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I am connecting to a WiFi network through my laptop in Ubuntu. Now I need to share my Internet connection with my wife's netbook because her netbook is not able to connect to that WiFi network directly, because of its weak signal.

How can I do that in Ubuntu?

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3 Answers 3

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Option 0: Solve this with hardware!

I'll start with the alternative: Buy a wireless repeater. This is just a little box that repeats the wireless signal onto the main router. Sounds just what you're after because it means you won't have to be there for things to work.

They don't even cost that much.

Option 1: Ad-Hoc networking

But failing that, you will need two wifi cards in your machine for this to work. You can buy an external one if (as I suspect) you only have one wireless card but this is why I suggested a repeater.

After that, you can either use Ad-Hoc networking by using Network Manager to create a new wireless connection. Give it a name, set some security and tell it to share the network connection... And that's about it. Ad-Hoc isn't that robust and isn't supported by all devices (my Nokia N900 used to really hate it).

Option 2: hostapd

Then there's hostapd. This should expose the network card as a full access point provided it supports the hardware. If you have to buy hardware specifically for this, you should be able to get something that they support.

It's just a bit more fuss to get going.

Option 3: another router

If your laptop also has a ethernet card, you could use Network Manager to share your connection over it and route that into the WAN port of another router. This might be viable if you have a router lying around and you don't mind your laptop being tied to it.

Just edit the Auto eth0 connection so that under IPv4 Settings, the method is "Shared to other computers" and that should be about it. Similarly if both computers can be joined together, you could just use direct network cable with this setting.

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  • Perfect description of the problem and I highly appreciate your job, you offered 4 different solutions for my problem. That's great. I will try the last option 'cause have a lot of routers lying around the home. Thanks a lot.
    – Bakhtiyor
    Oct 28, 2011 at 15:17
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    Yes, I seem to collect routers too. If any of them are relatively new, they might have wireless repeater functionality built in.
    – Oli
    Oct 28, 2011 at 15:25
  • @Oli Would you know of a cheap (~$20) & easy router w/ wif-to-wifi repeater functions? All the cheap ones I find are hard to use (for my limited technical abilities).
    – dgo.a
    Mar 20, 2014 at 20:04
  • I have successfully used Hostapd to share my 3G USB connection via wifi with Android on Ubuntu 15.04. This tutorial was exactly what I needed: seravo.fi/2014/create-wireless-access-point-hostapd
    – conualfy
    Jun 16, 2015 at 20:20
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If you are lucky you can just get some new firmware to throw into an old router like DD-WRT, Tomatoe, Gargoyle or whatever else you think is good. If not just look through some reviews on http://www.wifirepeaterreviews.com and find something decent that isn't causing anyone problems.

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Hi you need to configure hostapd

I have configure following in hostapd /etc/hostapd/hostapd.conf with WPA authentication options for wireless users

01 interface=wlan0

02 driver=nl80211

03 ssid=dontMessWithVincentValentine

04 hw_mode=g

05 channel=6

06 macaddr_acl=0

07 auth_algs=1

08 ignore_broadcast_ssid=0

09 wpa=3

10 wpa_passphrase=KeePGuessinG

11 wpa_key_mgmt=WPA-PSK

12 wpa_pairwise=TKIP

13 rsn_pairwise=CCMP

sudo hostapd /etc/hostapd/hostapd.conf

In graphical way u can try this link

http://www.howtogeek.com/116409/how-to-turn-your-ubuntu-laptop-into-a-wireless-access-point/

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