[OT] General network questions

[SkinBlues]

This problem doesn’t relate directly to Perl, but I’m not sure other communities to post this in. I am trying to learn and set up a network. My fundamental understanding of networks could be wrong. Basically I have a Windows PC, and a Mac laptop. I do not have an internet connection, but there should be a way to communicate from the two computers. I do not need them to communicate a lot of data, even just 1 bite at a time. I just want them to be able to connect. I do not have an internet connection, so can’t connect through there, and also can’t download any software. How can I set up a session and communicate (server-client). Can someone point me in the right direction. I am thinking there is a way to use the terminal on my Mac and cmd on the windows PC. I know the MAC address of the network card on the PC. I also know it is possible, because I can create a network on my Mac and it will show up as an option to connect to on my PC, though I’m unable to connect for some reason. Please point me in the right direction.

Again, simply, I want to connect my PC to my Mac using cmd and terminal. I do not have access to an internet connection

[1nickt]

Hi, I had a minute so I popped in to see the Abbot and he said "the first step in finding the right chapter and verse is to know which book to look in ...", then nodded back off to sleep.

But then, his spectacles slipped off his nose and jolted him awake. "How shall the Seeker know?" I quickly asked. "How to know which book?"

And as he dozed off once more, I could hear him, barely, mumbling "the title ... the title!"




Seriously ... there is a learning curve to locating information on the interwebs, but finding a networking forum or tutorial site cannot possibly be that hard!

[tobyink]

First things first… are you hoping to create a wired network between them or wireless? If wired, do they body have ethernet ports, and do you have a cat 5 cable you can use to connect them? If wireless, do they both have wireless networking cards in them?

[SkinBlues]

Wireless. They both have network cards in them

[tobyink]

Google for how to set up a wireless hotspot in whatever operating system you want to do that on. You should find YouTube videos, step by step tutorials, etc. (A lot of them will be based around the assumption that you have an Internet connection on one computer and want to allow others to connect to your computer over a local network so they can share that connection. But the hotspot set up should be pretty much the same even without that Internet connection.)

The other computer should just be able to see the first one's SSID and connect to it like any other wireless network.

Find out each computer's IP address either through their network settings GUI or using ipconfig/ifconfig at the command line. Then from one computer ping the other computer using the command-line ping utility. That should let you know that they can see each other on the network.

Both Windows and Mac support CIFS (a.k.a. SMB) file sharing, so you can use that to transfer files between them. For remote accessing one from the other, Windows supports RDP. Not sure if Mac has a pre-installed RDP client, but third-party ones are available for sure. Secure shell (SSH) is another great way of remote controlling one computer from another.