Sharing a network connection

Note: This applies to multiple flavors of Ubuntu; Jaunty as well as Karmic. Also, it might be generic to all distributions based on Network Manager.

At the university we have a eduroam-based wireless network. It has not been very dependable yet; sometimes you can log on, sometimes you cannot. It doesn’t seem to be directly related to signal strength.

It seems that Ubuntu – which uses Network Manager – is quite well suited for this environment. Our setup is based on two laptops; one which can connect to eduroam and one which cannot. These are connected by a standard ethernet cable. The laptop connected to eduroam is then set up to share the connection.

The Guide

First open up the network connections dialog. Do this by right clicking on the Network Manager icon in the notification area and choose ‘Edit Connections …’. In the ‘Wired’ tab, click ‘Add’ to add a new connection. Fill it out like so:

The important parts are

1. The method. This should be ‘Shared to other computers’.
2. The unmarking of ‘Connect automatically’. This will make sure other connections (like DHCP) take precedence.

After confirming this dialog (by clicking ‘Apply …’) the list of network connections should look like this:

Thats it! When you whish to share a wireless connection, click on the network manager icon in the notification area and choose ‘Share Connection’ under ‘Wired networks’.

Tags: eduroam, network connection, network manager, share, shared connection, ubuntu, wireless