Create a password protected computer-to-computer network

Question

Does anyone know if it's possible to create a password protected device-to-device (adhoc) network on OS X Yosemite?

Here's a link to the Apple documentation for OS X Mountain Lion however there does not seem to be a "Require Password checkbox" option in OS X Yosemite.

https://support.apple.com/kb/PH10666?locale=en_US

EDIT:

There does not seem to be a password option when going to "menu bar --> wifi icon --> 'Create Network…'".

Solution

I wouldn't be surprised if there's no way at all to enable that, and even if there was, it would only really give a false sense of security.

IBSS has never been that well-adopted of a feature, so Apple has never invested much effort in making it great. They left in the ability to enable WEP all this time, even though it provides a false sense of security since WEP was irreparably cracked more than a decade ago.

Implementing WPA or WPA2 for IBSS is tricky because IBSS is fully peer-to-peer (and not just point-to-point, but with any number of peers in the IBSS network), so every node has to act as supplicant and authenticator with the other nodes, and keep track of per-link keys for communication with all the other nodes, since there's no central AP to authenticate everyone. Apple never implemented this, and I wouldn't be surprised if almost no one else ever did either.

Apple probably decided as of Yosemite that providing the false sense of security of WEP was worse than providing no security at all, so they dropped support.

Comments

[Ramhound]

Are you asking how to setup a virtual router with OS X?

[aidanharris]

It depends what you mean by 'virtual router'. I just want to create a small wireless network to use between devices so that I can connect and transfer files, use screen sharing, etc… I can do this easily enough using the instructions posted above but in OS X Yosemite there does not seem to be an option to specify a password which is far from ideal since anyone could connect to the network…

[Ramhound]

So you enable internet sharing and then are presented with the following prompt minus the require password checkbox? You are using a wired ethernet connection right?

[Ramhound]

Because you are trying to share a wireless connection from the looks of it. You would need two 802.11 adapaters to do that.

[aidanharris]

This would be true if I wanted to share an Internet connection but I don't. I can create a computer-to-computer network no problem at all I just can't secure it with a password. Is this not possible because from the link I posted in my question it seemed like it was possible in Mountain Lion. Did Apple remove such functionality? If so, any idea why?

[Ramhound]

Are you connected to an access point when you attempt to setup this network?

[aidanharris]

Yes, but even if I forget the network I'm connected to and create a network there is still no option to specify a password to secure the network with…

[Ramhound]

I can confirm without a shadow of a doubt the feature has not been removed in Yosemite.

[Spiff]

@Ramhound I think he's been clear. He doesn't want to use Internet Sharing to create a soft AP, he wants to create an IBSS network specifically. The feature that's been removed was the checkbox to protect the IBSS with WEP.

[Ramhound]

@Spiff - He wasn't clear until he provided the clarification, so no, he wasn't clear until the last revision of the question. Are you 100% sure its removed because my research says otherwise.

[Spiff]

@Ramhound Yes, the IBSS WEP checkbox has been removed in Yosemite. If you want to create a Wi-Fi network with Yosemite and have it be password protected, you have to make a Software AP infrastructure network via Internet Sharing. But that's not what he wants to do; he wants to create an IBSS network.

[aidanharris]

Thanks for the answer. It looks like I'm out of luck then unless I use Internet Sharing.