====== Configuring a Wireless Access Point ====== Work in Progress This Howto explains how you can use your computer as a Wireless Accesspoint. \\ This means if the computer has an Internet connection and a wireless interface, other computers can use it's internet connection via wlan. \\ This is a very limited setup, it can be expanded with DHCP, DNS and a firewall, but this subjects can be found in other Howtos here at SlackDocs. ===== Requirements ===== The package hostapd is available at [[http://www.slackbuilds.org|slackbuilds.org]]. It provides a daemon who listens on the wireless interface and allows the clients to authenticate. ===== Configuring hostapd ===== The configuration of hostapd is done in the file /etc/hostapd/hostapd.conf, here an example # the wireless interface interface=wlan0 # the driver -- there are other settings possible, but very likely the following works driver=nl80211 logger_syslog=-1 logger_syslog_level=2 logger_stdout=-1 logger_stdout_level=2 dump_file=/tmp/hostapd.dump ctrl_interface=/var/run/hostapd ctrl_interface_group=0 # The SSID -- i.e. the name of the wireless network (which will be shown when you scan for available networks) ssid=yourwlannamehere country_code=DE # check the manpage for hostapd and your hardware for the mode hw_mode=g channel=7 beacon_int=100 dtim_period=2 max_num_sta=255 rts_threshold=2347 fragm_threshold=2346 macaddr_acl=0 auth_algs=3 ignore_broadcast_ssid=0 eapol_key_index_workaround=0 eap_server=0 own_ip_addr=127.0.0.1 wpa=1 # The WPA2 key wpa_passphrase=your very secret passphrase here # the next settings refer to the settings in the clients wpa_supplicant.conf wpa_key_mgmt=WPA-PSK wpa_pairwise=TKIP rsn_pairwise=CCMP Be sure to read the manpage for hostapd ===== Configuring the client ===== In this Howto I'll only describe a minimal setup with a static IP-configuration. ip-adress: 192.168.45.10 subnetmask: 255.255.255.0 gateway: 192.168.45.1 Since we have (in this minimal configuration) no DNS-server running in our network, you'll have to configure your client with the same DNS-server that your Accesspoint is using (look at /etc/resolv.conf). ===== IP_forwarding and routing ===== === Enable IP forwarding === echo "1" > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward === Internet Connection Sharing === iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -o eth0 -j MASQUERADE In this case eth0 is the interface which is connected to the internet. If your computer has a connection via ppp you shouls use ppp0 instead of eth0. ===== Starting the Accesspoint ===== ifconfig wlan0 192.168.45.1 up /etc/rc.d/rc.hostapd start The first line starts wlan0 with IP-adress 192.168.45.1, the second line starts the daemon. ====== Sources ====== * Originally written by [[wiki:user|Markus Hutmacher]] {{tag>howtos wifi, accesspoint, routing, iptables}}