Networking question

Hello. I have a question about connecting my personal mac to a network at my work.

Let me preface this by saying that I know absolutely nothing about networking computers, so I apologize in advance if I am asking silly questions, leaving out important information, or clueless about the terminology.

Here is the basic scenario. On my desk at work is a PC computer. It has an Ethernet cable that plugs into it. That Ethernet cable allows my desktop PC to connect to (a) the internet, (b) several drives at my work (for example, on my PC one such drive appears as (//admsrv2) (T: ), and (c) some printers in our building.

My goal is to plug that Ethernet cable into my mac and get access to the internet and those drives and printers through my mac (MacBook Air running OS X 10.9).

When I plug the Ethernet cable into my mac (into the Thunderbolt port via an adaptor) and then go to the Network window (from the System Preferences window), a green button (on the left of the Network window) tells me that Thunderbolt Ethernet is connected. In the main part of the Network window are some numbers that I think are IP addresses (they look like 173.20.48.272). They are listed as IP Address, Subnet mask, Router, DNS server. The numbers that follow DNS server are grayed out. There is also something that says Search Domains that is followed by our company’s…server name?...listed in grayed out letters.

So my Mac is connecting to the network via the ethernet cable, and yet I am not able to get access to the internet or to the servers or to the printers. What am I doing wrong?

Thanks in advance for any help.

Cloovis

When it comes to attaching personal devices to a work network, you should first and foremost consult with your IT department on how to proceed. Most companies have specific software requirements that you need to satisfy, additionally there might be proxies in play and other domain level settings that need to be appeased.

Plugging the Ethernet cable is the physical part of it, there are likely software hoops that you need to jump through to get fully connected.

So consult with your IT department. If they allow personal devices but aren't familiar with Macs (which might be the case), you can tell us what settings/configurations they want you to do on the Mac and we can help with that.

You also may want to get the ok, from your direct supervisor first.

Thank you, Ferrarr and Raz0rEdge. Let's say, hypothetically of course, that I didn't want to consult with IT. Is there a way to extract the needed "proxies" and other such things from my PC and then manually enter them into the Mac's network settings?


Cloovis

Cloovis said:

Thank you, Ferrarr and Raz0rEdge. Let's say, hypothetically of course, that I didn't want to consult with IT. Is there a way to extract the needed "proxies" and other such things from my PC and then manually enter them into the Mac's network settings?


Cloovis

Click to expand...

If things just worked with a Ethernet cable, you'd already be in business. Since that isn't enough, there are lockdowns in place that require IT help. Most companies are weary of allowing personal devices on work networks for various reasons and realize that circumventing those procedures can be grounds for dismissal. So tread lightly and get appropriate permission/support from your company.

We are done here.