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• Launchpad entry: https://features.launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/+spec/share-this-network-connection

• Packages affected:

Summary

Allow users to share an internet connection by simply clicking a check box.

Rationale

Currently setting up Internet Connection Sharing can be quite troublesome for the average/normal user. All necessary software to enable this is already developed and deployed, thus implementation seems/is simple and would be a really great feature for future Ubuntu releases.

Use cases

• Phil and Winifred are both sitting on the sofa with their laptops. Phil has a wireless connection to the internet but Winifred only has an ethernet port and doesn't have a cable long enough to reach the router. They use a hub or a crossover cable to connect their 100BaseT ports together. Phil opens up the Network Manager and clicks "Share this connection" for his WiFi port. Winifred can now surf happily.

• John is living overseas and have just a cheap DSL modem without DHCP and without a hub. His desktop computer has two ethernet ports and friends from his native place sometimes go visit him with a Windows Laptop. He has a network cable to plug the laptop onto the desktop. He enables "Share this connection" and his friend can surf happily.

Scope

Design

For those with access to Apple machines running OSX: Go to System Preferences. Click on Sharing. Select the Internet tab and notice the one click sharing capability. Pretty nice. Windows also has this same "one click connection sharing", but it's a bit harder to find. We can do the same for Ubuntu.

Functionally, this would set up IP masquerading on the outside port and start a DHCP server on the inside network ports, if necessary.

Implementation

Maybe integrate Firestarter (http://www.fs-security.com/) with the Network Manager. It could also be done with a fairly simple iptables script.

Code

Data preservation and migration

Unresolved issues

BoF agenda and discussion

CategorySpec