Failed to set interface wlan0 into AP mode: Intel centrino N1000 Wireless

Question

I am a new Ubuntu user and have installed Ubuntu 12.04 LTS on my Acer Aspire One D255 netbook with an Intel Centrino N1000 Wireless Card. All I want is to set my netbook as wifi hotspot for my android devices. This worked well for me in Windows 7 using Connectify but I am trying to make hotspot in Ubuntu using hostapd (http://nims11.wordpress.com/2012/04/27/hostapd-the-linux-way-to-create-virtual-wifi-access-point/comment-page-5/) but getting following error:

ali@ali-AOD255:~$ sudo hostapd ~/hostapd-test.conf
Configuration file: /home/ali/hostapd-test.conf
nl80211: Failed to set interface wlan0 into AP mode
nl80211 driver initialization failed.
ELOOP: remaining socket: sock=4 eloop_data=0x8178910 user_data=0x8178e80  handler=0x807c5e0
ELOOP: remaining socket: sock=6 eloop_data=0x817ac98 user_data=(nil) handler=0x8086770

All I want is to setup a wifi hotspot using my netbook so that my android devices can view and connect to it.

Answer 1

To use your network card as wifi hotspot, it must support AP mode & master mode.

To check master-mode run:

sudo iwconfig wlan0 mode master. 

If you dont get a error then it supports master-mode

To check AP run following command:

sudo apt-get install iw

Then run:

iw list

If there is 'AP' in the list of "Supported interface modes" your device will support the Access Point mode with hostapd.

But as you commented above, that it doesn't support AP mode, The wifi hotspot wont work as explained in the blog.

Unlike windows, linux-kernel doesn't provide same features for every wireless cards.So for a particular wifi-card, windows driver may support AP , but linux-driver may not.

One option is to purchase a wireless card which supports AP modes. You can find more information here:

http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Drivers

Although according to me, the best option is to buy a USB Wifi-Router with 3G/Evdo modem support(preferably) like Lava W200 .

Answer 2

Refer to the following link: http://www.webupd8.org/2013/06/how-to-set-up-wireless-hotspot-access.html

a simple and effective way to configure hotspot in most of the linux machines.

I have tried the hostapd way to configure wireless hotspot provided by Nims. Initially i had errors related to my configuration file(Read the comments of 'freekpeek' and 'Nipin Shakya', both are me) but finally it has worked too.

I had a BCM4312 802.11b/g LP-PHY router which didnt support Master Mode. The initial code provided would let you check your router's mode: mine initially showed the following:

winux@MagicBox:~$ lspci -k | grep -A 3 -i "network"
0c:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4312 802.11b/g LP-PHY (rev 01)
    Subsystem: Dell Wireless 1397 WLAN Mini-Card
    Kernel driver in use: wl
    Kernel modules: wl, ssb
winux@MagicBox:~$ 
winux@MagicBox:~$ modinfo wl | grep 'depend'
depends:        cfg80211,lib80211
winux@MagicBox:~$ 

Then i first tried to setup my router to act in master mode. You can check if your router is supported for master mode by referring to the following website: http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Drivers

Mine was Broadcom's. so, i checked my 'Chip ID' through the above website,and I clicked on the b43 from the list and did the following:

winux@MagicBox:~$ lspci -vnn -d 14e4:
0c:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Broadcom Corporation BCM4312 802.11b/g LP-PHY [14e4:4315] (rev 01)
    Subsystem: Dell Wireless 1397 WLAN Mini-Card [1028:000c]
    Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 17
    Memory at f6cfc000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K]
    Capabilities: <access denied>
    Kernel driver in use: wl
    Kernel modules: wl, ssb

You can check yours too, matching your 'Chip ID' with the ones provided in the page above. If your router is supported for master mode, detailed step to downloading and installing the driver as suggested in each of the individual routers. You may then proceed with "INSTALLING HOSTAPD" topic from tutorial provided my NIMS.

Hope this helps. Regards, WinuxUser