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I would like to make a Virtual Router on Ubuntu 12.04
but i am getting this error message when i run the last terminal command
Configuration file: hostapd.conf
nl80211: Could not configure driver mode
nl80211 driver initialization failed.
hostapd_free_hapd_data: Interface wlan0 wasn't started
As @bain has rightly pointed out, there is a bug raised in launchpad for this very purpose. This workaround suggested there works perfectly for me:
sudo nmcli nm wifi off
sudo rfkill unblock wlan
sudo ifconfig wlan0 10.15.0.1/24 up
sleep 1
sudo service isc-dhcp-server restart
sudo service hostapd restart
The first two lines stop wlan from network manager, and then unblocks the interface, so ifconfig can work.
UPDATE: But if for the first command you get the error message Error: Object 'nm' is unknown then use this instead:
sudo nmcli radio wifi off
The next commands uses ifconfig to bring up wlan and allows a second's delay, then restart the dhcp server (though I did not need this restart in my setup), and finally start the hostapd service.
It should now start w/o any issues.
I just had this error on Raspberry pi running Kali linux and hostapd 2.4 I suspected it is because some other network processes are keeping the interface busy, so I ran this airmon-ng command that checks and kills and processes that might use the wifi card:
airmon-ng check kill
To just see any network processes without killing them, use airmon-ng check.
After I killed them, I started hostapd again and no errors came up anymore.
For some other network functionality you might need those processes, I restarted the raspberry for that, but they can also be started individually.
Just mention that according to the bug linked by @bain, the easiest solution is to disable Network Manager for the interface that is to be run with hostapd.
As mentioned there:
WORKAROUND: For this to persist through reboots, execute the following in a terminal:
sudo nano /etc/NetworkManager/NetworkManager.conf
Add the following entry where the x's are replaced with your WiFi MAC address, save, and then reboot:
[keyfile]
unmanaged-devices=mac:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx
I ran into the same issue. The first thing I tried was to manually update hostapd from a debian repository from v2.1 to v2.3 . The issue persisted.
I created this script, which is a list of commands that unblock the WLAN driver, and now I finally have a working AP, already deployed in a remote location.
I saved the script to /usr/bin/enableAP.sh. Make sure to include it into your crontab so that it is executed at boot.
#!/bin/sh
/bin/sleep 30
/usr/sbin/service hostapd stop
/usr/sbin/service network-manager stop
/sbin/ifdown wlan0
/sbin/iwconfig wlan0 mode Managed
/usr/sbin/rfkill unblock wlan
/usr/bin/nmcli radio wifi off
/usr/sbin/service hostapd stop
/bin/sleep 10
/usr/sbin/service hostapd start
if you want to avoid this issue just after installing your new virtual machine and hostapd, you need to block ubuntu from upgrading hostapd:
when you use sudo apt-get upgrade it upgrades this package to v2.1, which doesn't work (surely bugged).
You must use sudo apt-mark hold hostapd to block future upgrades to Hostapd.
Try this:
The solution for me was stopping (which is handled indeed by airmon-ng check kill, but that is not necessarily avaialable on the system) wpa_supplicant, otherwise kept getting "Could not configure driver mode"
systemctl stop wpa_supplicant.service
or via
pkill wpa_supplicant
