Turn a wifi connection into the network's internet gateway?

[@craker]

Orange, my ISP, have really messed up and I've now gone for 6 weeks without a broadband service. Bunch of monkeys.

Anyway, a neighbour is letting us share their broadband by way of a wifi connection (on a very long USB lead into the front garden...) but this only works on one PC.

The PC is right next to the Orange router (Brightbox) but so far I've failed to do anything like bridge the connections from wifi to ethernet to the router and beyond. Should I persevere with this? I don't understand how this would work in terms of DHCP and routing IP traffic.

I'm prepared to buy new kit if necessary (but not much). Most of my equipment is wifi enabled but due to the signal strength of my neighbour's wifi you have to be on the front lawn to get a signal.

So
Configure the PC / router properly to act as a broadband hub? (Windows 7 & Brightbox router)
Buy a wifi repeater and put it in the garden?
Something else?

 

[RealBeast]

You may not want to bridge the adapters because that can open your network to your neighbor, unless you use some additional security.

To use ICS, connect the router to the computer that gets the wireless, set all computers to automatically obtain an IP address (no static addresses) and turn off DHCP in the router (it will just be a switch and WAP). Then in the computer with the wireless connection go into the network control panel, change adapter settings, wireless card (right click) properties, check the ICS box (Allow other network users to connect through this computer’s Internet connection) to share the Internet between adapters. Only do that in the wireless adapter.

The computer that creates the ICS connection must remain on and restarting it will turn off ICS so you will have to reenable it.

Bridging the adapters may be a more stable solution if you enable some security, and your bridge computer must still remain on to use, but the bridge will automatically be available on reboot. You would likely want to set all your computers for a public network (rather than home) for the security. To bridge you can leave the router DHCP on, leave ICS off and just highlight both adapters (wired and wireless) in the change adapter settings of the network control panel, right click and choose bridge connection. Also, use a different network on your router from what your neighbor uses, so if he is 192.168.1.1 you could use 192.168.2.1 for your router gateway address.

 

[@craker]

Thanks for the reply - I've managed to share the wifi internet connection with the router and finally it seems stable. It has been really flaky for no reason I understand - the host machine not being able to do DNS, the rest of the network having agonisingly slow connections. There's still a wifi dongle in my garden but it'll do until we sort the broadband out..

Thanks.

 

[RealBeast]

I would just use 8.8.8.8 for all machines for DNS if that's an issue.