Sharing a VPN connection using Internet Sharing (via Airport)

Internet Sharing from my MacBook Pro (10.6.6) to other WiFi devices works fine.

But the moment I turn on the VPN connection (PPTP) on the Mac (which I would also like to share), the other devices cannot access anything anymore (everything works fine on the Mac itself).

What do I do?

Solution 1:

OS-X treats a VPN connection as a totally separate connection from the device (airport, ethernet) it is transported on. So when you turned on your VPN, your airport or ethernet connection was no longer active.

If you want to share the VPN connection, you have to set up sharing for it the same way you did for your primary, non-VPN connection. They behave totally separately, for sharing purposes.

Solution 2:

Linking to rodrigo.sharpcube.com is appalling. I lost hours of my life following it. It's a totally unnecessary wild goose chase into IPFW. Please avoid. The first answer from JRobert is accurate. Here is a more detailed step by step with images.

Solution 3:

I'd suggest you follow the excellent blogpost by Rodrigo at http://rodrigo.sharpcube.com/2010/06/20/using-and-sharing-a-vpn-connection-on-your-mac/

Worked for me.