@meowsaidthecow I wanted to provide a bit more information in addition to my reply above. If you asked this question because you'll be taking your laptop somewhere that has an access controlled network where you have to use Ethernet and also have to register your device's MAC address for it to be granted Internet connectivity on the network -- such as some college dormitories -- and you want to allow some other WiFi-based devices to get Internet connectivity without having to register them, then you very likely want the Mobile Hotspot option. That's especially true because a network bridge configuration would expose the individual MAC addresses of all devices, in which case their MACs would all have to be registered, whereas a Mobile Hotspot configuration essentially has your laptop act as a router. However, some locations with access controlled networks like that will monitor for "rogue" WiFi hotspots like that, and if they also have enterprise-grade WiFi installed, some enterprise-grade WiFi access points can be configured to essentially DDoS any rogue access points they see in order to make them unusable. That capability is implemented as a security feature specifically to allow operators of access controlled networks to prevent this exact situation of some random user standing up an access point somewhere on the network in an attempt to bypass the access controls that the network operators have implemented. See "Rogue AP Protection" on Page 6 of this technical brief. There are other possible restrictions you can run into as well. For example, the Ethernet switches could be configured so that if they see traffic from multiple IPs all coming from the same MAC address, i.e. your laptop's Ethernet interface, then they'll stop allowing that MAC address on the network. So be aware of possibilities like that.
Are you absolutely sure you want to bridge your Ethernet and WiFi interfaces? That should only be done if your plan is to connect your laptop to an Ethernet network and also join it to a completely unrelated WiFi network and then use your laptop to allow other people's traffic to pass between those two networks when that would otherwise not be possible. It would be highly unusual to bridge Ethernet and WiFi (because in most cases the WiFi network and Ethernet networks would already be connected), and it would be even more unusual to implement that type of bridge on a laptop -- but if that's really what you're trying to do, then yes that's natively supported in Windows 10, in fact it's been natively supported since Windows XP. You just open Control Panel > Network Connections, select the two interfaces you want to bridge (hold the Ctrl key to select both), right-click either one of them, and click Bridge Connections. However, if what you're actually trying to achieve is plugging into an Ethernet-based Internet connection and using your laptop to make that connection available to other devices via WiFi, then you should instead use Mobile Hotspot, which is also natively supported in Windows 10.
jphughan
9 Legend
•
14K Posts
0
November 16th, 2019 21:00
@meowsaidthecow I wanted to provide a bit more information in addition to my reply above. If you asked this question because you'll be taking your laptop somewhere that has an access controlled network where you have to use Ethernet and also have to register your device's MAC address for it to be granted Internet connectivity on the network -- such as some college dormitories -- and you want to allow some other WiFi-based devices to get Internet connectivity without having to register them, then you very likely want the Mobile Hotspot option. That's especially true because a network bridge configuration would expose the individual MAC addresses of all devices, in which case their MACs would all have to be registered, whereas a Mobile Hotspot configuration essentially has your laptop act as a router. However, some locations with access controlled networks like that will monitor for "rogue" WiFi hotspots like that, and if they also have enterprise-grade WiFi installed, some enterprise-grade WiFi access points can be configured to essentially DDoS any rogue access points they see in order to make them unusable. That capability is implemented as a security feature specifically to allow operators of access controlled networks to prevent this exact situation of some random user standing up an access point somewhere on the network in an attempt to bypass the access controls that the network operators have implemented. See "Rogue AP Protection" on Page 6 of this technical brief. There are other possible restrictions you can run into as well. For example, the Ethernet switches could be configured so that if they see traffic from multiple IPs all coming from the same MAC address, i.e. your laptop's Ethernet interface, then they'll stop allowing that MAC address on the network. So be aware of possibilities like that.
jphughan
9 Legend
•
14K Posts
0
November 16th, 2019 21:00
Are you absolutely sure you want to bridge your Ethernet and WiFi interfaces? That should only be done if your plan is to connect your laptop to an Ethernet network and also join it to a completely unrelated WiFi network and then use your laptop to allow other people's traffic to pass between those two networks when that would otherwise not be possible. It would be highly unusual to bridge Ethernet and WiFi (because in most cases the WiFi network and Ethernet networks would already be connected), and it would be even more unusual to implement that type of bridge on a laptop -- but if that's really what you're trying to do, then yes that's natively supported in Windows 10, in fact it's been natively supported since Windows XP. You just open Control Panel > Network Connections, select the two interfaces you want to bridge (hold the Ctrl key to select both), right-click either one of them, and click Bridge Connections. However, if what you're actually trying to achieve is plugging into an Ethernet-based Internet connection and using your laptop to make that connection available to other devices via WiFi, then you should instead use Mobile Hotspot, which is also natively supported in Windows 10.