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UW Technology Wireless Logo Macintosh sample configuration for wireless networking

Apple Macintosh, OS9.x With Apple AirPort Card

There are two areas you need to configure on your Macintosh:

To configure your Mac to use the AirPort card and TCP/IP with DHCP:

  1. From the Apple logo menu (top left of the screen) select Control Panels and then open the TCP/IP control panel.
  2. From the File menu select Configurations.
  3. If you previously installed the UW Internet Connectivity Kit (UWICK), you should see an item for Enet DHCP. Click on it once to select it.

    Or,

    If you do not see an item for Enet DHCP, click Default to select "Default" instead.

  4. Click Duplicate. Type UW Wireless as the name for your duplicate configuration, then double-click UW Wireless from the list to make it active. If you copied the UWICK provided configuration then many of the items below will already be configured correctly, but you should check them anyway.
  5. From the Edit menu, select User Mode. Click Basic and then click OK.
  6. In the box next to Connect via, click and hold the arrow to reveal options. Select AirPort.
  7. In the box next to Configure, click and hold the arrow to reveal options. Select Using DHCP Server.
  8. The IP address, subnet mask, router address, and name server address will be filled in by the DHCP server and cannot be entered on this form.
  9. In the box under Search domains, type:
    u.washington.edu
    cac.washington.edu
    washington.edu
  10. Now the TCP/IP Control Panel should look similar to the picture below:

    TCP/IP (AIRPORT DHCP) Box

  11. Close the TCP/IP control panel and save if prompted to do so.

To configure your AirPort card to attach to the UW network:

  1. From the Apple logo menu (top left of the screen) select AirPort.
  2. If the Status area reads "University of Washington" and the signal level bar shows a strong signal, then everything is probably already set up correctly and working fine, however, you may want to check the following anyway.
  3. If the triangle next to Settings points to the right, then click on it (which will make it point down) to reveal settings details.
  4. In the Airport block the AirPort card can be turned on or off, if the button reads "Turn Airport On" then click on it to turn the card on, the button will then change to read "Turn Airport Off".
  5. In the Airport Network block the network name should read "University of Washington" (since that is likely the only available network), if not, click and hold on the up/down arrows to the right of that item to reveal a list, select University of Washington from the list.
  6. Now the TCP/IP Control Panel should look similar to the picture below:

    TCP/IP (AIRPORT ON) Box

  7. Close the AirPort utility.

You should now be able to access the Internet, and run "network" applications (e.g, BetterTelnet, your Web browser) via the UW Wireless network.

NOTE: You can also perform these actions from the AirPort "control strip" module, if you have the control strip open and the AirPort control installed (which it will be by default).

Switching the network connection between the UW Wireless network and other networks is not automatic, but, by configuring as described above it is quite easy.

To switch to the UW Wireless network after using other network connections (e.g., dial-in or wired Ethernet):

  1. Start (or re-start) your computer in an area where UW Wireless networking is available.
  2. From the Apple logo menu (top left of the screen) select Control Panels and then open the TCP/IP control panel.
  3. From the File menu select Configurations.
  4. Double-click UW Wireless from the list to make it active
  5. Close the TCP/IP control panel and save if prompted to do so.

If you haven't changed the AirPort settings since configuring as described above, you should now have a working wireless connection to the Internet. If you have adjusted those settings (e.g., turned off the AirPort card to conserve power) then again perform the steps above to configure your AirPort card to attach to the UW network.

To switch to another network (e.g., dial-in or wired Ethernet) after using the UW Wireless network: