I'd like to share a couple of things I've learned today trying to setup my alix as a wireless access point with WPA2. Surely these are obvious tips for the most advanced users, but maybe I'm not the only one who doesn't find these things obvious. My thanks to other contributors in the list. Reading many posts helped me getting to this result. 1st tip: when you try to create a bridge, remember that the physical interface should NOT have an IP address. The IP address should be assigned to the bridge interface.
2nd tip: WPA-PSK passwords should be at least 8 chars long. So if you set up something temporary just for the tests be careful, since it's very hard to get a meaningful error message from hostapd. And now the long version. ;-) distribution: Voyage 0.6.2
HW: alix3d3 + Wistron DCMA81 [wifi0: Atheros AR5414 chip found (MAC 10.5, PHY SChip 6.1, Radio 6.3)] steps: assign a STATIC IP address (A.B.C.D) to the alix (since the IP address will be assigned to the bridged interface br0, not the phyisical interface, so dhcp might cause problems) ifconfig eth0 0.0.0.0 up #this is REALLY 0.0.0.0 since the real IP address should be assigned to br0 wlanconfig ath0 destroy wlanconfig ath0 create wlandev wifi0 wlanmode ap iwconfig ath0 essid "voyage" channel 1 ifconfig ath0 up brctl addbr br0 ifconfig br0 A.B.C.D netmask 255.255.255.0 brctl addif br0 eth0 brctl addif br0 ath0 wait few secs ping your default gateways (should work!) edit /etc/hostapd/hostapd.conf (note: WPA-PSK minimum 8 chars! see the example later) edit /etc/default/hostapd (otherwise hostapd won't start. it's very self explanatory) /etc/init.d/hostapd restart note: if hostapd returns an error, you can try to run "hostapd -dd " to receive additional information on the cause of the problem ## /etc/hostapd/hostapd.conf ## # based on howto at http://www.linux.com/articles/55617 interface=ath0 bridge=br0 driver=madwifi logger_syslog=-1 logger_syslog_level=2 logger_stdout=-1 logger_stdout_level=2 debug=2 dump_file=/tmp/hostapd.dump ctrl_interface=/var/run/hostapd ctrl_interface_group=0 ssid=voyage #macaddr_acl=1 #accept_mac_file=/etc/hostapd/accept auth_algs=3 eapol_key_index_workaround=0 eap_server=0 #the following setting is for WPA2 and it works wpa=2 #wpa_psk_file=/etc/hostapd/hostapd.wpa_psk wpa_passphrase=simple123 wpa_key_mgmt=WPA-PSK wpa_pairwise=CCMP wpa_group_rekey=600 wpa_gmk_rekey=86400 ##EOF## ## /etc/network/interfaces auto lo iface lo inet loopback auto eth0 iface eth0 inet manual up ifconfig eth0 0.0.0.0 up down ifconfig eth0 down # address 0.0.0.0 auto ath0 iface ath0 inet static address 192.168.1.251 netmask 255.255.255.0 broadcast 192.168.1.255 madwifi-base wifi0 wireless-mode Master up iwpriv ath0 mode 3 up iwconfig ath0 mode master up iwconfig ath0 essid voyage up iwconfig ath0 txpower auto up iwconfig ath0 enc off up iwconfig ath0 rate auto #up nat.sh ath0 eth0 "192.168.1.0/24" auto br0 iface br0 inet static address 192.168.1.250 netmask 255.255.255.0 network 192.168.1.0 broadcast 192.168.1.255 gateway 192.168.1.254 bridge_ports eth0 ath0 pre-up wlanconfig ath0 destroy pre-up wlanconfig ath0 create wlandev wifi0 wlanmode ap pre-up iwpriv ath0 mode 11g pre-up iwconfig ath0 essid "voyage" channel 1 up ifconfig ath0 down ; ifconfig ath0 up # this is a workaround post-down wlanconfig ath0 destroy #### EOF ####