how to start Hostapd after rebooting - Connection established but no ping

English Network/Internet
1

Hello,
Does anyone have idea about hostapd, how to start it in boot. I have successfully installed it and I can connect wireless devices to my access point (which is running Suse). However I need to make it this access point active automatically after booting.

Another problem, When my devices are connected to the access point. it can’t ping any other device in the network. I have installed and run hostapd and dhcp server sucessfully but I haven’t enabled nat tables because I don’t want internet connection for my devices. So this devices appears as connected to the access point but actually I can’t even ping to each other nor the access point. Can anyone help in this also please.

Thanks in advance

2

Just a wild guess (I do not use it). but isn’t the service in the list of YaST > System > Services Manager, ready to be started and to be started at boot?

3

Actually I am familiar more with ubuntu, I had to work with suse for project needs.
@hcvv: your suggestion is a right one, thanks for your help
as another way: it is also possible using command line: “systemctl enable hostapd.service”.
But still second problem that I can’t fnd solution so far, I hope someone can help in.

Thanks

4

It sounds like you need to implement network bridging. (I’m used to doing this with Mikrotik routers, but have no experience with doing this with openSUSE.)

The following may be helpful

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Software_access_point#Network_configuration
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Network_bridge

5

Never used Ubuntu, thus I can not make any comparisons. But in openSUSE YaST is the first thing to think about when doing system management tasks. Of course it does not cover everything, but first looking there is not a bad place to start.

Of course you can use systemctl commands. YaST is only the GUI around these and more. The nice thing with YaST is that it may cover things you would like to forget when doing it all “manualy” (example, when you use it’s partitioner, it will partition like fdisk and friends, it will create file systems like mkfs, it will create mount points like mkdir -p, it will create /etc/fstab entries, all things people are likely to forget or bork at least one of them when doing things in a hurry).

For many YaST is one of the reasons to go for openSUSE.

6

I just set up a wireless AP using Network Manager (it’s easier for testing purposes), and was able to ping from wireless client to my LAN and vice versa

For reference, my routing table looks like this

# ip route                                                                                               
default via 192.168.1.1 dev enp3s0  proto static  metric 1024                                                                  
10.42.0.0/24 dev wlp2s0  proto kernel  scope link  src 10.42.0.1                                                               
192.168.1.0/24 dev enp3s0  proto kernel  scope link  src 192.168.1.6
7

i tried to use yast for creating the access point, but this didn’t work with me.
I will be grateful if someone can guide about troubleshooting that I can follow to detect where is the problem

All what I did so far is

  • Installing dhcp, and writing necessary subnet info in /etc/dhcpd.conf:
authoritative ;
subnet 192.168.20.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 {
  option host-name "temp_hostname";
  option broadcast-address 192.168.20.255;
  option domain-name "temp_name";
  option domain-name-servers 8.8.8.8, 8.8.4.4;
  option routers 192.168.20.1;
  max-lease-time 3600;
  default-lease-time 600;
  range 192.168.20.10 192.168.20.50;
}

and defined interface name in /etc/sysconfig/dhcpd

DHCPD_INTERFACE="interface_name"

-installing hostapd, and added the following configuration in /etc/hostapd.conf

   interface=interface_name driver=nl80211  channel=3 hw_mode=g ssid=NETWORK_NAME auth_algs=2 wep_key0=”password_for_network”

hostapd and dhcpd services are running and wireless devices are connected to the network but can’t ping each other. I hope someone can tell me if I am missing something

8

hostapd and dhcpd services are running and wireless devices are connected to the network but can’t ping each other. I hope someone can tell me if I am missing something

Can you post your routing table?

ip route

Is your DHCP router assigning addresses in the same subnet as the LAN?

ip addr

As you could see with my NM-created AP, it uses 10.42.0.0/24, with the AP (gateway) assigned 10.42.0.1, while my LAN (wired) interface is using and address within 192.168.1.0/24. The two routes I posted before take care of the routing between the networks.

BTW, dnsmasq is worth considering for a small network.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Dnsmasq

9

thanks deano_ferrari](https://forums.opensuse.org/member.php/122-deano_ferrari) for giving help.
Actually it worked with me after i removed bridge definition in hostapd.conf file (comment br0 out) since i am not using any bridges between wireless card and ethernet port.
Also as info for others: you have to take care of your wireless card and make sure that it supports operation mode (a/g/n/…) after that you have to choose channel number (for 802.11g there are channels 1 to 11).
so these configuration parameters are important for making it works.

Thanks