Sharing a network connection from your Mac to your iOS devices

  1. Reveal Support
  2. Troubleshooting

If you're having troubles connecting to Reveal over your network, setting up an ad-hoc Wi-Fi network on your Mac can be a great way to verify that the integration of Reveal into your app is working correctly.

It's also useful if you only have access to an ethernet connection, such as in hotel rooms.

Setup Internet Sharing on your Mac

  1. To begin, open "System Preferences" and navigate to "Sharing".
  2. Once there, click on the "Internet Sharing" service located in the pane on the left-hand side of the window.
  3. In the resulting pane, choose your Mac's connection method from the "Share your connection from:" drop-down menu. If you're using something other than Ethernet (i.e. a Bluetooth modem, USB modem, etc.), be sure to select it from the list. We'll share our connection using Ethernet for this example.
  4. Next, in the "To computers using:" list, check the box labeled "Wi-Fi".
  5. Once you select "Wi-Fi", you should notice a button labeled "WiFi Options..." displayed - you can use this to set advanced relating to your ad-hoc Wi-Fi connection such as the name, channel and security.

  6. Click the checkbox next to "Internet Sharing" in the left-hand pane to have your Mac enable the wireless settings and begin sharing your connection over a wireless ad-hoc network.

    When enabling Internet Sharing, you may get a warning that says, "If your computer is connected to a network, turning on Internet sharing may affect the network settings of other computers and disrupt the network. Contact your system administrator before turning on Internet sharing." To continue, simply press the Start button.

    The menu bar item for AirPort will change to an upward-facing arrow, letting you know that your computer is now broadcasting a wireless signal. Clicking on this menubar item will detail the signal name and confirm that Internet Sharing is turned on.

Connecting Your iOS Devices

After you've followed the steps above, you should be able to connect your iOS devices to the new wireless network you created. This is done via the Settings app, under "Wi-Fi", and you connect just as you would to any other wireless network.

Once you're connected, your iOS device will route traffic through the Internet connection shared by your Mac. More importantly, your iOS devices (and thus, Reveal) will have an unimpeded way of communicating with your Mac!

If you're still having troubles connecting, please review our Bonjour debugging guide.