Mac OS X: Sharing the Internet with your Pi

Goal: Share your computer’s internet connection via Ethernet to your Pi

Difficulty: Intermediate

Required Hardware:

  • Your Pi
  • Mac OS X computer with Internet connection (wired or WiFi)
  • a free Ethernet connector on your computer (either built-in, or a USB Ethernet interface)

Required Software: Nothing extra.

Plan of action

You are going to set things up one of two ways, depending on how your computer normally has Internet connectivity:

Internet via WiFi

Your computer will get Internet via WiFi.
You’ll connect your computer’s ethernet port (built in, or a USB based one) to the Pi.

Internet via Ethernet

Your computer will get Internet via Ethernet.
You’ll plug in a USB ethernet interface to get a second port, and connect that to the Pi.

Turn on sharing

  • Ensure you have Internet connectivity
  • Connect the USB Ethernet adapter if you need one
  • Apple menu > System Preferences > Sharing icon
  • Select Internet Sharing (it won’t check, that’s okay)
  • “Share your computer from” should be showing your Internet connection
  • “To computer using”: check the Ehternet port you’ll use to connect to the Pi
  • Now check the box next to Internet Sharing
  • Click Start in the dialog that appears.

Connect the Pi

Use an ethernet cable to connect the Pi’s ethernet port to the free ethernet port on your computer.

Boot your Pi. Actually, if your Pi was already booted, it shouldn’t matter, it’ll notice the ethernet cable connecting and try to connect.

You should now be able to use ssh or VNC to connect to your Pi at the address raspberrypi.local.

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