Connect directly to another computer with a wireless connection

You can connect computers together by forming an ad-hoc wireless network. This is useful if one of the computers has a printer connected to it that you want to share, or if you want to transfer files between them.

With a normal (infrastructure) wireless network, you would connect both computers to a wireless network provided by wireless base station or router. If you don't have a base station, however, an ad-hoc network will still allow you to connect the computers to each other.

To set-up an ad-hoc wireless network:

  1. On one of the computers, click the network menu on the top panel and select Edit Connections.

  2. Go to the Wireless tab and click Add.

  3. In the window that appears, choose a name for the wireless network and then look at the Wireless tab.

  4. Choose an SSID. This is the name of the network that other people will be able to see.

  5. Change the Mode to Ad-hoc and leave the other settings at their defaults. Click Save.

  6. On the other computer, click the network indicator on the top bar and look for a network with the SSID you chose. It might take a minute or two to appear in the list.

    Click the name of your new ad-hoc network to connect to it. Once connected, you will be able to access network shares and so on, like you would if both computers were connected to a conventional wireless network.

These instructions will be different if one of the computers is not running Linux. You may find it easiest to set-up the ad-hoc network on the Linux computer and connect to it using the other computer.

Also note that some wireless network cards do not support ad-hoc networking, so you will not be able to use them to create an ad-hoc network.

Securing an ad-hoc network

Anyone in the area will be able to connect to your ad-hoc network, so it's not very secure. You can add a WEP/WPA password to the network to protect it from unauthorized access.

To add a password:

  1. Click the network menu on the top panel and click Edit Connections.

  2. Go to the Wireless tab, select the ad-hoc wireless network and click Edit.

  3. Go to the Wireless Security tab and change the Security from None.

  4. Choose your own password and then click Save. The other computers connected to the ad-hoc connection will have to reconnect and you'll have to enter the password on each of them.