0

I have been at this for two days now. What I'm trying to do is setup netbook A as an access point with HTTP server for clients ( Netbooks B C and D)

Netbook A (host netbook) is running Windows 8 64bit running WAMP Netbook B C and D (clients) are a mix of windows 7 and 8

So basically, I have a browser-based application hosted on Netbook A, which needs to be accessed by Netbook B C D via their browsers.

While this is easily done with a wifi accesspoint/router in the middle, I need to get rid of that middleware and just have the client netbooks connect directly to the host netbook.

I have played around with different applications that turn netbook A into a router, and while it was easy to set up the netbook as a router and have the other netbooks connect to it, I have several problems:

  1. The netbooks aren't obtaining any IP address from the host netbook. I figured maybe because there is no DHCP server running on the netbook A. So is there a way to enable DHCP on the host netbook?

For now I have the IP address manually across all netbooks. I have set the host netbook to have IP address 192.168.1.10 and the rest to be .11, .12 etc.

  1. Even with manually setting the IP addresses, the clients can't access the HTTPserver from their browsers. I also tried to ping the host netbookbut I only get RTO/timeout.

  2. Lastly, like a true access point, I would need the host netbook to start its hotspot broadcast automatically upon start up.

Can these things be done?

I would love to get some help with this because I am stuck.

Thank you guys

1 Answer 1

1

You'll want to install a DHCP and DNS server. Since you're on Windows, you'll need to look for an open source solution for both. Only Windows Server (e.g. 2003, 2008, Server 10) has built-in software for DHCP and DNS.

Install the DHCP server and DNS server, and set up each. The computer itself should have a static IP assigned to operate properly, and should be a 192.168.x.x or 10.x.x.x address (private networks). The DNS server for the computer's network connection should be set to itself (127.0.0.1). The DHCP server should have an IP address range to assign that is in the same range as the computer's static IP address (192.168.x.x or 10.x.x.x). The DNS server should have Netbook A as a host, and a reverse DNS entry.

The network adapter must be in ad hoc mode. Any firewall or antivirus installed should have a configuration that allows for ICMP, DNS, DHCP, and HTTP/HTTPS. You'll need to look at the manual for this. The web server itself should be configured to use the hostname and IP address that's been assigned from the previous paragraph.

After all of this software is in place and configured correctly, Netbook A should resume that configuration each time it is restarted without any further intervention. Just make sure that the DNS and DHCP servers are set up to run as services automatically. This is the default for most software, but again, check the manual.


Here's the configuration I used:

ISC BIND 9 for DNS. (Note: still working on this, but not really necessary unless you want host names; you could always settle for using HOSTS file).

DHCPServer.DE for DHCP. (Needs some configuration, but worked like a charm!)

Configuring the adapter:

netsh wlan set hostednetwork mode=allow ssid=<your-ssid> key=<your-key>

(Network and Sharing Center > Virtual Adapter > Specify IP address)

netsh wlan start hostednetwork

Note that you can be connected to the internet and your ad hoc network at the same time. Make sure you use distinct subnets for each network to avoid silly problems.

Overall, it took me less than an hour to get mostly everything working. Notably, I was able to browse the dhcp's server from my phone by connecting to the address I specified (10.1.0.1).

6
  • Will edit this answer. Was in mobile and thought I was commenting.
    – phyrfox
    Apr 8, 2015 at 1:49
  • thank you for the DHCP suggestion, i will look into that soon , if i get the other parts to work specifically being able to connect the clients to the host netbook. I'm pretty sure firewall is not an issue (it's off) and i have tested connectivity between the devices using a router in the middle. ... soo, are you saying that if CLIENT NETBOOK connects to Hotspot of Host NETBOOK and both are on same ip subnets it should connect? and there's nothing else i need to do? if so atleast i know something's wrong...
    – BrownChiLD
    Apr 8, 2015 at 2:45
  • Yes, that's correct. Make sure you don't have a 169.254.x.x address; this means you've got an automatically assigned IP because no DHCP was available and no explicit IP was assigned. I might take a few moments and see if I can't replicate this here at home.
    – phyrfox
    Apr 8, 2015 at 2:51
  • hmm, ok, thanks for that confirmation. It's strange tho coz i have set the IP address manually on the host netbook (since i dont have local dhcp yet) and ipconfig reveals that the IP is set properly. I did the same w/ the clients. 192.168.1.11(client) pings 192.168.1.10 (host) = timed out ... so i dont know how else to correct this. Ill try and start from scratch again.
    – BrownChiLD
    Apr 8, 2015 at 2:57
  • @BrownChiLD Go, I got it to work fairly well. BIND still giving me problems, but that's coming from a background of only Microsoft DNS. DHCPServer.DE worked with just about one or two lines of configuration code changes. I also looked at Maradns, but I decided to learn the most popular route, bind. I feel this was overly complicated compared to, say, Linux, but I think everything you need is here.
    – phyrfox
    Apr 8, 2015 at 4:39

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .