Using an Airport-enabled Mac to get online with your DS.
Hi All. I just wrote up this guide. Thought it might be useful.

With the recent release of Mario Kart DS and Tony Hawk: American Sk8land, Nintendo has launched its new WiFi service. If you've got an OSX box with internet access (other than through the airport card) and an airport card to transmit from, you can get online in no time.
This step by step guide has enough detail to be followed by a networking novice.

Step 0: Make sure you're connected to the internet via, e.g., ethernet.

Step 1: Turn on internet sharing:

• Go to "System Preferences";
• Click on "Sharing";
• Click on the "Internet" tab
• Change the "Share your connection from:" selector to "Built-in Ethernet";
• Under "To computers using:", check the "Airport".
• Click "Airport options..."
  • Enter an easy name such as "nds";
  • Leave all the security options blank. (implementing security is an exercise left to the reader.)
  • Click OK.;
• Click "Start" in the internet sharing panel.

For sharing internet access with other computers, this is usually sufficient. however, the DS doesn't play well with the built-in DHCP server, so we have to manually configure the DS. To this we, must gather some info.


Step 2: Gather info.

• Open Terminal.app;
• Type ifconfig en1;
  • Look for: "inet xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx netmask" ...;
  • Take note the IP Address (the x's) associated with the first inet (Mine was 10.0.2.1, Yours may be different.);
• Type dig;
• Near the bottom of this output will be SERVER: followed by an IP Address. This will be the DNS server you will use for your DS.

Step 3: Configuring the DS.

• Edit your Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection Settings from within a compatible game;
• Select a connection to edit;
• Choose "Manual Setup";
• Enter the following parameters:
  • SSID: "nds" (or whatever you chose in step 1);
  • Auto-obtain IP Address: "No";
  • IP Address: Take the first IP Address you obtained earlier, and make the last digit bigger. (e.g., mine could be 10.0.2.4);
  • Subnet mask: "255.255.255.0"
  • Gateway: The first IP Address, unchanged. (e.g. 10.0.2.1)
  • Auto-obtain DNS: "No";
  • Primary DNS: your DNS SERVER from the earlier dig output.
• Test your connection at the top of the screen. You should have no problem connecting.

Step 4: Have fun!


This hint was tested in Panther and Tiger.
The following links were very helpful in compiling this guide:
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20041112101646643
http://forums.macosxhints.com/showthread.php?t=30830
http://www.macdevcenter.com/pub/a/mac/2003/11/11/panther_internet.html