just annoyed to see in post #1 he said he specifically didnt want to run a cable, and then in posts #2 thru #6 saying "just run a cable". those are obviously not helpful answers....
 
We can also tell him to spend a god awful unnecessary amount of money, tell him to buy unneeded, unsupported, and probably insecure options too. But the fact remains wired ethernet is safe, secure, and easy to manage. So what if you have a cable running 50ft.

You must be married, cause nobody but a housewife with nothing to do but bitch and complain will care about a ethernet cable run :D

Seriously, its cheap, its sensible, its safe, Spike Lee wasn't bullshittin man, JUST DO IT
 
Guess he could buy a wireless router and turn it into a bridge and plug the mac into the router... I work for a cable company and I run cable and lines all day... but another vote for running the cat5...so much better in the long run
 
ghost6303 said:
im not working for his company, and the OP is some dude asking a question on the internet. i just answer the question as it was asked instead of trying to guess at the motives behind the question.

if someone asks the best way to erase a hard drive, i would just reply "a sledge hammer". i wouldnt go into acusing the person of trying to hide child porn or offshore tax documents and tell him its illegal to destroy evidence. not my business to make assumptions about others.

i was just annoyed to see in post #1 he said he specifically didnt want to run a cable, and then in posts #2 thru #6 saying "just run a cable". those are obviously not helpful answers....
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Your hard drive example does not equal how he asked the question.

If he had just asked how to share his PC's wireless connection so that his Mac could use it then the answers would have been different. But he stated that the company was disabling the wireless in the Mac "because they want me to use ethernet". No assumptions being made here.

Our answers reflect the truth of the situation that his company does not want him to use wireless and that if he needs to ask the question about how to share his PC's wireless it will just be easier and more reliable to run the cable.

Now I am done arguing on the internet.
 
TexasHays said:
<snip>...the mac (I know) they are providing me will have its wi-fi abilities disabled because they want me to use ethernet.

I, however, do not want to mess around with running cable through my attic so I am thinking of getting a short crossover cable and sharing my PC's wifi internet connection with my Mac.
Do you think that will work or is that something they can easily detect?

I'm looking for any solution that requires less work than me actually running cable through my attic, though it's looking like I might have to do that.

Thanks for the help!
Click to expand...

There's a good chance they disabled wireless for many reasons... it could be as was touched on earlier in the thread that they just don't have the man power to deal with helping remote workers setup/troubleshoot the wireless at home connections. But chances are much higher that they don't want you using wireless simply because some wireless networks are very unsecure. That said I hope that you're using WPA2 for wireless encryption along with a 64-128bit password on your main box if you intend on bypassing what your job disabled for a reason...

I like many of the others here think that the best/safest solution would be to simply run some cat5 or cat6 through your attic. I'd suggest running not just one, but 2 cat5e or cat6 runs between your router and your office. That way if one wire goes out you have a fallback. The other cool side to this is you'll be able to network both your main computer and your work computer securely.
Some quick tips on running the wire, don't run the cat5/6 parallel "=" to electrical wireing. Going over electrical wireing like "+" is ok though. Also be sure to get cable that's in-wall fire rated.

Monoprice has the best prices on this kinda stuff.
http://www.monoprice.com/products/department.asp?c_id=105
 
I find it's easier to go through the basement, but that depends on the house and if it's an open ceiling. The trick with the attic is it's hard to know where to drill down so you end up in the wall. But if the attic is the only way, now is the time to do it, not in summer when it's going to be like +30 up there. I would even run like 4 if it's a hard to access area. only need to do it once. May want to have a phone jack there at some point too. I usually run one phone and 3 ethernet at once all using cat6. Enables me to switch the phone out for another cat6 jack.

And I second monoprice, even if you're not in the states by the time you pay the border fees, shipping, exchange rate, it's still cheaper. When I bought my reel of cat6 and other items I paid like 100 bucks of shipping and 100 bucks of border fees, but it still ended up cheaper then places like tigerdirect and ++++.
 
Geesh, I didnt mean to start any kind of argument here. Thanks for the help everyone.

I have no basement, down in Texas and the earth in most places is too hard to bother building a basement.
It was security but I was speaking with a guy from the Help Desk and its a requirement simply because most lay people tend to leave their wi-fi connections unencrypted and its never really enforced.

I have no problem running the cable, I wired every room in my last house for ethernet but wanted to avoid that hassle this time.
I'm just going to run the cable anyway though and be done with it, trying to avoid it is probably more hassle than its worth.
 
I do get a chuckle around here when someone asks a question and they state they dont want to do something they all the answers say "do it anyway"

Cleary the BEST options based off what the OP wants is this:

1. power line dapter
2. a wireless bridge
3. option c
4. option d
5. option e
....
20. run the wire

But running the wire is..... DOESNT MATTER
But as a big bad technical professional i think.... DOESNT MATTER
Yea but he would get XXX if he runs the...... DOESNT MATTER
stop interrupting me cuz if he ran.... DOESNT F'N MATTER HE DOESNT WANT TO RUN A WIRE IN HIS HOUSE!
 
Get 2 DDWRT routers, set one up as a repeater/bridge and plug it into your mac.

Look into MOCA (run internet over coax line).
http://www.amazon.com/Actiontec-Eth...HMZY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1299799128&sr=8-1

Run a wire.

I heard internet via power jacks isn't so great sometimes.

I'm trying to figure this out for myself right now too, cause I don't want to run a wire, ALL the way around the house. It would be much easier to run one through the jack n jill bathroom, but it has a tile floor. Trying to figure out my living room situation too, because to run a wire I have to cross the hallway.
 
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