How to set up my laptop as some sort of access point between two LANs

I have a laptop and a workstation at my office:

Laptop(WinXp) connected to Office LAN via wireless and project LAN via cable
Workstation(Vista) connected to project LAN via cable
Servers and network printers located in office LAN
Office LAN is managed. Requires user account to access servers.
Office LAN and Project LAN is in the same building.

I would like to find out if there is any way that I can access the servers and network printers on the Office LAN from my workstation in Project LAN using my laptop as some sort of access point. Is this possible?

My laptop is able to access resources on both LANs. Since the cable interface has a higher network metric, i just added the server addresses on the hosts file and add network device plus login to that network device using the user account.

please advise.

jjplaw

Posted 2009-09-04T07:14:04.017

Reputation: 21

1Do you have someone responsible for the network? Then ask them... what you want to do and are currently doing have serious security implications. – Oskar Duveborn – 2009-09-05T12:01:16.180

Thanks for your advice... well... it's a long story... To cut the story short, my dept head asked me to implement it without consulting with the IT dept. Anyway, could you explain more about the serious security implications? I would like to know about the risks involved. – jjplaw – 2009-09-11T08:50:32.517

Answers

Under WinXP: My Network Places (right-click properties). Select the two connections, right click, and select "Bridge Connections." Whammo, instant network bridge!

BobMcGee

Posted 2009-09-04T07:14:04.017

Reputation: 131

Wow. If this also works for VPN connections then, if I were a sysadmin, I guess I'd ban all Windows machines from the VPN? This is scarily simple. – Arjan – 2009-09-30T08:44:24.740

What you're talking about is turning your laptop into a router or a bridge, these instructions should help http://www.home-network-help.com/ip-forwarding.html

Col

Posted 2009-09-04T07:14:04.017

Reputation: 6 995

thanks for the link... will try it out and post results... thanks again.. – jjplaw – 2009-09-04T09:03:24.127

You need some form or router software. I personally use pfSense inside of virtual machine for that purpose. For basic routing, as little as 128 MB RAM is enough. Additional advantage is that if you ever decide on moving it to real hardware, any box will do.

Josip Medved

Posted 2009-09-04T07:14:04.017

Reputation: 8 582

thanks for the tip... Using a virtual machine to implement it is a good idea... will investigate more on pfSense. – jjplaw – 2009-09-04T08:58:10.547

Virtual AP is an easy-to-use software that turns any LAN-connected PC or laptop into a Wi-Fi wireless access point. Give it a try

user8228

Posted 2009-09-04T07:14:04.017

Reputation:

While not a particularly elegant solution, you can also use the Network Sharing feature in XP to allow NATted access to the Office LAN from the project LAN. All of the options are on the Advanced tab of the Wireless Network Connection Properties page (in your case, since you're trying to share the wireless network. You would need to either:

Set up the laptop as the DHCP server and gateway for the project LAN--thus all internet access would be through the office LAN via the laptop
Configure each workstation in the project LAN to access the Office LAN IPs through the laptop by way of a "route" command. This option will also require you to access office LAN resources by IP rather than by name. Route command will vary by operating system, but for windows based machines will be along the lines of: "route add [office LAN Network] MASK [office LAN Netmask] [project LAN IP of laptop]"

I don't believe option 2 will allow Netbios browsing--option 1 may not either.

Josh

Posted 2009-09-04T07:14:04.017

Reputation: 348