How to change table with innodb/myisam engine to federated
An example from the manual:


  First, you must have a table on the remote server that you want to
  access by using a FEDERATED table. Suppose that the remote table is in
  the federated database and is defined like this:


CREATE TABLE test_table (
    id     INT(20) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
    name   VARCHAR(32) NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
    other  INT(20) NOT NULL DEFAULT '0',
    PRIMARY KEY  (id),
    INDEX name (name),
    INDEX other_key (other)
)
ENGINE=MyISAM
DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1;



  The example uses a MyISAM table, but the table could use any storage
  engine.
  
  Next, create a FEDERATED table on the local server for accessing the
  remote table:


CREATE TABLE federated_table (
    id     INT(20) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
    name   VARCHAR(32) NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
    other  INT(20) NOT NULL DEFAULT '0',
    PRIMARY KEY  (id),
    INDEX name (name),
    INDEX other_key (other)
)
ENGINE=FEDERATED
DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1
CONNECTION='mysql://fed_user@remote_host:9306/federated/test_table';



  (Before MySQL 5.0.13, use COMMENT rather than CONNECTION.)
  
  The basic structure of this table should match that of the remote
  table, except that the ENGINE table option should be FEDERATED and the
  CONNECTION table option is a connection string that indicates to the
  FEDERATED engine how to connect to the remote server.