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I would like to have wireless access to a mac running OSX 10.8, but without internet sharing, i.e. only local access to the mac from a connected WiFi client. In principle I can share the Ethernet port over WiFi but if no cable is connected to the Ethernet port the WiFi access point goes down. Possibly one could share localhost (that is always up) but there is no such option in the graphical interface. Of course I could have a dummy switch or something else connected to the Ethernet port but this seems a bit odd. Any ideas how to solve this? Is it possible to set up internet sharing from the terminal in order to share 'localhost'?

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  • Welcome to Apple.StackExchange! What is "the box"? What is "the gui"? Could you upgrade your question a bit? This is vague.
    – Rob
    Commented Feb 3, 2014 at 16:01
  • After reading your comment on my answer now I'm confused. Is your network World -- Router/AP --- Mac? and want to connect the other host to the mac through the router/AP Or is it World ---- Mac, and you wnat to connect to the mac through the mac wifi.
    – Sherwood Botsford
    Commented Feb 6, 2014 at 13:58

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
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Try this:

On the mac: Right click the wi-fi icon

Click Create network. By default it will use the name you have given your mac as the network name.

On the other host, it should see the new network. Join it.

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  • Thanks, didn't think of this. Anyway would be nice to be able to use the conventional access point mode instead of ad-hoc mode since it offers better performance. Think ad-hoc mode is still limited to 11 Mbit/s.
    – user69394
    Commented Feb 6, 2014 at 10:48
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    PC or Android cannot connect such network :/
    – Luckylooke
    Commented Jun 7, 2016 at 18:43
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You want to be able to remotely access a Mac via WiFi, but NOT have that computer be connected to an external network? I'm not sure whether you can do that with the built-in Internet Sharing, because as you noticed it will shut off sharing if there is no connection available to share. However, you ought to be able to solve this with a cheap wireless router. Even with no WAN connection the router should hand out addresses, so you can connect to the Mac by assigned IP.

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