Forward laptop's WiFi into PC Ethernet

Question

I need to do a few things that can only be done on my computer, but my home internet is broken this week. The only way to get internet is on my phone. I turn on tethering and my phone acts like a WiFi router which allows my laptop to access the internet, but I need my Desktop to have internet because of the programs requirements to turn on. To reword, my phone has 3G and acts like a WiFi hotspot which my laptop receives because it has a WiFi card, but it also has an Ethernet port. I need to use my cable and connect the Ethernet port so that my laptop acts like a router and my PC can have access to internet but I don't know how to configure the laptop to do that. Both my computer and laptop have 14.04. What program allows me to do this Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

Yes, this should be easily doable.

It's ridiculously easy. Simply right click on your network manager and choose "Edit Connections". Then in the "Wired" tab, you can either use your existing wired connection, (or create a new one by hitting the "Add" button, name your new connection "Shared Network Port" or something similar), pop into its IPv4 tab and in "Method", choose "Shared to other computers". Apply everything and close the network manager windows.

Now when you need to plug something into that ethernet port, you can share your WIFI internet conenction simply by clicking on network manager and choosing the "Shared Network Port" entry there.

If you want this to be a constantly used ethernet connection used for sharing and nothing else, feel free to edit "Auto Eth0" instead of creating a new entry like I describe above. Creating a new entry gives you some flexibility to choose however.

Note that this uses a bit of NAT (network address translation) magic to work properly, so the Xbox360 (or whatever you plug into your wired port) will get a funky IP address.

From memory, it will only be able to see the internet too - I don't think you can see the host computer, the one with the internet connection. You can set that up, but it requires a bit of messing about with DHCP servers, I believe. I didn't need it, so I didn't go down that road. Source: Share Wireless connection with Wired Ethernet Port