To Start, I have a wireless router connected to the local broadband service. I can connect my MacBook Pro direct to the router or connect via Wifi (either way, the procedure is the same and seems to work).

So I want to use my MacBook Pro VPN connection for all my devices, including a Kindle Fire, iPhones, iPad. And the procedure below gets me there.

The only thing remaining is that I believe I do not have a fixed IP address to my internet provider, so my computer might be assigned another IP in the future, which would mean I would need to change my router (gateway) settings on my iOS or Kindle Fire. Maybe there is a post here that will solve this, but I am not aware of it yet. (Any guidance appreciated!).

I would also like to see if I can use the Internet Sharing Functions on the MacBook. This would allow me to just have the MacBook at a hotel or other location, and not have to go through their routing system. Still playing around with this.

Read on.
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*** THE GOAL IS TO CONNECT YOUR DEVICES THROUGH THE WIRELESS ROUTER and USE THE MacBook PRO VPN connection ***
Section 1 – Connect your Internet to the wireless network.
Section 2 – Share your VPN connection with other devices on Wireless Network.
Section 3 – Connect Your IOS DEVICES to VPN via Wireless Router.
Section 4 – Connect your Kindle Fire to VPN via Wireless Router.

*** SECTION 1 ***
SET YOUR COMPUTER UP TO USE A WIRELESS ROUTER IN YOUR APARTMENT ***
These steps are just typical stuff to get your wireless router working. If it is working already you can go to the next section
1) Get your internet connection in China at your apartment.
2) Get a wireless router in your apartment hooked up to the China internet service provider.
3) Get your VPN set up on the Macbook. I have had MANY problems with L2TP, PPTP , etc. connection. so just get tunnelblick on the MacBook Pro and get OpenVPN services (like strongvpn.com- 10 box a month). Their Open VPN service is rock solid, no guessing if I will connect.

*** SECTION 2 ***
SHARE YOUR VPN CONNECTION
1) Share Use Rodrigo’s process to Share your VPN as listed in this post (here is the link again http://goo.gl/rHi0n ) (I use Tunnelblick).
2) Find out your computer’s IP address- Go to your MacBook Pro’s System Preferences >> Network and highlight the “Connected” connection. Note the IP Address and write it own. This will serve as the Router Address you will want to point your wireless devices at to use the VPN connection. (I’ll call this “New Router IP Address”)

*** SECTION 3 ***
CONNECT YOUR IOS DEVICES TO VPN VIA THE WIRELESS ROUTER.
1) Do your typical connection to your wireless router (no VPN).
2) Go to Settings >> WiFi >> .. there you see the checkmark next to you wireless connection, go all the way to the right of that line and click the blue arrow.
3) DHCP will likely be selected. WRITE DOWN your IP address, Subnet Mask, Router, and DNS.
4) You now need to change the Router entry and the only way to do that is by making the entry STATIC. To do this, Press “Static” and enter the IP address, Subnet Mask…
– CHANGE the Router to “New Router IP Address”.
– CHANGE the DNS to 8.8.8.8 (this is Google’s DNS server and it seems to work just fine).
5) Back out of the menus.

Now when you connect the iPhone, you should be able to get to the internet but you will be routed through the VPN that was set up on the MacBook Pro.

*** SECTION 4 ***
CONNECT YOUR KINDLE FIRE TO THE VPN VIA THE WIRELESS ROUTER.
On the Kindle Fire… click the cog icon at the top to get to your settings.
You will see the Menu Selections like “Locked / Volume / Brightness / Wi-Fi / Sync / More…
- Select Wifi
- Scroll to the bottom of the listing of WiFi connections until you see Advanced Settings.
- Select Advanced Settings.
- Select IP Settings
- Type in the SAME information as your iOS device (list) but with some exceptions noted as follows:
… IP Address (Make it the same except just increment the number (e.g., if the iOS device IP Address was 192.168.1.101, then make the Kindle Fire 192.168.1.102 – basically you are “FIXING” the IP address for each of the devices. So every device you connect needs its own address.
… Router = the New Router IP Address (basically your computer’s IP address *** If your MacBook’s IP address changes, you will need to change this to the new MacBook IP address).
… Subnet Mask will be 255.255.255.0
… DNS 1 – this can be 8.8.8.8
… DNS 2 – I left this blank for now.
Once these settings are set, you should be able to connect to your wireless router and use the VPN connection.

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Here is the NATd error I am getting:

2/9/12 6:41:38 PM natd[16608] failed to write packet back (Can’t assign requested address)

Does it give you any clues?
Thanks Rodrigo.

Unfortunately, I don’t know what could be happening. I don’t have a PS3 so I don’t know how the PSN works (if it has any kind of special port or something).

The only idea that comes to mind is that you can try to set natd to log all traffic on your Mac (there should be a way) and then you can look at the log to see what’s happening in more detail.

This line do the trick:

sudo natd -interface tun0 -redirect_port udp 192.168.1.102:88 88 -redirect_port udp 192.168.1.102:3074 3074 -redirect_port tcp 192.168.1.102:3074 3074

My XBOX IP: 192.168.1.102

It solved my issue! Good job!

I believe you can redirect specific ports by using the option “-redirect_port” in natd. Instead of just running “natd -interface tun0? (first line of the script), you can do something like “natd -interface tun0 -redirect_port :88 88? for port 88.

I never tried that but I’m assuming it would work since I researched it in the past and this is the solution that I found.

You can find more info about natd here: http://freebsd.rogness.net/redirect.cgi?basic/nat.html